World Vision and Losing Super Bowl Team T-Shirts

Last updated on: February 3, 2014 at 6:25 am By Scot McKnight

Source After a Big Game in any sport, fans and players are going to be clamoring for commemorative merchandise, often just minutes after the game ends. To meet this demand and cash in on the wallet-loosening “We’re #1” euphoria, manufacturers and retailers produce and stock two sets of t-shirts, hats and other merchandise, declaring each team the champ. Based on strong sales after the Chicago Bears’ 2007 NFC Championship win, Sports Authority printed more than 15,000 shirts proclaiming a Bears... Read more

Teaching that Makes a Difference

Last updated on: January 30, 2014 at 9:40 am By Scot McKnight

Source Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students... Read more

Walter Wink: One of a Kind

Last updated on: February 3, 2014 at 5:51 am By Scot McKnight

One of the New Testament scholars who has captured both an academic reputation and a spirituality/church reputation is Walter Wink. A new autobiography is fresh off the press and it is the focus of this post, called Just Jesus: My Struggle to Become Human, but first I have grabbed a bit from an older post about Wink to set the context for his own story. Wink’s focus was on the powers, that is, on the principalities and powers, which he calls... Read more

Lut’ran Air, No Frills

Last updated on: January 31, 2014 at 2:59 pm By Scot McKnight

What are the Five Smartest Dog Breeds?

Last updated on: February 1, 2014 at 7:12 pm By Scot McKnight

Veterinarians vote this way: 5. Golden Lab 4. Australian Shepherd 3. Poodle 2. German Shepherd 1. Border Collie What? No Bichon Frise? (Kris thought our Bichon was smart and I wasn’t always in agreement.) Luke and Annika had a Cairn Terrier that was pretty smart, if not a little over-determined. Which breed do you think is smartest? Read more

Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Last updated on: January 31, 2014 at 3:01 pm By Scot McKnight

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more

Ringo the Drummer

Last updated on: January 24, 2014 at 8:15 am By Scot McKnight

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Grading Orwell

Last updated on: January 29, 2014 at 5:24 pm By Scot McKnight

From Michael Crichton: I had gone to college planning to become a writer, but early on a scientific tendency appeared. In the English department at Harvard, my writing style was severely criticized and I was receiving grades of C or C+ on my papers. At eighteen, I was vain about my writing and felt it was Harvard, and not I, that was in error, so I decided to make an experiment. The next assignment was a paper on Gulliver’s Travels, and... Read more

Sacred Scripture and Sacred War: An Interview with James Byrd

Last updated on: February 1, 2014 at 9:31 am By Scot McKnight

The following interview was conducted by David Moore. David blogs at www.twocities.org. Wars are not simply military affairs. For the Christian, they are theological to the core. Mark Noll has made that clear with the various ways ministers interpreted the Civil War (see The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, University of North Carolina Press). Last year, James Byrd of Vanderbilt released his Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: the Bible and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press). It received a book... Read more

Weekly Meanderings, 1 February 2014

Last updated on: January 31, 2014 at 3:44 pm By Scot McKnight

Wow, that’s a super sized boulder! Joe Carter, at the Acton Institute blog, opines about economic theory, taking on the President’s State of the Union address, and then he suggests 10 things that folks ought to know about income inequality — esp what drives it, which he says is that good ol’ vice Envy. OK, this is quite a conservative economic theory at work here, but I wonder if you think obsession with income inequality is an envy-driven issue or is... Read more