After two very happy years together, my girlfriend Bryony this afternoon agreed to become my wife.*
*Subject to my being able to pay the bride-price of one hundred foreskins.**
**Not really of course. In any case, what would would you do with them all?
Ben Finger has posted a list of books that he recommends for undergraduate theology students here and here.
Michael Bird has a rather funny list of tips on how to survive ETS-SBL. Here's number 20:
"In order to get into the exclusive Yale reception (really good food and quality alcohol) walk into the room holding hands with your best friend (Joel Willitts) and tell everyone that you are Yale grads who got married last year in Canada and that you just finished writing your thesis on an Eco-Feminist-Post-Colonial interpretation of Rom 1.26-27. All I can say is that it worked for me and Joel last year!"
Adrian Warnock offers proof that Wayne Grudem may actually be insane:
". . . overall I am so very very thankful for an outstanding, I think excellent, President. He has done right. And he is changing world history in a right direction, a direction that will give more freedom for everyone to determine their own governments and their own religion, and (of significance to me as a Christian), more freedom for the proclamation of the gospel around the world, so that people would have a fair chance to hear and consider (but never ever be compelled to accept) that good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ...
...It seems to me that what we need as a country is to unite behind the President in this war, not attack every move he makes (isn’t this what a country usually does in war?). For every U.S. soldier who dies there are many times more terrorists who are caught or killed (which I think in light of Rom. 13:4 is the right thing for civil government to do), and the terrorist movements simply cannot and will not continue a losing battle forever. Criticism of the war sounds to me like people are saying, 'There are still some evil people in the world, therefore Bush is a bad President.' That is misguided reasoning, because there will always be evil people in the world, and the God-given solution, according to Rom. 13:1-7, is to prevent them from harming others through the use of superior force by our military and police."
You heard it here first folks: the biblical way to defeat evil and violence is by...er...violence. If the Iraq war results in more freedom for Christians in Iraq, then it will be purely a coincidence. Grudem also seems to have his history a little muddled - I don't recall any Iraqi terrorists attacking the USA or any Americans up until the time that the US and UK invaded in 2003, and quite what Romans 13 has to do with US foreign policy I have no idea. Barking.
Finally, Jim West has some reflections on repentance and forgiveness and also a few thoughts on Ted Haggard's recent alleged misdemeanours.
Brother Emile of Taizé on the forgiving father of the prodigal son:
"Now what we have here is certainly human. But this is a humanity so complete that there is nothing like it on earth. Absence of any resentment, such a pure joy, compassion strong enough to make the Father run, love so constant in spite of a lack of response, these lead us to think that this is more than a human welcome. Extravagance, a characteristic of transcendence, reveals God the totally Other, but his otherness is described as overflowing humanity. The forgiveness of the Other as described in the Gospel allows us to discover that God alone is perfectly human.
When the Gospel speaks of forgiveness, it is with a joy and a lightness of touch which shows that this forgiveness comes from elsewhere. This forgiveness has nothing of our condecension. It humiliates no one. It reveals to every individual their immense value, and shame itself is overcome in the immeasurable joy created by the return of the sinner, the rejoicings of restored communion.
When Isaiah spoke of a God rich in forgiveness, several centuries before Christ, he immediately added: "my thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways" (Isa 55:7). God is revealed as the Other, by the quality and immensity of his forgiveness."
In the last few weeks I've had a few e-mails and several Google searches enquiring about what books theology undergraduates ought to read/buy. You can never buy all the books that you want to as an undergrad (or postgrad too) but it is definitely worth investing in some of the key books in each area of the subject to help you with study and afterwards too.
I've compiled a list of some of the books that I found most useful when I was an undergraduate, and the list takes into account the all-important budget as well as quality. It is a far from exhaustive list as it simply reflects the areas I studied and omits those I didn't study as much, so there are plenty of books on Paul, but fewer on Luke-Acts, for example.
Old Testament
Handbook to the Pentateuch - V P Hamilton
The Living World of the Old Testament - B W Anderson
Handbook On The Prophets - R B Chisholm Jr.
The Pentateuch As Narrative - J Sailhamer
The Message of the Psalms - W Brueggemann
Stories of the Beginning - E van Wolde
The Old Testament Poetic Books - C H Bullock
Commentaries vary widely in quality, length, and price, but overall I've found the NIBC series to be the best in terms of price, accessibility and not so discouragingly overloaded with Hebrew as to be useless to those just setting out in Biblical studies.
New Testament
Much more fun 
NT General
Introduction to the NT - R Collins
Theology of the New Testament (2 vols) - R Bultmann
The New Testament Background - C K Barrett
Backgrounds of Early Christianity - E Ferguson
The New Testament - O Cullmann
The New Testament and the People of God - N T Wright
Jesus and the Gospels
The Jesus Quest - B Witherington
Jesus and the Victory of God - N T Wright
The Historical Figure of Jesus - E P Sanders
The Challenge of Jesus - N T Wright
The Gospels and Jesus - G Stanton
The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ - M Hengel
Paul - (General)
The Theology of Paul the Apostle - J Dunn
Pauline Christianity - J Ziesler
The Quest For Paul's Gospel - D A Campbell
Apostle of the Crucified Lord - M J Gorman
The Pauline Circle - F F Bruce
God's Empowering Presence - G Fee
Israel's Law and the Church's Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters - S Westerholm
Climax of the Covenant - N T Wright
Paul and Palestinian Judaism - E P Sanders
Pauline (Letters)
There are far, far too many commentaries to mention here. It's worth getting a good commentary on Romans (Cranfield, Moo, and Dunn are all very good) but as befits a fallen world in the grip of evil, commentaries are very expensive. Overall I found that the NIBC series are the best in terms of affordability (all under £10) and that they offer sufficient depth without leaving you with pages of Greek or Hebrew to wade through. If you're rich, the NIGTC commentaries are great for the NT though the WBC and NICOT/NT offer a (slightly) cheaper option. Gordon Fee's commentary on 1 Corinthians is probably another must have book.
Johannine Literature
John: Evangelist and Interpreter - S Smalley
The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel - C H Dodd
The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel - A Reinhartz
NICNT: John's Gospel - L Morris
Theology (General)
Who Needs Theology? - Grenz & Olson
The Practice of Theology - A Reader - C Gunton
Institutes - J Calvin
Christology and Atonement
Cur Deus Homo - St. Anselm
Christus Victor - Gustaf Aulen
The Mediation of Christ - T F Torrance
Past Event and Present Salvation - P Fiddes
The Nature of the Atonement - J McLeod Campbell
The Person and Place of Jesus Christ - P T Forsyth
The Crucified God - J Moltmann
Jesus: God and Man - W Pannenberg
Types of Modern Theology - H R Macintosh
Christology - V M Karkainen
The Mediator - E Brunner
On the Incarnation - Athanasius
Problems With Atonement - S Finlan
Trinity and Pneumatology
The Trinity - Olson & Hall
Pneumatology - V-M Karkainen
The Holy Spirit and Liberation - J Comblin
The Trinity - Augustine
The Spirit of Life - J Moltmann
Church History
The Early Church - H Chadwick
Documents of the Christian Church - H Bettenson
Early Christian Doctrines - J N D Kelly
The Reformation - O Chadwick
The Great Reformation - R Tudor Jones
Refomation: Europe's House Divided - D Maculloch
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther - R Bainton
So that's that. There are a zillion books that I've missed out and some areas of study that I haven't even really touched on. I'd highly recommend owning every single one of these books, but if you did that you'd be very poor indeed. Feel free to suggest any others!