Ran across an article, Man vs. God, in the Wall Street Journal who asked Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins to respond independently to the question of where evolution leaves God.

Are Christians gaining respect when they give up truth in order to enter the dialogue?  In this article, Dawkins expresses a more objective view of truth than Armstrong and advises theologians that God must exist for their argument to be sound. Just what will professing Christians give up in order to have a voice? Will we have anything left to say when we gain the platform?

Some updates on the iPhone Google Voice Uproar I blogged about late Friday night.

There's no app for that!

Not only was the Official Google Voice app rejected by Apple, but other apps that connected to Google Voice such as "VoiceCentral" were ripped from the shelves as well. In the case of VoiceCentral, the app had already been approved by Apple previously and units were being sold over the last 4 months. Apple did not even bother to notify the manufacturer, Riverturn; they found out when a customer complained that they couldn't download the application from the store.

Read Riverturns surprising conversation with an Apple rep who finally called them on the subject. What is Riverturn to do? Do they start refunding customers without any meaningful answers from Apple if they will ever allow a modified app in the future? Riverturn cleverly entitled the post, "There's no app for that", mocking Apple's commercials for the iPhone declaring that there was an app for everything.

ATT initial PR response regarding the FCC letter

"AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it."

The unofficial Apple Weblog has a brief writeup on this, and also notes that AT&T admitted their involvement in keeping the slingbox app off of the iPhone.

Finally, Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch.com has a nice writeup in the Washington Post: Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone.

The FCC Friday sent out 3 letters to inquire about the nature of Apple's rejection of Google Voice (and Latitude) iPhone apps.

The actual letters are available as a matter of public record:

• FCC Letter to Apple LETTER (DA 09-1736)
  
• FCC Letter to AT&T LETTER (DA 09-1737)
• FCC Letter to Google  LETTER (DA 09-1739)

It would appear from the letters that the FCC is really trying to determine is whether or not there was any interaction between AT&T and Apple regarding these rejections to see if anti-competitive practices are at play.

But if the iPhone were not so popular would the government care?
Or is there something even more interesting going on with the FCC and other public response to Apple's play?

About once ever two years I remember to re-read one of the finest short works on Spiritual Growth that I am aware of, The Pursuit of God (Gutenberg full text).  The more popular of Tozer's works among my circles appears to be, The Knowledge of the Holy, an exquisitely written meditation on the attributes of God.  But where Knowledge of the Holy creates an important distance between God and man as exhibited by language beyond many readers (including myself), The Pursuit of God is a plain and passionate plea to draw near to the God who is near.

I just got back from the local bookstore ...

I met with a friend last night and we were discussing the difficulty at times of accepting the grace we know to be truely ours in Christ, and the difference between conviction and self-acusation. Combined with this discussion was a consideration of how conviction of the gospel message cannot be separated from the desire to bear witness of Christ, to be intentional about sharing our faith.

I was reminded of a little book by C.H. Spurgeon (right), entitled All of Grace. I had mentioned, in a brief note in 2006, how this evangelistic book had moved me when I brought it along to my short term missions trip to Moldova. Well I pulled it of the shelf this morning,