![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/40\/2011\/01\/Screen-shot-2011-01-13-at-7.31.22-PM.jpg\" "\\"Screen")
<\/a><\/p>\nEspecially nice reflection by Mike Glenn on the sounds of forgiveness<\/strong><\/a>. That sound could be heard among the Amish<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Insightful, if a little testy, sketch about \u201cdeacons\u201d in Acts by Daniel Kirk.<\/strong><\/a> Speaking of leaders, David Fitch<\/strong><\/a> is a bit testy about \u201cleaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Ted<\/strong><\/a> sketches a most important reminder: forgiveness. Brad Boydston\u2019s sermon<\/strong><\/a> on Jesus vs. Superman.<\/p>\n A good reminder from Jim<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Thabiti<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 a complementarian who believes women should teach. I agree with much of what he says; I disagree at points.<\/p>\n Preacher Mike<\/strong><\/a> had a post (way back) on women in ministry and it got over 250 comments. Speaking of Preacher Mike, his post on winter vs. summe<\/strong><\/a>r Christians is a good read.<\/p>\n For Sci-fi folks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanderings in the News<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. David Brooks<\/strong><\/a>, but not that David Brooks, on what\u2019s like to ready oneself for PhD exams.<\/p>\n 2. David Brooks<\/strong><\/a>, yes that David Brooks, on the irresponsibility of the news media: \u201d Mainstream news organizations linked the attack to an offensive target map issued by Sarah Palin\u2019s political action committee. The Huffington Post erupted, with former Senator Gary Hart flatly stating that the killings were the result of angry political rhetoric. Keith Olbermann demanded a Palin repudiation and the founder of the Daily Kos wrote on Twitter: \u201cMission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.\u201d Others argued that the killing was fostered by a political climate of hate. These accusations \u2014 that political actors contributed to the murder of 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl \u2014 are extremely grave. They were made despite the fact that there was, and is, no evidence that Loughner was part of these movements or a consumer of their literature. They were made despite the fact that the link between political rhetoric and actual violence is extremely murky. They were vicious charges made by people who claimed to be criticizing viciousness. Yet such is the state of things. We have a news media that is psychologically ill informed but politically inflamed, so it naturally leans toward political explanations. We have a news media with a strong distaste for Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement, and this seemed like a golden opportunity to tarnish them. We have a segmented news media, so there is nobody in most newsrooms to stand apart from the prevailing assumptions. We have a news media market in which the rewards go to anybody who can stroke the audience\u2019s pleasure buttons. I have no love for Sarah Palin, and I like to think I\u2019m committed to civil discourse. But the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shamelessly irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n 4. America\u2019s most literate citie<\/strong><\/a>s. (Hint: Chicago not in the list, but that\u2019s OK because Green Bay didn\u2019t make it.)<\/p>\n 5. James Lang<\/strong><\/a> on making classrooms more experiential.<\/p>\n 6. Jim Angle<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cLawmakers will look back on 2011 as the year the U.S. started down into a financial Grand Canyon, because the first baby boomers turn 65 this year \u2014 the front edge of a tidal wave of baby boomer retirements. \u201cOver the next 20 years, around 10,000 baby boomers will be retiring each day,\u201d says Andrew Biggs, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. \u201cThat means more people collecting\u00a0social security<\/a>, more people collecting\u00a0Medicare<\/a>, more people collecting Medicaid as well.\u201d And\u2026..<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an implicit bipartisan consensus,\u201d Blahous says, \u201cthat we\u2019re not going to suddenly cut benefits of people once they\u2019re receiving them. So we\u2019re not going to pay that 85 year-old widow $2,000 in January and then jerk her back to $1,800 in February. We\u2019re just not gonna do that.\u201dSo every year that passes puts more seniors on the rolls, making their benefits politically untouchable \u2014 meaning more and more of the solution has to come from tax increases.\u201d<\/p>\n 7. CT on the Crystal Cathedral<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cThis past October, the megachurch prototype of the late 20th century filed for bankruptcy. A 24 percent drop in donations and a $50-$100 million debt owed to more than 550 creditors forced the Crystal Cathedral to file. It was a poignant moment in the history of modern evangelicalism.\u201d And this:<\/p>\n \u201cSome are tempted to hit the man while he is down, but this is unwise. Robert Schuller is not the problem\u2014contemporary evangelicalism is. Schuller was only leading the parade of those who believe they are responsible for\u00a0making<\/em> the gospel relevant. The lesson is not that Schuller got it wrong or that his theology is out-of-date; it is not that we just need to find a better, more current point of cultural contact. The lesson is that our attempts to find and exploit a point of cultural contact inevitably end in bankruptcy.\u201d<\/p>\n 8. GOP Latina Governor ignored<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cNew Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez made history when she was sworn in New Year\u2019s Day as the nation\u2019s first Latina governor. But the rising GOP star\u2019s momentous victory for the Hispanic community earned her little recognition in the national media.\u201d And\u2026 \u201cSome media analysts note that coverage of Martinez\u2019s victory pales in comparison to other history-making Hispanics, like Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, whose confirmation to the high court dominated the headlines for months. \u201cI think it\u2019s quite obvious that first Latino Democrats are celebrated but first Latino Republicans are the objects of scorn,\u201d said Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the conservative Media Research Center. \u201cThe media wants the public to think of the Republican Party as an old white guy party and they\u2019ll downplay anything that contradicts with that image.\u201d<\/p>\n 9. John Haldane, First Things<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cPhilosophy, \u00c9tienne Gilson observed, \u201calways buries its undertakers.\u201d \u201cPhilosophy,\u201d according to Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in their new book\u00a0The Grand Design<\/em>, \u201cis dead.\u201d It has \u201cnot kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics, [and] scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.\u201d Not only, according to Hawking and Mlodinow, has philosophy passed away; so, too, has natural theology. At any rate, the traditional argument from the order apparent in the structure and operations of the universe to a transcendent cause of these, namely God, is wholly redundant\u2014or so they claim: \u201c[Just] as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit. Because there is a law of gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong>Chris Armstrong<\/a><\/strong> on the KJV in African American churches. Allan<\/strong><\/a> on the \u201cdark ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>3. George Will:<\/strong><\/a> \u201cA characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering<\/em>, society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism<\/em>. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.\u201d<\/p>\n