Making Sense of Church This weekend, I plan to dig into the new book by Spencer Burke of TheOoze fame. It looks like Spencer's put together a decent read. I'll post my thoughts later. Meantime, why not visit the Making Sense of Church website and read the intro for free? Then feel free to post your own thoughts here.
Update: Mon Oct 06 I'm halfway through the book and enjoying the insights. But much of it is more an affirmation, a preaching to the converted (at least in my case). Still, Spencer has an engaging, conversational writing style, and he peppers his prose with relevant posts from TheOoze message boards, which helps to break up the copy and broaden the conversation. I get the sense that I'm not reading a book so much as eavesdropping in on a conversation.
Some argue that the 9/11 attack against the United States was "premature." They insist that the Islamist movement should have first seized power in several Muslim countries and dotted itself with nuclear weapons before taking on America, which is regarded as "the last champion of unbelief in the world."
Supporters of that view cite the position the Prophet took in the last year of his life, when he led a large Muslim army against the Byzantine Empire. On reaching the border between Arabia and Byzantium, the Prophet halted his army to have a good look at the forces of Emperor Heraclius (Hirqil in Arabic).
The Prophet was impressed: He saw that the Byzantine army would be no pushover. He ordered his own host to march back home without a single engagement. Although criticized by some Arab commanders at the time, the Prophet's decision to retreat was quickly endorsed by God Himself through a message relayed by Archangel Gabriel.
The lesson was that Muslims should not become involved in suicidal operations against a far stronger foe.
BOSTON—An Internet worm that disabled networks across the U.S. Monday and Tuesday temporarily thrust the nation into its most severe maelstrom of productivity since 1992.
"In all my years, I've never seen anything like this," said Price Stern Sloan system administrator Andrew Walton, whose effort to restore web service to his company's network was repeatedly hampered by employees busily working at their computers. "The local-access network is functioning, so people can transfer work projects to one another, but there's no e-mail, no eBay, no flaminglips.com. It's pretty much every office worker's worst nightmare."
Simon Dawes, 
