Dr Paul Allen

A photo of author and political commentator Andrew Sullivan. Taken in Amsterdam, Holland with a Nikon D2Xs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I recall with some embarrassment a conversation I had when I was a junior in college, as a young man full of anger at the church and brimming with idealism about the future. I was speaking with a friend who happened to think the institutional church was a pretty good idea, and that hymns in particular (the specific topic of conversation that day) were a rich source for theology and worship. I argued that they were too complex for the modern era, a perfect symbol of bygone and boring ways of doing church. Like the new music that broke out of what I thought was a stifling pattern of verses and rhyme, so the church of the future would free itself from the rigidity of bureaucracy and outmoded theology. We say lots of silly things when we are immature, but the sentiments that drive the passions of youth often hang on stubbornly. Today, I favor hymns over co...

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...