Klingon Christians

Last updated on: May 25, 2014 at 7:25 pm By James F. McGrath

Morgan Guyton has proposed “Klingon Christians” as a better designation for the Gospel Coalition's brand of conservative Christianity than other labels. I think that the association is deeply offensive…to Klingons. Guyton's point, building on observations by Pete Enns, is that this is a brand of warrior Christianity. And that is an unimportant point to make, as one of the appealing aspects of conservative born-again Christianity is the notion that everyday life is a battlefield of the forces between good and... Read more

Givers and Takers

Last updated on: May 25, 2014 at 10:14 am By James F. McGrath

Doubt in Faith’s Clothing

Last updated on: May 25, 2014 at 8:45 am By James F. McGrath

The quote comes from a 2009 post “Doubt in Faith’s Clothing,” which points out that what fundamentalists call “faith” actually looks a lot more like doubt, and vice versa. Read more

Doctor Who: The Green Death

Last updated on: May 25, 2014 at 8:35 am By James F. McGrath

The Doctor Who episode from the Jon Pertwee era, “The Green Death,” witnesses the departure of Jo Grant. It explores matters of environmentalism and big business in a way that will be a theme again in “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” in the subsequent season. The episode highlights early on the challenge of bringing about social change, as it depicts professor Jones’ concern for workers exploited for the profit of companies on the one hand, and workers who insist that they... Read more

No Signal

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 2:54 pm By James F. McGrath

Marc Cortez shared the above cartoon, and it seemed to me quite poignant. It is easy to judge others – those who spend what seems like too much time on their phones, and those who refuse to embrace new technology; those who seem calm when the circumstances require panic, and those who seem panicked when the circumstances require calm. It takes a lot to appreciate that the person who is responding to a situation differently than we are most likely... Read more

Conservative Hypocrisy

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 10:25 am By James F. McGrath

I’ve found a couple of recent posts on Mike Bird’s blog frustrating. First, there was one called “The Problem With Liberal Churches” which quoted Addison Hodges Hart on Strangers and Pilgrims Once More: Being Disciples of Jesus in a Post-Christendom World (p.116): Mainline (“liberal”) Protestantism, meantime, continues to evaporate like an insubstantial morning mist. Left-wing in politics, “nice,” bland, ineffective, graying, vague in message, spineless in matters of sexual morality, and doctrinally vaporous, it has little spark left within it and suffers... Read more

Stormtroopers Go To Church

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 9:43 am By James F. McGrath

Via The Sacred Sandwich Read more

Poetry is Sane

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 8:43 am By James F. McGrath

Via Billy Kangas, who also shares a link to Chesterton's book Orthodoxy, the source of the quote, free for Kindle. Read more

Palestine

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 7:44 am By James F. McGrath

My recent trip to Israel included the West Bank. It was interesting to hear locals talk about the future of the region, and also overhear American Christians who spoke in very sweeping terms about “standing with Israel” in a manner that lacks not only nuance, but any actual understanding of the realities or the history. And so when Benjamin Corey posted about Christians in the United States being a barrier to peace in the Middle East, it resonated with me.... Read more

Exciting New Footage From Doctor Who

Last updated on: May 23, 2014 at 6:07 pm By James F. McGrath

Just kidding. The above video, as IO9 points out, is nothing but a silhouette of Peter Capaldi. A teaser trailer needs to be a trailer and not just a teaser. What are you expecting from the new Doctor, when Doctor Who starts up again in August? Read more