The hotel I stayed at in Washington, D.C., was hosting a convention of the National Association of Black State Legislators. It seemed like a good party, but with all those folks gathered there, I started to worry about what might be going on back home — "Yeah, Earl, they're gone for three days. It's just us. Time to convene that 'Special Session' we talked about …"
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I provided the generic Sojonet link earlier for Call to Renewal. But that group also has its own site at Calltorenewal.org.
I also learned during my trip that another of my favorite organizations, Bread for the World, has started a blog for its student chapters.
Both of these groups have current projects that are worthy of support. Bread has just released its 2006 Hunger Report, which focuses on the importance of nutrition assistance programs. And Call is organizing a series of prayer vigils "for a moral budget."
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In discussing the so-called "War on Christmas" earlier I neglected to link to Giblets' unique perspective, "The True Meaning of the Spirit of the War on Christmas." (See also, from last year here, a reworking of a Charles Krauthammer column about the "War on Solstice." And, from Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee, "Respecting religious diversity during the holiday season.")
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Rick Perlstein was invited to speak at a conference called, "The Conservative Movement: Its Past, Present and Future." He doesn't expect to be invited back.
And while you're at Arianna's, be sure to check out Bradley Whitford's post, "Get the IRS Out of My Church."
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On Friday, our seminary-student trip visited the lovely, DeVos-funded offices of the Family Research Center. We had hoped to stop by there the day before, but they were closed Thursday in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. (OK, no, that's not true.)
They did seem a little unnerved to learn that we had previously stopped by the offices of the BJC and, even worse, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. FRC's Peter Sprigg — who is a candid, likable fellow — had just been on MSNBC the day before in a cable-news-shouting-match with Barry Lynn about the supposed "War on Christmas."
The FRC offices also house the Washington branch of the Alliance Defense Fund or, as I like to call them, Trial Lawyers for Jesus.
One of the cases they're currently pursuing involves a public school student who got in trouble for giving her classmates candy canes with Christmas Bible verses attached. This may be a clumsy and gimmicky form of evangelism, but the TLJ is right to defend such students. They don't like to talk about it, but they have the support, in such free exercise cases, of the ACLU. The difference between the two groups is that the ACLU would defend such students, but would oppose any such efforts by a public-school teacher. I'm not sure the TLJ is capable of making that distinction.
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CJR's Evan Jenkins touches on one of my pet peeves in his Language Corner column:
What does “beg the question” really mean?
The term comes from formal debating and denotes the classic fallacy in logic of proving a point by using a premise that has not, itself, been proven. (In law, a commonly heard objection to such maneuvers is “Assumes a fact not in evidence.”) …
In our time the phrase has become popularly understood — it apparently sounds good to a lot of people — to mean to duck a question, or to raise or imply a question that cries out for an answer. For example (among thousands), a pundit on the American presence in Iraq: “It then begs the question, if we’re going to stay the course, what’s the course?”
We don’t need “beg the question” for such meanings, and it’s sometimes useful in its original sense. Whether that sense will ever again prevail seems, at best, debatable.
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She Got Game
Where I work, the biggest sports rivalry isn't at the professional or the collegiate level. It's in high school basketball. It's in girls high school basketball, which is kind of cool. Here's why.
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Something I've always wondered: Why is there a prominently displayed Amnesty International poster on the wall of the Smallville Medical Center? I'm glad it's there, but it's kind of odd …
Your husband will be out of surgery shortly, Mrs. Kent. Perhaps while you wait you'd like to compose a short letter to Kim Jong-Il.
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I don't closely follow the polls tracking President Bush's approval ratings (and I'm not sure I fully understand the "pony" reference), but I am interested in discussions of George W. Bush's place in history.
That place, it turns out, is the focus of intense debate among historians. Most, it seems, regard him as the Worst President of All Time. But many also disagree, arguing that he is Not Quite As Bad As James Buchanan.
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"How to End the World on a Budget": Slate's Grady Hendrix looks at the Left Behind movies from Peter and Paul Lalonde.
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One of the many pleasures of Walk the Line was seeing former Sunnydale Razorback and White-Hatter Larry Bagby as a member of the Tennessee Two. Here's a sweet, fannish appreciation of his Buffy character from Hellmouth Central.
"Larry Blaisdell" uttered one of my favorite lines on the show: "This is our year, I'm telling you. Best football season ever. … If we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite so many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is gonna rule!"
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Walk the Line also features what's probably my favorite Reese Witherspoon performance since Freeway. That delirious take on Little Red Riding Hood, written and directed by Matthew Bright, includes the most disturbingly hilarious piece of evangelism in a movie not produced by the Lalonde brothers.
In this Flannery O'Connor-ish scene, Reese has taken the gun from her would-be rapist and murderer, Keifer Sutherland. She points the gun at his head and says: "This is a crucial question, Bob. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and take him for your personal savior?"
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Speaking of misguided attempts at evangelism, have you heard about the German youth group that's hoping to spur interest in Christianity through its self-produced Bible Calendar?
That link, by the way, is not safe for work, because the Bibel Kalender in question includes topless photos of members of the youth group re-enacting scenes from biblical stories such as Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba and Salome. "We all agreed," the Lutheran youth pastor from Katzwang writes, "that we would not forcefully take Bible scenes and portray them nude but to take such scenes in which nudity was already present."
The calendar omits one of my favorite such scenes: the woefully neglected story of Jael. Like Mary, she is called "most blessed of women." Why? She seduced the general of an invading army, then, while he slept in her tent: "Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died."
If they ever make a movie of that, I think Reese Witherspoon should play Jael.
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In an effort to cut down on comment spam, I've closed comments on the older posts here — with the exception of the Left Behind series. (Good suggestion, Ray, thanks.)
If you find you have something urgent to say about a post from before October, feel free to add it to one of the current discussions. But if you've been coming to this site primarily to learn about Discount Pet Medications or Dental Insurance, you may have to start looking elsewhere.
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