Weekly Meanderings

Chicago, my home town.

David Opderbeck is beginning a “Daybook” blog post each day. Mark it.

Good piece on marriage and realism by Christine Scheller: “I am simultaneously compelled to resist the encroaching pressure of the easy out and feel a deep obligation to model fidelity and stability to the next generation in light of it. This is no easy task. I vowed to love my husband in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer and can say unequivocally that rich and healthy is a whole lot easier than sick and poor. I can also affirm that hardness of heart is the fastest route to marital decline (Matt. 19:8).”

Ed Stetzer on roids goes bezerk. Brad Wright only goes bezerk when folks get stats messed up … but his blog is worth your marking because he finds this stuff all the time.

Rob’s 2011 Reminder.

Carolyn Custis James on missing wives in Washington DC. Trevin Wax appeals to Steve Jobs about the Manhattan Declaration app.

Applying Yeshua communally. Wondering aloud about the future of Sunday School by Sheldon Good: “Sunday school. It was one of the main reasons I enjoyed church as a child. As a young adult, it sometimes still is. But there’s a conversation brewing: Does Sunday school have a future? I think so, though it may not involve Sunday or school.”

Too many Bibles?

Watson vs. Jennings — from John LaGrou.

My study is in the basement, but this place is cool. (HT: JF)

Excellent interview with Eric Metaxas at Harper’s: “When I first heard the story of Bonhoeffer in 1988, I was staggered. I was slowly returning to the Christian faith that I had lost as a student at Yale, and Bonhoeffer’s personal story and his magnificent book, The Cost of Discipleship, really spoke to me and helped me as I struggled with my questions. As a German-American, I was especially touched by his story, because he was a German who had spoken up for those who couldn’t speak. First and foremost for the Jews of Europe, but also for many like my grandfather, who were powerless and who in their own way were also victims of the Nazis.”

For some laughs….

Meanderings in the News

1. With the New Year come predictions: Did you see this one on the CNN Faith blog? Here is Don Miller’s: “5. As religious tensions grow over the coming presidential election and domestic cultural issues involving perceived legislation of morality, the media will find more zealous Christians reacting to the issues of the day whose extreme positions will further divide the evangelical church into radical positions, and turn away seekers looking for a peaceful resolution to the churning in their own souls. In other words, the devil will play a trick on the church, and the church will, like sheep, lose their focus on the grace and love of Christ and wander astray. Those who seek peace, then, will turn to liberal ideologies.”

2. Hadn’t heard of this, but Sonoma State Univ studies top news items not reported, and there’s a strong sense of censorship here: Here are the headlines for the top 10 for this past year:

1. Global Plans to Replace the Dollar
2. US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet
3. Internet Privacy and Personal Access at Risk
4. ICE Operates Secret Detention and Courts
5. Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan
6. Health Care Restrictions Cost Thousands of Lives in US
7. External Capitalist Forces Wreak Havoc in Africa
8. Massacre in Peruvian Amazon over US Free Trade Agreement
9. Human Rights Abuses Continue in Palestine
10. US Funds and Supports the Taliban

3. Tim Dalrymple collects articles from Patheos by topic. Nice resource.

(BTW, that’s a fish spa treatment to the left.)

4. “Let him give to her a bill of divorce”: the story of the agunah.

5. How Kindle competed with Apple: four points from Michael Hyatt.

6. Sam Leith‘s predictions for life in the UK in 2011 are worth reading for the sheer fun of his prose, including this one: “Those of us unable to afford a McLaren MP4 will be travelling by train—wedged into each other’s armpits.”

7. Dahlia Lithwick, at Slate, on the Tea Party and the Constitution: “Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn’t necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states—which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit. “Most of the regulation in our lives comes from state regulations over health, education, safety and welfare,” explains Lawrence Friedman, a professor at New England Law, Boston. “We have this idea that if the Congress can’t do it, no one can do it, but it’s not clear that the states wouldn’t do it, and do a worse job.” State governments are as likely to be corrupt, bankrupt, and beholden to special interests as the federal government. The only difference may be that state constitutions don’t prohibit state legislatures from making you do things you’d rather not do.”

8.Twain scholar, Ron Powers, is hot: “Denying the role of slavery in triggering the Civil War and denying Twain’s insight that “nigger” was prevalent and dehumanizing enough in that era to irradiate his most enduring anti-racist literature feed into the same polluted basin: the spreading pool of disinformation about America’s past.”

He can be as hot as he wants, but public schools don’t want to deal with the fallout so they choose not to read Huck Finn. Notice this: Title VIIof the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

“… the word is considered by many to be the most offensive in the English language” and “has been used by whites as a tool to belittle, oppress or dehumanize African Americans. When viewed in its historical context, one can see how people in general, and African Americans in particular, might react differently when a white person uses the word than if an African American uses it.”

9. Well, he’s got a good sense of humor, with a line in there that is the understatement of the year.

10. That’s quite the description: “Authorities took her to a medical facility where, under the supervision of doctors, she “finalized the expulsion” of the 91 pellets, according to a CBP news release.”

Meanderings in Sports:

Terrelle Pryor knew prior: Pryor pretty much blew up the whole education defense on Saturday anyway. It was a laughable gambit to begin with, and it appeared even more naked and pathetic when Pryor offered the following quote to reporters: “What did I learn? It’s two years ago, you know, so I already knew what I should have done two years ago,” Pryor said. “So to tell the truth, I didn’t learn much because I already knew what I should have did two years ago. Now I wouldn’t make the same decision, so I couldn’t tell you I learned something because I already knew what I did wrong.”