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• The Corruption of Modern Evangelicalism 1995 Interview with Os Guinness
• A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: How Charles Finney’s Theology Ravaged the Evangelical Movement

The following is an excerpt from a letter written by a Pliny the Younger in the year 111 directed to Emperor Trajan regarding the proper way of handling Christians:

Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.

…

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food–but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you…

The letter in Latin with its direct translation can be found here.

Today’s featured article on Wikipedia is the History of the Philippines.

On this day, October 20, sixty-two years ago, General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines as promised. In 1955 on this day, The Return of the King was first published. The Monterey Bay Aquarium first opened its doors on this day in 1984. The Oakland Hills firestorm also happened on this day in 1991. This day also happens to be my birthday.

I waited for my link to the History of the Philippines to appear as a post using del.icio.us’s built-in daily blog tool but it failed for some reason. I just have to post links like this manually, I suppose.

Thank the Lord - and the proofreaders at Peachtree Editorial and Proofreading - that the Bible refers to “our ancestors” instead of “sour ancestors,” and calls for an end to “factions” - not “fractions.” The proofreading service caught those typos and others before the latest edition of the Holy Book went to press.

Read the rest of today’s AP news article on how Peachtree, the only service of its kind in the nation, proofreads the Bible.

Now, some may say, “What’s the point? The Bible has been translated, re-translated so many times over in the last 2000 years, it’s impossible to have any confidence in its accuracy.” Proofreading the Bible now, put that way, does sound like an exercise in futility.

This article by Greg Koukl asks, “How can we know that the documents we have in our possession accurately reflect originals destroyed almost two millennia ago? Communication is never perfect; people make mistakes. Errors are compounded with each successive generation, just like the message in the telephone game. By the time 2000 years pass, it’s anyone’s guess what the original said.”

Read the rest of the article to “know for certain that the New Testament has been handed down accurately.”