Pat Robertson: Peyton Manning, Broncos Would Be Served Right By Injury After Tim Tebow Trade

March 24, 2012 By Kurt Willems 12 Comments

FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST:

“I think the Denver Broncos treated him shabbily,” he said recently on “The 700 Club.” “He won seven games, he brought them into the playoffs, for heaven sakes. I mean, they were a nothing team. He rallied them together with spectacular last-minute passes and, you know, when they beat Buffalo — I mean, Pittsburgh, excuse me — it was a tremendous victory.”…..

“So Peyton Manning was a tremendous MVP quarterback, but he’s been injured. If that injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback. And in my opinion, it would serve them right,” he said……

These statements have created more controversy for Pat Robertson.  Justifiable?  Not sure.  Sometimes I wonder if he means what people thinks he says.  Even so, an update on HuffPost adds:

UPDATE: A spokesman for Robertson told The Associated Press on Friday that Robertson was “in no way advocating an injury.”

For the whole article, check out this link.  It includes a video as well.

Filed Under: Culture 12 Comments

Is There A Doctor In the House: An Insider’s Story And Advice On Becoming A Biblical Scholar

March 23, 2012 By Kurt Willems 5 Comments

***A Guest Post by Lawrence Garcia.

Scholars, we energetically read their books, we quote their work to lend credibility to everything from blogs to school papers, and yes, some of us self-proclaimed “up-and-comers” emulate them aspiring eventually to become actual biblical scholars ourselves. But do we really have what it takes? Are we even aware of the years of the economic, emotional, physical and mental travails that sit unmentioned behind the polished covers of our favorite scholar’s works? If not, Ben Witherington’s Is There A Doctor In the House: An Insider’s Story And Advice On Becoming A Biblical Scholar is a sobering concoction of scholarly advice, warning, and autobiography that will help to crystalize our decision of whether or not to embark on the journey toward becoming a Biblical scholar. Witherington writes:

In other words, to be a serious student, much less a teacher or scholar of the Bible, you must love learning—and not just learning during a particular period of your life, but lifelong learning. At the outset of my journey toward becoming a Biblical scholar, I realized that this huge undertaking would require more than just a commitment to some intensive years of education. I would have to follow Johannes Bengel’s dictum: “Apply the whole of yourself to the text, apply the whole of the text to yourself.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Guest Contributors Tagged With: , 5 Comments

America Loves a Bully and the Acceptance of Violence in Movies

March 22, 2012 By Kurt Willems 6 Comments

FROM ADAM LEIPZIG AT CULTURAL WEEKLY:

Joan Graves, head of the MPAA’s ratings board, writing to defend the R rating for the film Bully, has said, “Our ratings reflect how we believe a majority of American parents, not just from large cities on the coasts but everywhere in between, would rate a film.”

She’s probably right. That scares the hell out of me.

Let’s be honest about why a movie with a half-dozen “bad” words or a nipple-slip gets rated R, while horrific violence routinely earns a PG-13.

We Americans say we abhor violence, but we’re really quite comfortable with it. Violence has always been a signal part of American society and yes, to some extent it’s a Red State/Blue State issue….

…There’s an inherent violence in the American swagger, the bellicose way we approach negotiations, our armies of litigious lawyers, and the political clout of the gun rights lobby. Americans own more guns per capita than people of any other nation, and while guns may or may not be for protection and sport, as the NRA claims, there’s no arguing that the gun is the most compact and effective mechanism of violence ever devised…

Here’s a key part of the article that I find an interesting critique of traditional American Christians: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, Nonviolence Tagged With: , , 6 Comments

Parables, Preaching, and Toxic Waste: Rediscovering Jesus’ Way of Storytelling

March 22, 2012 By Kurt Willems 4 Comments
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* The following is a guest post by Martin Day.

I have always thought in metaphor and simile. From a young age it seemed natural to me to translate a concept from one form to another, just to prove I’d grasped it. When the same thing happens to a story the result is a parable. It might be simple and charming, it might even tug at an emotion, but at first glance it appears no more than a story. The power of a parable is in that ‘ah-ha’ moment, when I realise what the story means in its own parallel universe. So because of the way that my thinking is wired it seemed inevitable that I would be drawn to writing in parables just as I was first attracted to reading them.

Of course there was one man above any other associated with parables. Jesus was the master of the medium. In fact the Bible says that “he did not say anything to them without using a parable”(a). Now here’s a curious thing: It seemed that most of the original hearers of these parables did not understand them. Even those closest to Jesus had to come and ask what they meant!(b) What Jesus spoke to that first audience was radical and completely different from anything they had heard. So why would he choose a form of communication that the people didn’t understand? The answer is surprising, but obvious – he didn’t want them to understand; he was actually being coy about his message! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Guest Contributors 4 Comments
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