Rotundus.com

I don't want to get elaborate in this installment but rather just mention a few new resources. In the last few weeks Converse with Scholars has had two sessions discussing this issue, and the audio of these sessions are available for download from the website. Each of the shows was roughly 60 minutes of presentation following by about half an hour of questions.

For the first show they had Gregg Strawbridge, editor of The Case for Covenental Infant Baptism and operator of Paedobaptism.com, who made what I'd consider the best case that I've heard regarding baptism yet.

For the second show, they had Tom Schreiner on to make the case for credobaptism. He's the editor of Believer's Baptism (which I've been reading).

I decided to watch the webcast regarding the federal vision report this afternoon and after some debate the vast majority (I'd guess at least 80% based on the video feed) of the delegates voted to accept it. ReformedNews.com was liveblogging if you want to get an idea of what the discussion was like - although the session should in short order be archived online for later viewing.

I'm not quite sure what exactly this means for the PCA - the idea I recieved from the webcast is that this report is a document that the assembly founded useful and reccomended to others, but at the same time it doesn't appear to be a document binding upon the denomination. (Perhaps someone can better explain - or perhaps correct - my understanding of the actual status of these reports). Of course, the PCA's good faith subscription model also makes this more ambiguous.

A few comments:

• I can't recall hearing a single reference to scripture throughout the committee's presentation - just the Westminster Confession over and over again.
• From the liveblogging:
  

  3:41 - Question whether the committee contacted FV men; response from Fowler is "no"; committee decided not to engage the FV until after the report, then after report's completion decided that further engagement not necessary. Defends focusing on written sources. Mentions reading blogs as well.

  One thing that I find a little bit odd is that the Federal Vision folks seem to argue that virtually anyone who publically disagrees with them misunderstands their position. How can you write a number of books (and the committee behind the report also mentions blog reading) and still be completely incomprehensible? I've still got some reading to do in this regarding - there are books on both sides of the federal vision sitting on my bookshelf, waiting to be read.

• On a completely unrelated note - my copy of Brian Moss's CD arrived today

One of the habits that I got into over the last half-year or so is the use of Firefox's smart keywords. Essentially, they allow you to type in keywords plus search terms instead of typing in www.rotundus.com.

What keywords do I have hooked up:

amazon

Runs a search at Amazon.ca

bib

Searches a private copy of a bibliography management system (running Aigaion)

esv

Searches the English Standard Version of the Bible

imdb

Pokes around in the Internet Movie Database

scholar

Google Scholar (directed through the university's proxy system so I'll also get automatic access to articles)

tv

Searches the TV guide at Zap2It

wiki

Searches my private wiki