The lights are down, the tree is gone, and the needles have been vacuumed off the living room floor. Busy day.
Between trips to the attic, I watched the Broncos-Steelers game. After complaining about Tim Tebow’s ostentatious disregard for Matthew 6:5-6, it was odd rooting for him. But a rule is a rule, and I always root against the Steelers and the Lakers, for the same reason.
My unofficial theological view: Tebow winning is not a miracle; Roethlisberger losing may well be a small dose of karma.
Below are a few of the things I would’ve linked to sooner or written about more had I not been unhanging the stockings from the chimney with care.
Zach Hunt: “The Martyr Complex”
There is an epidemic in the church. It’s infecting people on every level from the most obscure lay person to the biggest celebrity preacher. And it’s spreading.
It’s called “the martyr complex” and it’s more powerful and more contagious than anything the CDC has a vaccine for.
Chris the Cynic looks at the news from Hungary:
Sometimes in my country there is talk of a war on religion. For all the talk about there being a war on religion, there isn’t. Even if there were, somehow I don’t think the aggressors would manage to take out 95 percent of religions in the US with the first volley. And yet, that’s what has happened in Hungary. Those 95 percent are being told they don’t count anymore. I haven’t checked this, but I’m guessing the people who got rid of the other 95 percent are in the remaining 5 percent and quite happy to leave those religions untouched.
AFL-CIO: “NFL Players Assoc. Says Indiana Should Sack ‘Right to Work’ Bill”
The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) today urged the Indiana state legislature to reject a so-called right to work bill that the union says is a “political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights. It’s not about jobs or rights.”
“NFL players know what it means to fight for workers’ rights, better pensions and health and safety in the workplace. To win, we have to work together and look out for one another.”
Peter Wirzbicki reminds us of what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about “right to work” laws:
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as “right to work.” It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. It is supported by Southern segregationists who are trying to keep us from achieving our civil rights and our right of equal job opportunity. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. … Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.
James F. McGrath shares this quote from C.S. Lewis, discussing the slaughter of the Canaanites in the Bible:
The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two.
Internet Monk revisits an old post from Michael Spencer:
When I was in my first regular preaching gig at age 18, I tried to preach on the prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks. An old man stood up about half way through and said, “We have no idea what you are talking about, son.” Thanks to that man, I abandoned dispensationalism.
“The End of the Road: The Infrastructurist’s Last Post”
In a better world, that fine blog would be closing up shop only because the small-minded, Norquistian fools had been laughed out of office and we’d finally decided to invest in America. But, alas, we’re still intent on cutting taxes and cutting more taxes, refusing all responsibility for maintenance and investment and using up all the infrastructural capital our grandparents left us. We’ll let our own grandchildren fend for themselves with whatever’s left of those mid-20th-century bridges, tunnels, water mains, power grids, railroads, ports, airports, highways, levees, etc. And now, sadly, we won’t even have the Infrastructurist around to chronicle the gradual collapse.
Charles McGrath: “How Many Stephen Colberts Are There?”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
An article on Page 20 this weekend about Stephen Colbert misspells part of the title of a segment from “The Daily Show” that featured him when he was a regular performer on the program. It was “Even Stevphen,” not Stephven.
Jennifer Hancock’s “Seven Things to Avoid When Talking to Strangers about Humanism” is a wise piece of, for want of a better word, missiology.
Larry Shallenberger: “We were hatched into a nest full of snakes.”
George State Rep. Judy Manning really, really doesn’t know what “pluralism” means.
Teresa Wiltz: “Race and the GOP race”
Grist: “The world’s tallest treehouse“
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