Christ My Redeemer (New Blog / Site)

It's been a while since I've utilized this feature of Pisteuomen, but I'm proud to resurrect it and bring it back to life, the feature is: A Beginning Blogger. I started this feature for the following reasons (here's what I wrote in the initial piece about it): "...I realize how tough it is to get people to visit your site, comment, add you to their blogroll, etc. Now, I've done a lot to make my blog both resource and user-friendly and I believe that's contributed to its success but it might have also helped if some more well-known persons helped draw attention to Pisteuomen. Well, with the conviction that the biblio-blogosphere is not about constantly catering to the egos of a select few or having to be around for years in order to make it (among other things, like creating a resourceful, edifying online community), I thought I'd add this feature."

The Beginning Blogger that I'd like to mention today is Daniel J. Levy. Daniel maintains the blog "Christ My Redeemer." Here's his impetus for blogging: " My sole purpose for this blog is to help people gain a more intellectual and spiritual depth to their relationship with Christ."

Daniel, who looks like a rocker from an 80's hair band, says of himself: "My name is Daniel James Levy and Christ is my redeemer. Beyond the knowledge of this, any accomplishment I've done would be said fitly in the words of St. Paul "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." Because of my desire to know Christ with all of my faculties (heart, mind, soul, and strength) I embarked three years ago on an adventure of studying theology, philosophy, science, history, and the Christian mystics. Through the study of these disciplines and the Holy Spirit I have fallen deeper in love with Christ. To add, I'm a youth pastor at Grace Church Assemblies of God and a theology major at Southeastern University." In terms of blogging, so far, Daniel has written several posts on NT Wright, The Kingdom of God and some book reviews. Be sure to give his blog a look and leave him a word of encouragement!

Big Butter Jesus Defeated By Lightning

That's right...Big Butter Jesus has been sunk! Face first into the lake he was hovering above went the ginormous statue when it was hit with lightning. Perhaps he was tired of being mocked or maybe he was out to tell Solid Rock Church to quit being sooooo crazy! Either way, the butter statue that looked like he was signaling "touchdown" has bit the dust. James McGrath has a list of bloggers who've been talking about it. I've written a couple of posts about this statute (HERE and HERE) but check out their comments on the statue's demise HERE. And a link courtesy of my father-in-law, here's a video of it:

Bloggers I Enjoyed Meeting At SBL

Here are a handful of links to bloggers I ran into at SBL, whose company (even if only for a few moments in some cases) I quite enjoyed keeping. Click the image-links to go to their websites! If we met and you're not on here, let me know (it's tough remembering EVERYONE you run into at those things).

Asbury Theological Seminary Bloggers & Social Networking

If you're an Asbury Theological Seminary student, alumni, faculty or staff member or someone who may be interested in ATS, here are some great blogs you can frequent and follow, as well as a few social networking sites you can join, to see what's taking place on campus:

For a comprehensive list of blogs / bloggers, click the Asbury Bloggers Society image-link below:


For a brief list of blogs detailing important events, click the image-link below:


For a list of the Top 50 blogs on BLOGNETWORKS, click the image-link below:


For another ATS blog link, Web Parish, click the image-link below:


To follow ATS on Facebook, click the image-link below:


To follow ATS on Twitter, click the image-link below:


Here's ATS's president's blog (Tim Tennet) called "Global Talk", click the image-link below to visit:


Here's Dr. Ben Witherington's blog, click the image-link below to visit it:


Here's Dr. Lawson Stone's blog called "Stone's Fence", click the image-link below to visit:

Blogger Michael Halcomb Makes New Da Vinci Discovery

Dan Brown's Da Vinci discovery was only the start of miraculous things found in the painting. Following Brown, the Italian computer guru Slavisa Pesci claimed to find hidden persons in the picture. I poked fun at that claim in a post titled Da Vinci Againci. Following Pesci, and just days ago, another Italian (what is it with these Italians?), this time a musician named Pala, has found a musical score in the painting. Wow :)

But what about me? What about my discovery? Why has it not been promoted? Here's how my discovery came about:

I went to Rome, photographed the painting, came home and began to fiddle with it in Adobe Photoshop. I tried a few tricks such as inverting the photo, rotating it 45 degrees, changing the hue / tone, and surprisingly, nothing worked. However, when I used my special effects "blogger lens" tool, something amazing happened: The painting totally changed.

From left to right, the faces of numerous bloggers appeared to be having dinner with Jesus: Chris Tilling, Jacob P. Breeze, Nick Norelli, Jason Gaines (the youth minister at the Church where I serve...he is peeking through the window), Me (Michael Halcomb), Josh McManaway and a younger, much more desirable Jim West. Incredible. I did notice, though, that of everyone in the painting, I am located closest to Jesus--that's only to be expected. Ironically, Tilling is the farthest away from Him--again, that's only to be expected!

I don't know about you but I definitely think this is newsworthy! So bring on the cameras CNN and as for the rest of you, let's make this discovery of mine known!