Breakfast Links for 11/13/12 – God’s Wild Mercies, God Will Let You Down, Stages of Religious Persecution

BREAKFAST LINKS 11/13/12:

Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington: Thoughts on the 5 Stages of Religious Persecution

Dwight Longnecker, Patheos/Standing On My Head: “God’s mercy takes us where the wild things are. We encounter God and it was not what we thought.”

Frank Viola, Patheos/Frank Viola: “Get clear on this: God will let you down. He won’t meet all your expectations. He will allow things that will cause you to conclude that He is unfaithful and doesn’t keep His promises. If you haven’t met this side of God yet, you will. And at that moment, you will discover if you are serving Santa Claus or if you’re serving the God who is.”

David Heim, The Christian Century: The Persistent God Gap and Elections

John Mark Reynolds, Patheos/Eidos: “They fought and suffered so I can be free and make peace. We have no holiday this side of Paradise for peacemakers, because peacemaking is its own reward. The peacemaker gets a foretaste of the peace of heaven in his actions.”

Robert Samuelson, Real Clear Politics: It’s the Welfare State, Stupid

Bill Blankschaen, Patheos/Bill In the Blank: “At what point does our dependency on government programs create a conflict of interest for us as voters? Put another way, have government programs become so woven into the fabric of our lives that we’ve lost our perennial resistance to candidates promising to expand government programs?”

Jane Mayer, The New Yorker: A Petraeus Puzzle – Were Politics Involved?

Tim Dalrymple, Patheos/Philosophical Fragments: “Athletic competition is about striving to overcome your physical limitations, striving to overcome all challenges and achieve greatness.”

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times Opinion Pages: The Right Just Lost the Culture War

Leah Libresco, Patheos/Unequally Yoked: “…In the Bible, Numbers 31 prescribes a purifying ritual for soldiers returned from war: a cleanse of fire and water.  American culture has no such rituals.”