This morning I woke up, ate an early English breakfast (which was awesome - more on that in a later post), posted the previous post that I was too jetlagged to post last night, and then walked over to Christ Church's main gate to meet Andrew at 11:00am. He and I found a little shop and got a slice of pizza and sat and talked for awhile, and then, around noon, caught the bus to Kilns Lane and Lewis Close, which is where you can find C.S. Lewis' house, the Kilns.

We had to wander around in this residential area a little while before we found the Kilns. It's a beautiful little house, lovingly restored (probably in much better shape than when C.S. Lewis actually lived there). We were a little bit early so we hung around in a nearby lane leading to the C.S. Lewis nature walk and pond. When our 1:00pm tour time approached we went to the door of the Kilns and rang the bell.

A matronly English woman answered the door, and when she found out that we were there for a tour, she asked us if we wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes in the garden. So, Andrew and I took our seats in the garden that C.S. Lewis used to sit in. It is - I have to resort to a more British-sounding adjective here - lovely.

A few minutes after we sat down, a very nice lady popped out of the door of the Kilns and asked us if we'd like some tea.

Tea.

Would I like to have some tea . . . in C.S. Lewis's garden . . .

I avoided the temptation to shout "WOULD I? WOULD I?!?!" - and instead said something like "Thank you. That would be splendid." I actually don't think I said "splendid", I probably said something more American like "awesome", or "neat", but let's pretend.

She and another very nice "scullery maid" (that's how they laughingly referred to themselves) brought us tea on a very nice serving, with sugar lumps, cream, and cookies. I took a picture of it, above.

The aforementioned two ladies are Americans, by the way. Interesting.

Another group of five people joined us a few minutes later and tea was brought out for them as well. And then we entered the Kilns. We sat in the sitting room and listened as our guide, Kim Gilnett, told us the story of the Kilns and C.S. Lewis. He did a fantastic job. Andrew had already done this tour and confirmed for me that it's not a scripted thing. Kim is a Lewis aficionado from Seattle Pacific University (he's also an American) and he asked us about our interest in Lewis, shared anecdotes, pointed out photos, talked about Lewis' wife, Joy, and in general kept us spellbound for nearly an hour. Among the anecdotes shared were ones about Lewis's generosity: Lewis didn't feel right making money from writing about Christianity, so he gave a lot of his money away - always to needy individuals, rather than causes. And always anonymously. This helps explain why he, Warnie, Mrs. Moore, other boarders, his gardner, Mr. Paxford, their cook, and later Joy Davidman and her two sons, continued to live at this relatively small house that Lewis had bought in 1930 for $3,300 pounds, till Lewis' death and beyond.

As an aside, Kim is not a big fan of the dour portrayal of Lewis in the movie Shadowlands.

Following our time in the sitting room, Kim took us on a tour of the house, including the dining room, the kitchen, several of the studies that are in the house, one containing Warnie Lewis' typewriter upon which a large number of Lewis' letters were typed up from "Jack's" manuscripts, etc. We saw the room C.S. Lewis died in, the kitchen, and a number of bedrooms. It's not a large house by any means, but it holds a deceptively large number of rooms. We also met Jerry Root, editor of The Quotable Lewis, who was studying his Bible at the desk where Lewis often wrote during the time when he authored the Narnia series. Professor Root was preparing for a weekend seminar, where students come and are put up at the Kilns for several days to learn more about Lewis.

Our guide, Kim, has been a Lewis scholar since the 70s, and was a part of the restoration of the Kilns that started in the early 90s. There's a story there: After Lewis' brother Warnie Lewis, who also lived at the Kilns, died in the early 70s, the home was sold to a family that proceeded to change a bunch of things, even to the point of renovating the kitchen in the 1970s Avacado Green Blech™ style, so the restoration team had its work cut out for them. In addition, C.S. Lewis and Warnie pretty much smoked non-stop in the house during their waking hours, so there was quite a bit of heavy tobacco stainage that was discovered when the restoration team stripped the newer paint off. All in all I think they've done a fantastic job. The people who run the Kilns seem to have a genuine love and enthusiasm for Lewis and it shows.

I don't think I'll ever forget taking afternoon tea in the Kilns garden.

Once we left the Kilns we walked around the Kilns' pond, and then walked over to the church that C.S. Lewis attended where we viewed his gravestone, which is in the church cemetery.

Following this, we headed back to Oxford's city center and Andrew took me on an abbreviated Inklings walk. It was great - we walked by the first house C.S. Lewis stayed at after arriving in Oxford, visited the gravestones of a few of his Inkling friends such as Hugo Dyson and Charles Williams, walked past Magdalen college, and ended up at the Eagle and Child pub for dinner. It got me wondering what a "Thinklings walk" would look like. We'd start at BloDingle, probably, which was the site of our first few moots, and go from there, ending up, I suppose, in a quaint little town in Vermont . . .

But I digress: at the Eagle and Child we ordered some delicious "pie" (think pot-pie, not fruit-pie) and then I caught the bus back to Headington.

It was a great day. Tomorrow, London!

Click here if you'd like to see the pictures I took today.

If you don't have Facebook, try this link to see the pictures.

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning at 7:30 after a pleasant flight from Houston. I was somewhat bleary because I don't sleep well on planes, but I can't complain. Catching the Oxford Express at the airport I arrived at Headington, Oxford and made my way to my lodgings (a nice little B&B off of Windmill road). After getting settled in and exchanging a few emails with my eldest, Andrew, who is studying at Oxford this summer, I began my trek towards Christ Church college.

The weather was cool, about 70, and the skies were overcast. It was an enjoyable walk. It occurred to me that C.S. Lewis must have made this walk thousands of times, as the Kilns is less than a mile from where I'm staying.

Andrew and I met up near Christ Church cathedral and began our day. We made our way to the Kings Arms pub for lunch, where we both ordered bangers and mash, because what's better to start off a day of Oxford? It was delicious. We spent some time exploring the city and talking about its history as we walked. Oxford's city center is bustling with a great deal of pedestrian traffic, and the roads go every which-way and change names often, as roads in ancient cities are wont to do, so it took awhile for me to get my bearings. We walked down the Thames for a mile or two - I kept threatening Andrew that I was going to adopt my best rube American accent and ask a local where the "Thaymes" was" - and turned down a country lane that appeared to our right, passing by a soccer pitch and cutting through the meadows back to the city roads. During our walk we talked about Tolkien and Lewis and the works of literary genius those men produced. It's a wonderful feeling to be walking the same roads they did.

At 2:30 I bought a visitor's ticket into Christ Church proper - Andrew is a student there and has full run of the place - and we ventured into Christ Church cathedral and the Great Hall, where the students eat breakfast and dinner each day. I haven't seen the movies, but evidently Hogwarts is patterned after the Great Hall. Andrew gets to eat here five nights a week and, from a look at the menu and all his reports, the food is exquisite.

The cathedral was fascinating. There are memorial plaques and statues all over it honoring the departed and dating back centuries. There is also evidence of the Reformation-era expunging of any references to the saints, from blanked out faces on stained glass to the removal of saint's relics from the memorials.

Following our visit to Christ Church, we made another exploration through the streets of Oxford, ending up at St. Phillips book store where I purchased Lewis's The Discarded Image and Andrew bought a book by Hobbes, primarily because of who wrote the forward (the name escapes me). By this time I was starting to get a bit foggy, having been up for over 26 hours, not counting a few brief moments of dozing on the plane. So we grabbed a quick meal at Pret a Manger and then we popped over to the Bird and Baby to share a pint with Tollers and Jack. I read them some of my latest work. They both laughed heartily and pronounced it "pure rubbish".

Just kidding about that last part (but wouldn't that have been wonderful!). After dinner I caught City Bus #8 back to Headington, uploaded some photos, and crashed.

If interested, you can see pictures from Day 1 here: Oxford, Day 1. If you're not a Facebook user, try this link.

And now, off I go for another day in Oxford! Today Andrew and I will be visiting the Kilns, taking an Inklings walk, and perhaps visiting a museum after that.

Sometimes when I'm writing and get stuck, in order to get a mental break, I type something random in my google window just to see what I get back.

Just now I googled "I like broccoli". I don't know why. I just wanted to see if anyone actually wrote that. (Only 154,000 results.)

What about you? What's the weirdest thing you've ever typed into a search engine, and what kind of results did you get?

My wife’s grandmother has long been a model for me. Actually, this lady had many qualities to admire, but there is one in particular that was a stand-out: the woman never complained. She liked everything.

Take her to any restaurant, serve her anything, and she’d like it. Take her to a play, a concert or a church service and she'd like it all. But more than just liking it, she really enjoyed it, whatever it was. She liked anything and everything. She was happy with whatever she had or experienced. It was amazing.

I remember taking her to the Praisefest sponsored by area churches held here annually in our community to benefit the local Food Pantry. There has always been a great deal of variety: loud songs and quiet songs; rock and southern gospel; pianos, drums and everything in between. She liked it all. I loved watching her smile and genuinely enjoy every person and every song.

Ever since I realized this about her, I’ve watched to see how she responds to things. I still to this day don’t know what she ever disliked. (I’m sure there had to be something but I could never figure out what it was.) Every chance I got, about anything and everything I’d ask, “How was it, Grandma?,” not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I loved hearing it. “Good,” she’d say every time with genuine smile. “I really liked it.”

There are plenty of complainers in the world, but not enough of us are like her. She seemed to me to be a happier person because she liked everything. I don’t know if she had to work at it, but it seemed to come naturally to her. I want to be like that. I want to be the sort of person that likes everything and everybody. The world doesn’t need any more grumps. (I hope I'm like her when I'm an old man. I want to be the happy old man everyone likes to be around, not the grumpy kind. And you all know exactly what I'm talking about.)

I think the key in finding good in everything is being content with whatever you are given. “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (I Timothy 6:6).

“Be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5) When we trust God we are better able to appreciate everything as a gift from him.

The dear lady I'm talking about went home to be with Jesus yesterday. I will miss her a lot.

The Bible says, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe” (Philippians 2:14-15).

Evelyn shone brightly. May we all follow her example.

I finished reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot tonight. It was a long read for me (I tend to read slow when I'm reading something important). I savored the last section of the book and read the last few chapters with fear and trepidation, and I was still taken aback and shocked at the ending.

I could write more about this book, and may, but for now just an observation: I wonder if Forrest Gump was based on this book, at least in part. Forrest is very Myshkin-like, and Jenny is a dead-ringer for Nastasya. Hmmm . . .

For your consideration: there is a far more intelligent conversation on The Idiot at Mere Reflections, with a good point/counter-point between two who disagree on whether the book is worth reading.

From the Espys:

Read this tonight. What a challenging reminder.

"It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to." - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

[H/T The quote rotation on my other site]

One more reason why I, a conservative, hate even conservative politics.

Even the "grassroots" movements are gross.

The Tea Party Federation (whatever that is) just expelled this guy from their ranks for his "coloreds write to Abe" letter, but that he was recognized in their ranks as a leading spokesman to begin with is just nutty. He's been saying off-the-reservation things for a while.

Here's something he wrote about Vermonters back when some town in Vermont wanted to issue arrest warrants for Bush and Cheney (itself a nutty move):


(I wonder if I can get "Retard CHUD from the Backwoods of New England" on a bumper sticker.)

More and more and more and more proof that in politics, the one with the loudest voice and pot-stirringest ideas rises to the top. Oh, and the most money.
I hate it.

If you get a chance, check out the video below. It provides a glimpse into the life and ministry of 21-year-old Katie Davis, who left her family, friends, and comfort two years ago to go to Uganda and work with orphans. She is a mom to 14 little girls who she has adopted.

There's much more to this story - her blog is here. I haven't read much of it, but my wife spent a large portion of yesterday reading most of the entries (while crying).

It's been (probably) a year since the last one.

So: Whatcha readin'?

My current reads:

Vermont: A History by Charles Morrissey -- I love this book because it's not a textbook, nor even a straight-forward narrative history. It's a social sketch, very conversational and anecdotal, very specific but also lots of coverage of the "contours" of the people and places in Vermont.

Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture by David Powlison -- I was only cursorily familiar with Powlison but seeing him speak at a recent conference turned me on to get into his stuff. This book, which is actually a collection of some of his essays from over the years on biblical counseling, is excellent. Full of pastoral wisdom for the cause of pastoral wisdom.

The Passage by Justin Cronin -- In a not-too-distant future (Jenna Bush is Governor of Texas), a military experiment goes wrong, unleashing a viral apocalypse. The world's only hope (apparently) is a little orphan girl and her rogue FBI agent protector. This book combines my love for zombies, conspiracy thrillers, and stellar writing. It's basically The Stand meets The Road for the post-9/11 age, and even the style manages to combine King-like pacing/characterization with McCarthy-like depth and substance. This book even comes with Stephen King's glowing endorsement. (Author Justin Cronin is a New England native who is currently a professor of English at Rice University in Houston.)

I've been waiting to take another run at my series on Christian Defeatism . In particular, I've been meditating and taking notes on the, in my view, neglected concept of Sanctification. Couple that with my teaching assignment tomorrow on Exodus 15 and the five-inch thick Exodus commentary that Stroke loaned me, and out popped this post.

In Exodus, Saved for God's Glory, Philip Graham Ryken calls sanctification "the long, hard, difficult process of being conformed to the holiness of God”. Below is an excerpt from his commentary on the end of Exodus 15:

“The Wilderness is a hard place. It is a place to meet with God, to be sure, and yet it is always a difficult place. It is barren and desolate. Thus the Israelites were setting out on a long and arduous journey. They had seen a great salvation, but for them it would not be “happily ever after.” They still had a pilgrimage to make, a pilgrimage that was both spiritual and physical.”

. . .

All our problems and persecutions are meant to teach us to depend on God alone, to have absolute confidence in his faithfulness. It is important for us to know where we are in the Christian life. We have not yet reached the promised land. We are still in the wilderness, where God is sanctifying us. Knowing this keeps us from having the wrong expectations and also enables us to "consider it pure joy . . . whenever [we] face trials of many kinds, because [we] know that the testing of [our] faith develops perseverance" (Jas. 1:2,3).

Emphasis mine.

This is a good reminder, and it speaks to two equal and opposite errors that we can commit as Christians.

The first error is to assume that sanctification isn't real or, if it is, that it is a rare occurrence for the Christian. This is the equivalent of staying in Egypt, chowing down on those delicious leaks and onions while bemoaning your slave status. I've observed this attitude (particularly in the blogosphere, for some reason) an alarming number of times. It's generally expressed in "I'm not OK, and don't even get me started on you" statements, and the subtext is that we'll never be OK ("at least not in this life" is the adder), so let's all quit pretending.

Look, sanctification is not easy. In fact, it's hard. But you can't read the Bible, and the New Testament in particular, without getting hit in the face by the repeated exhortations to press on, to be transformed, to conform to Jesus, to change. The lives of the writers of the NT were hard - but better! How else could Paul write this?

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ - Philippians 3:8

I'm not worthy to clean Paul's toilet, but I am, in my bumbling way, heading to the same destiny that Paul was.

About the hard aspects of sanctification: I came to the realization a long time ago that the Christian "desert experience", "season of dryness", or even "dark night of the soul" is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes God wants us there.

The desert may last a long time. Indeed, the life of a Christian is - the joys and victories we may experience included - a long season of wandering as a stranger and alien in a land that is not our home. Perhaps in your life you haven't seen a lot of evidence of any kind of progress toward Christ-likeness. That, of course, can point to a deeper problem, but it may also just be that the time hasn't come yet for the kind of outward progress that people (or even you) might notice. A plant can spend a lot of time spreading roots under the soil. It's not wasted time. Israel wandered in circles as the older generation died off, but that wandering prepared the younger generation for the Conquest. And in reading the Exodus, you begin to see the progression toward a nation that had the ability to take the Promised Land.

One side-effect of sanctification is perseverance. Don't give up! Your destiny is to become like Jesus. And not just in the sweet by-and-by, but as part of a process, the process of learning to bear fruit, in your life here on earth that is visible and consciously observed and enjoyed. We were made to step into the Jordan at full tide and cross safely over to the other side. It takes a lot of work by the Holy Spirit to get us to the point where taking that step of faith seems the natural thing to do.

So, if you feel like you're in Egypt, that's not a good thing, but it's not a bad thing either, unless you've just decided that that's your (and everyone else's) destiny. It's not.

The second error is to assume that sanctification has already happened, at the moment of salvation. This is what I term the Edlredgian Heresy (tongue in cheek, sort of) that "your heart is already good", just because you're saved.

Heh - good thing he never slapped a heart monitor on my ticker. Some of the things I think and meditate on would make your face melt. I'm not there yet.

But I'm heading there. I press on. The Promised Land is my destination. And, if you're a Christian, it's yours too.

We don't get to go there without changing.

(more coming on this topic in a later post).

What the hey . . .



Goodnight everyone . . .

The leak is capped.

Thank goodness. Pray that it holds.

Which is not to say you should always feel comfortable there. But comforted, sure. :-)

Here's my friend Ray Ortlund's take:

It’s one of my basic convictions: Church should feel good. I know, I know — not with shallow, frothy, glib entertainment. But the alternative to that foolishness is not “This is for your own good”-screaming negativity.

Real, solid church should feel good. Why? For starters, at church we preachers get to “bring good news of happiness” (Isaiah 52:7) to sinners, and freely because of Jesus. That really feels good.

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." - Isaiah 40:1

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has been a hot topic in these here parts. I am of the mind that The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were brilliant movies, Signs was a very good movie, and The Village began a pattern of suckitude that continued and worsened through Lady in the Water and the awful, abysmal, torturous and unintentionally hilarious (and thereby also anger-inducing) The Happening. You can read my review of that last flick here. My parting shot reads thusly: "I want to set fire to this movie and pee on it.")

I know some of my fellow Thinklings disagree on the merits of The Village on, but I know Bird at least agreed that The Happening happened to stink on ice.

Shyamalan's latest movie is a live-action adaptation of some cartoon called "Avatar: The Last Airbender," but because of James Cameron's cinematic juggernaut, they didn't call it Avatar but just The Last Airbender. Currently, RottenTomatoes.com lists The Last Airbender with 8% "freshness." Basically this means, 97% of reviews were negative. Out of 10, Shyamalan's latest offering ranks roughly a 2.8.

What the heck happened?

Two theories:
1. Shyamalan's early brilliance was a sham. He relied on others' input and work, but somehow lost their good graces in later works when success went to his head.
2. Shyamalan's early brilliance was legit, but his success went to his head and his ego began to take over his artistic sensibilities.

I tend to believe the latter, b/c he has done some things in his movies I consider artistically irresponsible, beginning with The Village. And many astute critics noticed the palpable disdain for critics who don't "get" people who really are talented and telling "deep stories" and what-not laden into Lady in the Water. Many saw that as a defense mechanism built into the film, Shyamalan's way of saying, "If you hate this movie, it's because you're stupid and critical and don't get it."

What do you think? How did Shyamalan go from great original works to astoundingly awful adaptations?

WE GOT NO GAME!!!

The image below was our oroginal "logo", created way back in the day when we started this blog. I remember Jared dreamed this up at one of our moots.



Times have changed . . . Except for Phil's heroic, devotional and investigative posts, we got absolutely no hops around here.

I guess it's to be expected . . . A lot of the topics on that wheel have been talked out, or have changed subtly.

Politics, for instance. Our country's political discourse has gotten too whacked to talk safely about politics in this space, for the most part.

Sports? Have you looked at the sports teams in Waco, Houston, Nashville, and San Antonio lately? If it wasn't for Jared's inexplicable and bromantic devotion to Boston teams, we'd be sunk.

Theology. Yes. But many of our best conversations are in the past, and a whole lot of our best theological thinking happens on a particular Thinkling's solo blogs, twitters, and facebook statuses.

Of course, the real problem (if you could call it that) is us.

Phil's hanging tough, thankfully.

Jared is devoting himself to his life's work and passion: writing books and pastoring. Those things are more important than this thing, and thank goodness.

Bird's on hiatus (I miss Bird).

Blo's a Zephyr.

And me . . . well, I'm reduced to writing whiny posts about how no one ever writes posts anymore.

On a side note, the two greatest tools ever invented are duct tape and vice grips.

And Groundhog Day is one of the greatest movies ever made.

God loves you, Blogosphere.

Discuss in the comments . . .

In my previous post, (right below this one, just look down) I told you what happened to the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty. They took some women from Tahiti and settled on an island in the South Pacific. After all but two of the men had been murdered or killed, only one man remained. He found a Bible, turned his life over to Christ and led the women and children on Pitcairn Island to become a Christian community.

It was originally written as a column for my local paper, and I posted it here at Thinklings at about the same time I submitted it to my editor.

I told my wife the story and she thought it was so cool, that on Thursday morning at Ladies Bible Study at our church, she came to my office and asked me to come tell the ladies the story. They thought it was cool too, as it illustrated what they were studying about reforming Kings who turned their people back to God's law.

I, of course emphasized that the fact that the current residents of Pitcairn Island are still Christians is a testimony to the power of God's word.

Enter Thinklings commenter Jonathan W. In only the second comment by a reader,in which he told me that most of the island's grown men (including the mayor) had been charged with sexual crimes against children going back decades.

You can go see the drama unfold as the truth does under the original post's comment thread. (Of all the articles linked there, this is probably the best one.)

Imagine my shock and dismay to learn something like that after I had written triumphantly about it here, in my local paper and shared it excitedly with a bunch of ladies in a Bible study.

I told everyone that all of the Island’s current inhabitants are Christians. Turns out they weren’t acting like it. The girls on the island were “coming of age” sexually speaking at ages 12-14, at least that’s what the residents of Pitcairn claim. Their argument in court was that because of their inherited Tahitian culture, that it was culturally acceptable. Some of the women who had been victimized for years said differently. (And for those of you who might remind me that Mary was around 14, on Pitcairn Island they weren't necessarily getting married young, grown men were having sex with girls as soon as they hit puberty, and probably some before that.)

What are we to learn from this? Does this horrible new information mean that the point of the previous post is invalid? After all, I was trying to demonstrate how God’s word changes lives, and I pointed to the fact that the island’s current residents are still Christians as evidence of that. Does their rampant immorality disprove that premise?

I don’t think so. Instead, it teaches us another lesson: just because one generation embraces the Gospel, doesn’t mean the next one will. It also shows us that religion can be empty and meaningless if it is missing the most essential ingredient.

The most essential ingredient is knowing and trusting Jesus personally. The Gospel doesn't change your life just because you hear it on Sunday. Your children may continue your religious traditions, but that doesn’t mean that they have what matters. In fact, if religion is all they have, they have nothing.

This important truth is why Moses stood on the banks of the Jordan telling the new generation what God had done in their parents’ generation. (That’s the entire book of Deuteronomy.) He also asked them to renew the covenant with God that their parent’s had made. He knew that if the new generation didn’t deliberately choose to follow God, they wouldn’t.

Again and again we see this pattern repeated in the Bible. For example, the entire book of Judges is about how one generation turns back to God after suffering for their sin, and crying out to him, and then each succeeding generation forgets about God again and “does what is right in their own eyes.” Many generations later, King Josiah rediscovers the book of the Law of God which had been forgotten in a back room of the Temple. (Ironically, that book was probably Deuteronomy, the very book whose whole purpose was to remind the next generation to remember God and to choose him for themselves.) This discovery causes him to lead his people in repenting of their sins and dedicating themselves to the LORD.

There’s a reason that Moses (yes, in the book of Deuteronomy!) says that, you are to teach your children to Love YHWH with mind, passion and action (6:4-7).

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

And at some point they must make the decision for themselves. Each generation has a choice: whether or not they are going to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before, for good or evil.

Of course, that lesson here isn't quite so shocking. It's as old as the very first "second generation" --- Cain and Abel.

On April 28th, 1789, the HMS Bounty was taken over by mutiny. Fletcher Christian led 17 other mutineers to set Captain Bligh and his supporters afloat in a small boat. The mutineers tried to settle in Tahiti. After some violent encounters with the Tahitians, the mutineers, some Tahitian men and some woman they had taken from Tahiti left on the Bounty. They eventually arrived at the uninhabited island of Pitcairn.

They burned the Bounty in what is now called “Bounty Bay” in order to hide the evidence of their crime and to prevent the women from fleeing.

There was plenty of water and food on the island and at first things were going well. However, many of the women felt like they were treated like slaves and revolted. The Tahitian men killed many of the mutineers in a revolt, including Fletcher Christian. The widows of the mutineers murdered the Tahitian men in revenge. The remaining mutineers could not get along with each other either, and so eventually due to fights, drunkenness and murder, only two men survived. One of them, Ned Young, died of Asthma in 1800, the first to die of natural causes.

This left one mutineer, and the last surviving man, John Adams, in charge of nine Tahitian women and dozens of children. Adams was a murderer and a mutineer. But he was also a man looking for hope. One day he found the H.M.S. Bounty’s Bible at the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it and his life changed. He dedicated his life to Christ and began to lead worship services on the Island. He taught the women and children of the island from the Bible.

Eventually they all became Christians.

Today the population of Pitcairn island numbers a little over 50. They are the descendants of the Bounty’s mutineers and still bear those surnames. And every person on the island is a Christian.

Though he didn’t live to see it, the way that Fletcher Christian’s people became actual Christians was through the power of God’s word.
The Bible has the power to change your life and the lives of those around you as well. “

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it—no matter what” (Hebrews 4:12-13, The Message.)

The next time you pick up a Bible, don’t just go through it, let it go through you. It might change your life.

Sources under comments...

You will get different answers depending on who you talk to. An outsider to both religions will say, “Yes.” The reason they say that is because Christians and Jews and Muslims all believe that they are worshiping the God who spoke to Abraham. So historically, all three religions point back to the same God as the god they worship. Plus Muslims and Christians both call him "God". (“Allah” means “the God” in Arabic.)

Muslims say that they worship the same God that Christians do. It’s just that Christians are committing blasphemy when they associate any other being with God. So when Christians call the Holy Spirit or Jesus, “God”, it is seen as blasphemy. Muslims say that Jesus was a prophet who came to call the Jews back to faithfulness to Allah and that Christians who worship Jesus as God are wrong to do so.

However, most Christians deny that they worship the same God as Muslims. Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Christians believe that we can point to Jesus and say, “There’s God” and Muslims obviously disagree. Christians believe that God is triune, one God in three persons. (Muslims see this as polytheism.) Because Muslims reject the triune God, Christians will say that Muslims are not worshiping the God of the Bible. Another reason many Christians will say that "Allah" and "YHWH" are not the same God is because the attributes of the God who reveals himself in the Bible and the attributes of the God who reveals himself in the Koran are not the same.

Here’s an analogy: Let’s say you are talking to someone and find out that you both know the same person. Let’s call him, “Bob.” So you talk about that same person for a while, exchanging stories about Bob. Then someone walks in that you don’t recognize. And you say to your friend, “Who’s that?” and your friend says, “Oh, that’s Bob.” And you say, “That’s not the Bob I was talking about. I was talking about a different Bob.”

The God who speaks in the New Testament says very different things about himself than the God who speaks in the Koran. “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’" (Matthew 17:5). The Muslim would read that and say, “No, that’s not God talking because Allah has no son.”

The Koran says,

“And they say, ‘Be Jews’ - or, ‘Christians’ – ‘and you shall be on the right path.’ Say: ‘Nay, but [ours is] the creed of Abraham, who turned away from all that is false, and was not of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God’” (2:135).

Perhaps a better way phrase the question is “Do Christians and Muslims believe the same things about God?” And in that case, everyone can agree that the answer is clearly, “No.”

"We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely accurately describe the motives of another." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot