Weekly Meanderings

Our weather was stuck like this truck,
but finally settled into what we’d prefer:

Dave Dunbar, at Biblical Seminary, asks “where’s the beef?” [with missional — what’s changed?] “This is an important question for the missional church. It’s been more than a decade since some of us started down this road. The question needs to be faced: after more than a decade of analysis and discussion, how are we doing? What are the concrete results? Where are the churches that have successfully navigated the “missional turn”?”

Wouldn’t we? Roger Olson on where evangelicalism went wrong (right).

Rachel Held Evans on fearing motherhood: “I realize that many of these fears are either selfish or unfounded, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are there, creeping into my mind at every baby shower and in every babysitting session. Unfortunately, the Church is not the easiest place to express such fears out loud. On more than one occasion I’ve been told that because I am not a mother, I am not qualified to write a book about womanhood. The implication is that a childless woman isn’t a whole woman, that I can’t possibly offer any insights into my role as a woman in the Church until I’ve procreated. ”

Speaking of missional, Bill Donahue on coming full circle. Mark Roberts on how Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God.

What makes for gratitude? with Allan. Speaking of gratitude, did you see this story? Dan on hell. Michael Krahn’s atheist faith story.

Sad to see: Justin’s been an exceptional teacher and colleague. Glad to see: April’s special (first) mother’s day.

What about our gas prices? What about that?

At a recent gathering of younger leaders, Anglican evangelical Todd Hunter summed up accurately the current state of affairs in the missional world: we are more aspiration than actuality; more talk than action; more sizzle than steak. The problem is real and needs to be addressed, but first we need to understand why our results have been less than stellar.
A really good piece by Christopher Hitchens … on losing voice. (HT: DGM)

Some our students will bike across America this summer to raise funds for charities in Africa.

Meanderings in the News

Just in case you are wondering: these links are items I read, across the spectrum, some of them I agree with, others I don’t.

1. Peter Bergen, on 5 myths about OBL.

2. The App class: “ALL right, class, here’s your homework assignment: Devise an app. Get people to use it. Repeat. That was the task for some Stanford students in the fall of 2007, in what became known here as the “Facebook Class.” No one expected what happened next. The students ended up getting millions of users for free apps that they designed to run on Facebook. And, as advertising rolled in, some of those students started making far more money than their professors. Almost overnight, the Facebook Class fired up the careers and fortunes of more than two dozen students and teachers here. It also helped to pioneer a new model of entrepreneurship that has upturned the tech establishment: the lean start-up. “Everything was happening so fast,” recalls Joachim De Lombaert, now 23. His team’s app netted $3,000 a day and morphed into a company that later sold for a six-figure sum.”

3. Mark Steyn: “The belated dispatch of Osama testifies to what the United States does well — elite warriors, superbly trained, equipped to a level of technological sophistication no other nation can match. Everything else surrounding the event (including White House news management so club-footed one starts to wonder darkly whether its incompetence is somehow intentional) embodies what the United States does badly. Pakistan, our “ally,” hides and protects not only Osama but also Mullah Omar and Zawahiri, and does so secure in the knowledge that it will pay no price for its treachery — indeed, confident that its duplicitous military will continue to be funded by U.S. taxpayers….That means that once in a while your big-time jihadist will be having a quiet night in watching Dancing With The Stars when all of a sudden Robocop descends from the heavens, kicks the door open, and it’s time to get ready for your virgins. But other than that, in the bigger picture, day by day, all but unnoticed, things will go their way….Millions of Muslims support bin Laden’s goal — the submission of the Western world to Islam — but, unlike him, understand that flying planes into buildings is entirely unnecessary to achieving it. Will being high-flying Jetsons with state-of-the-art gizmos prove sufficient in a Flintstonizing world? The Pakistanis are pretty sure they know the answer to that.”

4. Laurie Goodstein on the secular studies major at Pitzer College: “Colleges and universities have long offered majors in religion or theology. But with more and more people now saying they have no religion, one college has decided to be the first to offer a major in secularism.”

5. Bob Corker: “The only real way to place America back on a path to solvency is by imposing what amounts to a fiscal straitjacket. To that end, colleagues from both sides of the aisle and both houses of Congress have joined me in offering the CAP Act, legislation that, for the very first time, would establish an across-the-board, binding cap on all federal spending. A real cap on spending tied to a percentage of gross domestic product is a responsible way to impose fiscal discipline and achieve smaller government while incentivizing lawmakers to pass policies that promote economic growth. The CAP Act would result in $7.6 trillion less spending over ten years, fundamentally change the way Washington does business, and finally put America on a trajectory toward fiscal sanity.”

6. James Traub, on Obama’s promises: “Well, you’d have trouble seeing that just now, wouldn’t you? The president has been revealed as Jack Bauer, trampling on the niceties of law in pursuit of justice — or as “Cool Hand Barack,” as Maureen Dowd has christened him. He said he wouldn’t quibble over international law when it came to America’s security — and he didn’t. Of course getting Osama bin Laden, by whatever means, was a deeply satisfying victory. But it’s very strange to contemplate that the one promise Obama kept from that paradigm-setting speech was the one in which he offered to break the rules rather than to restore respect for them.”

7. From The Telegraph: “France has agreed to return more than one dozen Maori heads taken from new Zealand more than a century ago. Here are some other ongoing disputes between nations over prized ancient artefacts…”

8. Erica Ho: “The kids are coming home to roost. Surprise, surprise: Thanks to a high unemployment rate for new grads, many of those with diplomas fresh off the press are making a return to Mom and Dad’s place. In fact, according to a poll conducted by consulting firm Twentysomething Inc., some 85% of graduates will soon remember what Mom’s cooking tastes like.”

9. Couldn’t pass this one up: “Apple has overtaken Google as the world’s most valuable brand, ending a four-year reign by the Internet search leader.”

10. Drew Dyck: “The entertainment emphasis can be traced at least a generation, and perhaps nowhere was the impact felt more profoundly than in youth programs. Instead of stressing confirmation of faith—youth ministry’s original raison d’être—the focus shifted to attracting more and more kids to the ministry (which inevitably involved entertaining them). Not necessarily bad goals, but there were some ugly unintended consequences. Today some youth ministries are almost devoid of religious education. They are “holding tanks with pizza,” as church researcher Ed Stetzer has called them. Some use violent video game parties to attract students through the church doors on Friday nights. Over the past year I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with 20-somethings who have walked away from their Christian faith. Among the most surprising findings was this: nearly all of these “leavers” reported having positive experiences in youth group. I recall my conversation with one young man who described his journey from evangelical to atheist. He had nothing but vitriol for the Christian beliefs of his childhood, but when I asked him about youth group, his voice lifted. “Oh, youth group was a blast! My youth pastor was a great guy.”

Meanderings in Sports

Phil Jackson’s done in the NBA: ““And you’re not going to force me to answer it, but, yes…all my hopes and aspirations are that this is the final game that I’ll coach. This has been a wonderful run. I go out with a sour note after being fined $35,000 this morning by the league [for critical comments about officiating], so that’s not fun and I’m feeling like I’ve been chased down a freeway by them…As Richard Nixon said, ‘You won’t be able to kick this guy around any more.’”.