Best of the Blogroll: 2010

This year again I'm keeping the tradition of closing out the old year by celebrating the best post(s) of the year from various blogs on my blogroll. Welcome to the Best of the blogroll, 2010 edition:

• Ancient Hebrew Poetry
  John Hobbins writes on a distinctive mix of subjects; for a taste of it, here is an interesting piece Justification by Faith that pulls in material from Hebrew midrash on Abraham.
  
• Bede's Journal (Quodlibeta)
  James, always following the intersection of faith and science, wrote on The Collapse of Good Faith in Science.
  
• Blogotional
  John Schroeder writes about our call to define our culture in Creative for the Creator.
  
• CADRE Comments
  Layman wrote a piece on How to Determine the Genre of Ancient Documents. For those following the arguments about the historicity of the New Testament, that's actually a more important pass to defend than might be obvious at first glance.
  Jason, another member of the CADRE, writes on the anti-Christian storyline that the New Testament was formed by imperial pressure to suppress other options, and how historically implausible that is considering which parties held which views.
  
• Chrisendom
  Congratulations to Chris Tilling, who got his PhD this year. Here he writes about academics wrestling with the centrality of Christ. Nick Walsh's guest book review also shows the "thumb on the pulse of the academic world" type of update available from Chris's blog.
  
• Cross Reference
  Jeff Pinyan, a devoted Roman Catholic, writes on the pope's teachings in Verbum Domini -- The God Who Speaks.
  
• Culture Watch
  Douglas Groothuis has a passion for the protection of humans at the earliest stages of human life, and for laws to protect them. So among his many writings of the year, his passion may be best expressed in his following his state's struggle to add a Personhood amendment.
  
• Dawn Treader
  What better blog than Dawn Treader to review the Narnia movie Voyage of the Dawn Treader? (I share his frustration with what Hollywood does to Christian movies. I have to wonder if the movie companies would make better Christian films if only they would abandon their stereotypes of Christians.)
  
• Dr Platypus
  Dr Pursiful alerts us to a proposed new verse to the well-loved hymn Crown him with many crowns, a verse especially fitting for Holy Week. He also puts together a useful chart in Diversity in the New Testament.
  
• Faith and Theology
  Ben Myers writes A typology of generations on the culture shifts over the years.
  
• Familyhood Church
  Kevin takes a look at his next-generation "post-modern" friends, compares them to the old-school "modern" friends, and writes about Hope: Where We All Fail.
  
• Fearsome Pirate
  Fearsome Pirate writes on how the death of Michael Spencer reminds us: the ever-hostile atheists miss the point of Christianity. It never was about science; it's about the resurrection of the dead. He also gives a much-needed kick in the pants to those preachers who think they are more doctrinally correct than the Scripture.
  
• Hyperekperissou
  Phil Snider, after a well-deserved blog-break, comes back this month with the O Antiphons; here are his thoughts on O! Emmanuel.
  
• Incarnatus Est
  Paul Gregory Alms posts one of the treasures of the past in Do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy, the famous (and much-misused) letter in which Luther instructed a sinner-priest, troubled in conscience about committing sin in whom he could marry or commune, to sin boldly and trust the grace of God more boldly -- and to stop trying to frame it that his sins were only imaginary sins, not on a par with real ones.
  
• Internet Monk
  The Christian blogosphere this year suffered the long-expected loss of blogger Michael Spencer. In the leadup to his final days, he wrote, "The ultimate apologetic is to a dying man." Read up on what a dying man considered Real Apologetics. His blog now sometimes posts "iMonk Classic" pieces from his archives; here we read some classic Spencer on Reduced to Jesus Only.
  
• Kyrie, Eleison
  Anastasia may roll her eyes at my first choice, but she shows herself as an artist in My Latest Obsession: Lace Knitting. She claims the post is of no interest to non-knitters, but I think the pictures are worth it all by themselves. Though to give recognition where it's due to her writings also, please check out Hades, Then and Now.
  
• Meta's Blog
  Metacrock introduces his largely atheist following to information on the historical Jesus in Jesus: Jewish, not Gnostic, to different thoughts about goodness in Theodicy Part I: What is the basis of the good, and on how Jesus' followers were known to the early Christians around the world in Validity of the Gospels Part 3.
  
• Proclaiming Softly
  PS comes in with a timely reminder that going to church is for worship.
  
• Pseudo-Polymath
  Mark enjoys considering the type of political question that asks, "How do we fix the system?" Here he considers runaway government and Facebook.
  
• Ralph the Sacred River
  My most-anticipated post each year on Edward Cook's blog is -- the annual Ralphie awards.
  
• The Rebel God
  Not for the first time, this blog's contribution is more of a resource for the rest of us than an individual post. Though not himself a Lutheran, he puts together a link index to Luther's works.
  
• Scott Morizot
  Scott wrote on Ancestral Sin, the alternative way in which the Eastern Orthodox Christians view original sin, and a challenging post on Christian credibility in Four Hundred Texts on Love, Part 5.
  
• Sun and Shield
  Martin LaBar posts on Healing and Faith -- and how the Bible's teaching is that faith does not always amount to healing in this world. He also had one word on giving to the needy that is well worth a read.
  
• Thinklings
  Phil posts An Open Letter To Husbands for Valentine's Day, and a few things mega-church pastors might not know about their flocks, from a small-church pastor's perspective.
  
• Threads from Henry's Web
  Henry Neufeld, in the book publishing industry, writes about some unconventional scholarship on the gospels in Coloring Outside the Lines.
  
• Weedon's Blog
  Pastor Weedon continues his service of bringing quotes, both old and new, into our daily worship and contemplation. Tradition is ever-living, as in the nod he gives to the man Lutherans sometimes call by the title The Fifth Evangelist (er, that would be J.S. Bach), for his dedication in declaring Christ and creating beauty through liturgy and composition.

Please welcome to the blogroll starting in 2011 a long-overdue update to include Thin Places and The Pocket Scroll.