David Hayward shared the above cartoon he created, which depicts a rather literal cookie-cutter type of entrance to the kingdom. The fact that the kingdom’s inhabitants are thus low-budget robots is not without symbolic significance. Once they get in, they sing “Just as I am” – but obviously they have only been accepted “just as they are” because they already fit a particular mode. This gets at one of the real challenges for progressive and liberal churches. While we want... Read more
In response to an insightful comment on my post “Church Cocoon” I wrote the following: It may be that we are being unfair to individual churches when we expect them to be everything Christians need throughout their lives. Maternity wards are great places to be born, but may not be the best places to grow up. A recent post at Internet Monk explored a similar point. What do blog readers think? Can any one institution or community, whether a church or... Read more
This is the follow-up to my song parody about online learning, “Message Sent on Moodle,” although I actually had the idea for doing a parody of “From a Distance” on this topic first. Hope you enjoy it. Here are the lyrics: From A Distance From a distance An online course can seem Like something that can be done with ease From a distance The flexibility Can mislead you to think online means a breeze But from a distance There is... Read more
Tony Burke shared this call for papers on his blog: York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series 2015 “Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions” Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha September 24-26, 2015 We are pleased to announce the third of a series of symposia on the Christian Apocrypha hosted by the Department of the Humanities at York University in Toronto, Canada and taking place September 24 to 26, 2015. The 2015 symposium will examine the possible motivations behind the production of Christian... Read more
The above t-shirt came to my attention via Facebook. I certainly do want to acknowledge that there are some “mega-churches” which do in fact look like charities and not like businesses. Sometimes precisely for that reason, they won’t look like or be characterized as “mega-churches.” But are they the exception, or the rule? One can’t judge that based on anecdotal evidence. So why not share what information you have, and whether you think the t-shirt gets it right or not, so... Read more
I went back to GenCon for family fun day today with family and friends. Not only is GenCon now over, but so is the war between major science fiction and comic book franchises. Here is photographic evidence to prove it: There was also a close encounter between this Starfleet officer and a Dalek: And here’s one costume from yesterday that stood out as particularly amusing: Read more
The fact is that “scriptura” by its very nature is a book that people read, so it cannot stand “sola” — alone and isolated from the humans who read it. Every time we read the Bible, we are seeing it through the windows of our own experience, and understanding it according to our own reasoning. And this practically always encompasses at least some church tradition regarding how to understand the text. So sola scriptura, instead of giving us an objective means for... Read more
HT Danut Manastireanu Read more
I spent today at GenCon, and thought I’d share some thoughts and photos. The first thing I went to was a seminar on “Playful Learning in Role Play” led by David Simkins, a professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The session had elements that were inspiring and thought provoking. Simkins offered helpful definitions of key concepts, an insightful statement of the fact that learning and play are not in fact distinct, as... Read more
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