1. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: First episode of Season 3, featuring a 1959 Fiat Jolly and Louis C.K.’s yacht.
2. Another nice little detail about the Satanic Temple’s protest/performance art application to erect a “Satanic” monument next to the Ten Commandments monument at the state capitol in Oklahoma City.
The proposed statue is a depiction of Baphomet — a goat-headed, goat-footed figure that makes a good Hollywood version of the devil for devil-worshippers. Except Baphomet wasn’t invented by devil-worshippers — Baphomet was invented by the Inquisition as the embodiment of the false accusations laid against their political enemies. In other words, it’s not a symbol of Satan. It’s a symbol of the dishonest tendency the Powers That Be have of accusing others of being Satanic. Well played.
3. Bruce Reyes-Chow offers “10 Tips for Being a Good Ally.” It’s a thoughtful, helpful list that also could — and maybe should — have been called “10 Tips for Being a Good Neighbor.”
4. “Never try to look cool and learn something at the same time. You must have an awkward phase. All of us would like to skip that awkward phase. That is not how it works.”
5. Like many Eastern University students, I spent a few semesters as a volunteer tutor in the after-school programs run by EAPE. That after-school tutoring was just one of many programs and projects started, tried, tested or replicated by the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education — also known as “Tony’s thing.” Tony was Tony Campolo — evangelist, raconteur, activist and sociology professor. And as he gets ready to celebrate his 79th birthday, Tony has decided it’s time to end the run for Tony’s thing: “Tony Campolo to Close Mission Organization, EAPE.”
6. Richard Rohr on reading the Bible like (and through) Jesus:
You deserve to know my science for interpreting sacred texts. It is called a “hermeneutic.” Without an honest and declared hermeneutic, we have no consistency or authority in our interpretation of the Bible. My methodology is very simple; I will try to interpret Scripture the way that Jesus did.
Even more than telling us exactly what to see in the Scriptures, Jesus taught us how to see, what to emphasize, and also what could be de-emphasized, or even ignored. Jesus is himself our hermeneutic, and he was in no way a fundamentalist or literalist. He was a man of the Spirit. Just watch him and watch how he does it (which means you must have some knowledge of hisScriptures!).
Jesus consistently ignored or even denied exclusionary, punitive, and triumphalistic texts in his own Jewish Bible in favor of texts that emphasized inclusion, mercy, and justice for the oppressed. He had a deeper and wider eye that knew what passages were creating a highway for God and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, and legalistic additions. When Christians state that every line in the Bible is of equal importance and inspiration, they are being very unlike Jesus.
7. Blogging on Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job.
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