Ok, this is blatant "beg bait" so what. I just noted over Here That Michael Heiser has indeed started the sequel to the Facade. If you missed that little tidbit of information than you can read about it. As well as my original (and recent) Facade review.
What I want from you is for you to sign up for a context regarding the sequel. Proceed to Michael Heiser's blog on UFO Religions and at the bottom of the left hand column sign yourself up but use my email (tcblack at stilltruth dot com) as the recommender.
If I win, I get to be a character in the next novel. And it sounds like I won't just get killed off in chapter one. I might even make it to chapter 11! Just don't tell my investment adviser if that happens.

A second way of becoming a character in the sequel has to do with this blog, UFO Religions. I will be collecting email addresses at this blog. Notice that at the bottom of the sidebar on the lefthand side of this blog page you will find a place for people to put in their email address, and–most importantly–YOUR email address as the person who got them to sign up at this location. Your task is to get as many people as you can to sign up and submit your email address as their recommender as you can.

I am extremely disappointed in Franklin Graham's judgment. While many Christians are looking at the China Olympics as an opportunity to bring the gospel into the normally restrictive country he sold out to the repressive regime saying that there should be "No missionary work during Beijing Olympics (OneNewsNow.com)"

Beijing - The son of American evangelist Billy Graham said Friday he is opposed to missionary work at this summer's Beijing Olympic Games.
Franklin Graham, also an evangelist, was speaking to reporters Friday during a visit to Beijing for meetings with the Communist Party-controlled Protestant church movement. He said he wanted to encourage authorities to resolve conflicts with the church, but would not criticize policies that critics say limit the church's independence and religious rights.
While some Christian groups have said they plan to proselytize during the August games, Graham said he was against that because Chinese law does not permit such actions. "I would not support any illegal activity at all," Graham said.

have you never read...

I've often been partially amused by the many times Jesus looked at the most religiously educated men in Israel and said, "Have you never read...." I think I suddenly understand how he felt, well at least a little.
When Peter and John were dragged (twice) before the Jewish council they were told that preaching the gospel was against the law. Peter's response?

Acts 4:19-20 "Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard."

I don't read many fiction books. I've read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as well as the Harry Potter series (oh, quit rolling your eyes) but that's about it. I'm not a huge fan of fiction - oh that reminds me I did read the Davinci Code while researching it but again that's about it. I do however have a rather profound interest in Spiritual Warfare, The Bible and by outgrowth of these two the paranormal and yes, UFO stuff.

I have long believed that alien abduction stories are not the mere brainchild of people who want their 15 minutes of fame; nor do I believe they are a grandiose conspiracy theories put forth by the Governments of any given country, including our own. I have equated UFO's and demonic activity for years. Thus when I was reading Dr. Michael Heiser's work on the Divine Council I ran across a book simply titled The Façade which he had written I knew I had to read it.

The Façade is a fast paced ... hmmm. It's a tough book to describe. Sci-Fi, no that's not good enough, let me just call it a Supernatural UFO Thriller as a working category. In brief, and hopefully without giving away too much it tells the story of a group of individuals brought into a super top secret government installation in order to figure out the best way to get the public up to speed on what the government has known all along about extra terrestrials.

There's a post on the Logos Blog about Logos in the Classroom. Actually it's a commercial for a 15 minute talk by Senior VP Dale Pritchett, which itself is basically a commercial aimed at Seminary professors to convince them to replace their single classroom textbooks with the full Logos Digital Library. If you have the 15 minutes you should listen. If you only have about 7, do a quick read of the PDF transcript.
I have two simple observations to make.

Upgrade the audio please

The audio is probably over compressed. It's either that or the audio is the result of several takes and a bad patch job. Dale comes into various sentences sounding completely different and it seems with different breathing patterns; almost as if they've taken two or more clips and sliced and diced them into one speech. The only reason I mention this is because I found it annoying to listen to. I'm tempted to say it's over compressed because I've experienced the same phenomena with other Logos media. Michael Heiser's excellent lecture "The concept of the Godhead in the Old Testament" was plagued in it's Camtasia format with horrible over compression that introduced all sorts of nasty audio artifacts into the speech. It's worth downloading the MP3 on that one instead of listening to the stream.

Yes, But...

I agree wholeheartedly with the principle message of Mr. Pritchett's speech. But I also see a problem

I don't think I've laughed so hard in quite awhile. Michael Heiser has started up a new blog, well actually seven new blogs. Personally I'm in awe. I have trouble being a pastor and posting on one, and If Dr. Heiser can pull it off so much the better! Incidentally if you haven't heard of or read the SuperUFOConspiraSciFiJudeoChristoReligious thriller The Façade. Than you should. I'm hoping to start and finish it next week, but the first chapter and my previews are promising.

Sorry, I'm babbling. Still dealing with the aftereffects of sleep deprivation I think. The reason I was laughing was from reading PaleoBabble, Michael pulls out a word which perfectly describes so much of the blather that passes for serious study - but isn't. Are you ready for the word?

archaeoporn

It has nothing to do with the raunchy pictures on ancient Greek urns. But has everything to do with the latest discovery and the bogus conclusions drawn by the supposed experts.
Welcome to the blogosphere Michael, I can't wait for what's next.

This has been my fifth year teaching Principles of Spiritual Warfare at the Emmaus Biblical Seminary in Haiti. [links: 1 2 3] I'd like to invite you into the classroom and let you experience the adrenaline rush of teaching and the outrageous Joy of learning.

It seems to happen every year (five years running now). The class starts a little slowly as I try to feel my way around to determine where the students are and what they know. But in this instance slowly is nearly catastrophic. As the first week progresses I find myself increasingly behind schedule. And the farther behind I get, the faster, it seems, the end of the module approaches.

As of now I'm at least one full day of hard study behind. I don't like being behind though not nearly as much as I dislike being ahead of schedule. Being ahead of schedule gives me the distinct feeling that my students aren't "getting it" perhaps because they're not engaging me with questions. While being behind makes me realize I'm going to have to skip something and potentially something that may be very important in the long term.

Mango's as you may or may not have EVER noticed are shaped an awful lot like hand grenades, well - at least they'd be shaped like hand grenades if hand grenades were mango shaped. If that doesn't make sense don't worry it's probably just the sleep deprivation.
I have noticed in the last six years that I never sleep in Haiti. Well ok, I do sleep a bit. I sleep for 1/2 hour and wake up for an hour and I sleep for an hour and a half and then I wake for twenty minutes... you get the picture. Laying in bed: 7.5 hours. Actual sleep: about 4 hours. That's kind of the way it runs with me here.

It's not the noise per se, I've tried ear plugs, and even Benadryl all to no effect. So I wake up and pray or quote scripture or tonight I just decided that when i wake up past about 2:30 or 3 I'll just go ahead and get up to read. It won't be easy since the power is almost always out after 10 when the generators go off. The Haiti electrical department can always be depended on to be off.

Anyway, back to the mango story. As you may know mango's are a rather dense fruit with a significantly sized pit in the middle. What you may not realize is that a mango tree can be rather tall, I mean significantly tall. In fact the Mango trees are so tall that they threaten to escape the earth's gravity. The only reason they don't is because of the enormous weight of the millions of mango's hanging from every branch.