Dr Paul Allen

A sign that designates no swearing in a city. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths…” - Ephesians 4:29 How does the Bible guide us here? Not only for children just asking for the first time, but for all of us? There are two basic ways we might handle swear words . We could call them the List Strategy and the Heart Strategy. Making a List The List Strategy puts on a short list a handful of words we should never utter, and all the rest of the words in the world that are legitimate to use on another list. We then go through our lives making sure we use only the words on the longer list and avoiding all the words on the shorter list. The List Strategy can take forms that appear right and wise . We tell our people, for instance, “Honor God with your words” and remind them of the damage that can be done with the mouth. We quote the commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain and remind one another of the Bible’s command that no cor...

Peep show window displaying pornographic entertainment at Cherries on St. Mark's Place in New York City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Author: John Jalsevac . It was in the mid 90s that we began to hear a whole lot about this new thing called “the Internet ,” which could answer all of mankind’s deepest questions. At around the same time I hit puberty and began to spend my time moping about pondering the age-old riddle of what, exactly, women look like underneath their clothing. Evidently at some point I put two and two together and punched the appropriate keywords into the prehistoric version of Google , with spectacular results. So far so good, and if it had stopped there, the experiment might have been innocent enough. But there was a catch. Like most who have played the peeping Tom with porn, I found that my curiosity wasn’t satisfied. On the contrary. I had only learned what this woman looked like. But what about all the others? Obviously I needed to see a few more examples. ...

Image via CrunchBase A new study has found that Google and other major social media sites such as Facebook have “actively” censored Christian and conservative viewpoints. The first report , conducted by  National Religious Broadcasters  (NRB) and the  American Center for Law and Justice , examined the policies and practices of several major Internet-interactive “new media” communications platforms and service providers, including Apple and its iTunes App Store , Facebook, Google, and others. Many of the top social media sites have been found to be "actively" censoring Christian viewpoints. The study found that some of the new media technology companies have outright banned Christian content, and that all social media sites, except Twitter, have speech policies more restrictive than the free speech rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. According to the study, seven of the major social media sites have banned “hate speech,” a term that the study authors point out “...

Image by digitaljournal.com via Flickr According to a  recent article in Newsweek , in 2010 there were: 141 million active blogs . 2 billion daily Google searches. 1,052,803 books published. 247 billion emails sent. 4.5 billion text messages sent. 10 billion songs downloaded on iTunes . In the midst of this avalanche of information I can’t help but think of Jesus ’ words to Martha : Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41–42) We can be troubled, and distracted, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available to us. But when you get down to it, only one thing really matters. If all the blogs were gone, and Google went down, and teens suddenly stopped texting, it wouldn’t really matter that much. There’s only one Word that really matters: God ’s Word. We have it. Let’s never let the mass of information available push away from...