Best of the Blogroll: 2011

Here to ring out the old year and celebrate another year of excellence in Christian blogging. You all have my heartfelt appreciation as you keep on blogging. It takes a lot of dedication. While I may not comment often, please know that I'm reading along and am enriched by it. Thank you all for blogging! Here are some highlights of the year:

• Aardvark Alley - Welcome back to the Aardvark as he once again takes up the valuable service of posting the memorials for saints' days and seasonals throughout the church year.
  
  
• Ancient Hebrew Poetry - John Hobbins considers what it means to hallow God's name, taking us on a tour of other quotations that echo that phrase in order to deepen and ground our understanding. Along the same lines, his post on The Beauty of Holiness was a highlight for me.
  
  
• Bede's Journal / Quodlibeta - This group blog (usual fare: science and history) pulls an interesting, in-depth quote on science and determinism from J.R. Lucas.
  
  
• Blogotional - John Schroeder writes on imagination and expanding our horizons beyond the head-knowledge of facts. (This idea is closely related to the post linked below from Jared at Thinklings.) He also writes about restoration - when the call to "forgive the pastor" is a sleight-of-hand to change the subject from whether a person is fit to retain an office of trust.
  
  
• CADRE Comments - This group blog usually focuses on Christian apologetics; a good example is The Bible has Philosophical Profundity.
  
  
• Chrisendom - Chris Tilling helps us by spotting and translating from an insightful sermon on Jesus as the bread of life. More recently, he shares a video of Dr Peter Williams on a subject that's a regular topic on this blog, the objectively measurable differences in quality between the Biblical gospels and the non-biblical gospels, with live presentation and additional examples.
  
  
• Cross Reference - Jeff Pinyan reviews the old musical Godspell, with insights on what is has and what it lacks compared to its sources.
  
  
• Culture Watch - Doug Groothuis reviews Rousas John Rushdoony's book, The Cure of Souls. (No, Groothuis is not a Reconstructionist. He reads Rushdoony like we all read most authors: testing everything, holding on to the good.)
  
  
• The Dawn Treader - The Dawn Treader, while slowing down on his blogging this year, takes up two very important themes for bloggers. He considers Jolly Blogger's comments on the spiritual dangers of blogging (self-promotion), and reflects on humility as the mark of wisdom.
  
  
• Dr Platypus - Always with the fascinating historical angles, Darrell Pursiful links to video and audio of the oldest written melody in history -- from around 1400 BC. On specifically Christian topics, he highlights an article contending that the quest for relevance makes a church irrelevant.
  
  
• Faith and Theology - Ben Myers stands up for the goodness of the much-maligned violent fairytale. By way of announcing the winner of a prize for theological writing, he also provides some leads on good theological reading.
  
  
• Fearsome Pirate - The Pirate vents a frustration that most Christians have felt at some time in their lives, as he points out that technical orthodoxy does not make up for bad preaching.
  
  
• Hyperekperissou - Welcome back also to Phil Snider, host of the patristics carnival / round-up. He ponders an interesting topic for academics on useful studies as opposed to useless studies.
  
  
• Incarnatus Est - Paul Gregory Alms passes along a great insight from Leo the Great from an Epiphany sermon.
  
  
• Kyrie, Eleison - Anastasia posted an intriguing piece on reading the Garden of Eden as an icon painted with words -- a window on the kingdom. The follow up considers specifically the creation of man. For anyone interested in different perspectives on creation -- or on interpreting Scripture, or on being transformed into the image of God -- these are good reading.
  
  
• Meta's Blog - Metacrock, always on the front lines of witnessing to skeptics, puts together some good arguments on how we know God is not evil.
  
  
• The Pocket Scroll - This wily and elusive blog moved during the year, so update your bookmarks to keep reading. We welcome him back to the blogroll under the new URL, and join him in celebrating Christ the King Sunday. (The non-liturgical types really miss out on some great stuff in the Christian calendar. If you have no idea what Christ the King Sunday is, please read it with an open mind or better yet a joyful heart.)
  
  
• Pseudo-Polymath - Mark Olson provides a service with news roundups on selected issues. He is also my link to the Jolly Blogger. While the Jolly Blogger is not actively blogging, he did have an insightful observation about all the people who are Called To Serve God:

  I would trade every kid who takes a mission trip to change the world for one who would stay home and clean his room, treat his brother like a human being and help mom around the house without being asked twice. Changing the world is easy, the latter is harder and far more Christlike.

  
  
• Sun and Shield - Martin LaBar passes along a valuable resource on Bible passages that are helpful in controlling anger.
  
  
• Thin Places - Pulling a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, we read about the "wayside sacrament" of beauty.
  
  
• Thinklings - Jared pulls a quote from C.S. Lewis about the rightful place of adoring God, in our Christian writing and teaching. Lewis stands up for the rightness of adoring without apologizing for it or watering it down, in full recognition that adoring is greater than analyzing.
  
  
• Weedon's Blog - William Weedon's usual fare is a valuable service: a steady stream of uplifting or thoughtful quotes. It is hard to choose one above the other. This patristic quote of Athanasius is well worth a read, as was this quote teaching people to distinguish between error and sin, and St Basil on grace. He also posted on the history of the liturgy, specifically how the liturgy and calendar looked in 1613, about 100 years after the beginning of the protests against Rome. His post on repentance was also particularly helpful and insightful.
  

Once again thanks to everyone for blogging. A few of the folks on the blogroll have become mostly inactive; hope to see you all soon.