IrContent

I am still alive and fairly well but have not had time to blog in a while. Since my last post I have created and taught a  one week (30hr) seminary course, moved from a house that needed work to sell to a house that needed work to buy, and am still trying to finish my book and prepare to begin my Ph.D. program this Fall.

All that to say that I am not sure what the future holds for this blog. 

I know a lot of bloggers start posting their thoughts while engaged in academia, but that’s not really what IrContent is about. There are a few years of posts archived here though, and since most are now considered timeless classics you may wish to simply read and re-read to your heart’s content (or ircontent as is often the case!).

Anyway . . . didn’t want to leave anybody hanging. 

My book from Moody Publishers has been given an official title and, as far as I know, cover art! It will be titled The Message Behind the Movie: How To Engage With a Film Without Disengaging Your Faith, and should be released early next year (Spring quarter 2009) if everything goes well.

The book is based on my seminar of the same title which covers the basics of film interpretation and evaluation with additional chapters on applying these messages to spiritually-significant topics such as Philosophy, Theology, Religion, and Ethics.

And as Frank Turek likes to say, “All proceeds from this book will go to feed hungry children . . . mine!”

If you have a group interested in the seminar please visit: www.dougbeaumont.org/seminars.

I will be speaking in Indiana this April on “Christian Apologetics” and “The Message Behind the Movies.” For more info click HERE.

DATES CHANGED:  I will be speaking May 16th-17th, 2008 (the original January dates have been changed) at the “Truth for a New Generation” conference. I am not sure what they have me doing yet, but probably something on music or movies. So if you live near Augusta, GA come on out!

I will be speaking at the National Conference on Spiritual Discernment: Fri.-Sat., March 28th-29th, 2008 . Not that you need any more reason than that to come, but this year’s conference also features the “Bible Answerman” Hank Hanegraaff, Ex-Islamic Terrorist Kamal Saleem, professors Thomas Howe and Jason Reed, as well as my buddies Alex McFarland, Shawn Hayes, Leroy Lamar, Lanny Wilson, and many others. SEATING! IS LIMITED. Tickets are on sale now at e-Planet Travel.

Proceeds go to feed hungry children - mine!

Well, after over 6 months of concentrated effort I have achieved what I set out to do regarding further study - it’s up to higher powers than me to see if they succeed. Pray for me and my sanity. If my efforts are successful I’ll tell all about it (if not, I’ll pretend it never happened). 

I also got a book deal with Moody Publishers! They are going to publish my book on film interpretation and its impact on culture. The title is tentatively set as “Can Anything Good Come Out of Hollywood?” but it’s not my first choice. As cool a title as it is, I do not think it accurately describes the content. Oh well, it’s laregly out of my hands. The book (whatever it ends up being called) should be out Winter 2008 (”December Winter”, not “January Winter”). Updates will be posted here and anywhere else I can possibly get it mentioned.

So I have a bit of a break now, and I am going to have some time for some blogging provided that the subjects overlap with my other work. My new church is great so I have not had much to be ircontent about in those regards lately, so I have a few things planned such as a discussion of Divine Impassibility, Integrity at Work (and Seminary), Music and Film related stuff, etc.  

It’s good to be back.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Don’t despair! IrContent lives on.   :)   See “I’m Back” above.

ORIGINAL POST:

I have decided to pursue the next leg of my educational career and to do so is going to require much more dedication and focus than I have displayed in the past. The simple fact is that I have too many interests and none of them ever develop to their fullest potential because I dabble too much in all of them. So the blogging is going to one of the first activities of this nature to go. I will leave IrContent up for awhile but I probably won’t add anything for a long time. Thanks to the readers and commenters that made this a fun project for the last year or so. Take care, and God bless.

As of 03/13/07 I have moved IrContent (previously on Blogger) to WordPress. I hope you like the new look (I could not find a template wide enough that also allowed CSS editing without paying extra so I lost my cool title graphics). Anyway, I hope this will work out better.

Enjoy the BLOG!

As of last week my wife and I officially joined the parent club (well, we were nine months ago, but now it’s just more obvious!), so I have not been as ircontent as usual. I have some stuff brewing, though, so maybe the next time I am up at 3am listening to my boy scream for no good reason I’ll get back on these posts.

The title “IrContent” (pronounced “er-kun-tent”) was chosen for two reasons: (1) to use the massively underrated prefix “ir” in a new and exciting way, and (2) to express synonymously the ideas of discontent or malcontent without the social stigmas attached to such terms.

The subtitle “The Long Dark Blog of the Soul” was inspired by the titles of writings by 16th century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross and 20th century British nihilist Douglas Adams. The title of the former’s work, Dark Night of the Soul, describes a period of suffering, emptiness, or confusion in one’s spiritual life which is the beginning of the transition from the beginner’s comfortable feelings and familiar concepts of God to true union with God.

These two concepts more-or-less describe the present stage in my spiritual journey. I am trying to discover what Christian “spirituality” should really look like. My ir-satisfaction with pop-Christianity is becoming somewhat obsessive, and I am just not sure what to do about it. So I figured I might as well pour out my brain here and see what comes of it.

Well, this is certainly a pretty melodramatic way to begin a BLOG! But if you have read this far without becoming disenchanted (or “ir-enchanted” as the case may be) then simply know that this BLOG will probably have a lot to do with my musings on things spiritual (as opposed more philosophically, theologically, or apologetically oriented articles such as those accessible through my links).

Thanks for visiting!