• Lisa Sharon Harper: “The speaker asked how many could share the names and stories of a few of their neighbors. Only about three people in an audience of about 200 raised their hands. This was a missional conference.”
• Thank you, Sulagna Misra, for telling me about Steve Rogers Is Historically Accurate, which is a fascinatingly obsessive Tumblr about American history, American ideals, and what it means to be a hero. It ranges from delightful questions of social history — how did Steve learn how to drive? would he have a license? — to reflections from Simone Weil: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
See also Doctor Science on “My Dad and the superhero.”
• Canis soup.
• “The Ten Commandments is a historical document and it has nothing to do with religion,” says Tim Guffey, a Republican county commissioner in Alabama.
I’m pretty sure Moses would disagree. I’m pretty sure Tim Guffey’s pastor would disagree. But then I’m also pretty sure that if Guffey’s pastor were to preach on Exodus 20, Guffey would be unlikely to walk out in protest because “The Ten Commandments … has nothing to do with religion” and such obviously secular subjects have no place in a Sunday sermon.
• This looks interesting: Damned Nation: Hell in America From the Revolution to Reconstruction, by Kathryn Gin Lum. This is history, not theology, but it’s the kind of history that recognizes that theological views tend to shape history. As Lum tells John Fea: “Damned Nation treats the fear of hell as a powerful motivating belief, on par with the political and economic ideologies much more commonly treated by historians.”
• “If he’s not fit to serve, then I am not fit to serve.”
But the firing did not sit well with the parishioners of Holy Family, many of whom expressed their displeasure to church officials. The protest became serious enough that [the] Rev. Keehan called what he termed a “Town Hall Meeting for Listening and Respect,” so parishioners on both sides of the issue could vent their views. Roughly 700 interested parishioners showed up.
Reporters were not allowed in the meeting, but those who attended said the sentiment was strongly in favor of rehiring Colin, who was given a standing ovation as he entered. Kevin Keane, the church’s cantor, quit his position in protest of Colin’s firing, telling a panel of church officials that included representatives of the Catholic archdiocese: “He has given his entire life to the church. That leads me to the conclusion if he’s not fit to serve, then I am not fit to serve.”
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