Tone is always irrelevant when you're telling someone that you are not capable of welcoming people like them. It's never possible to exclude people nicely. It's the act that wounds, not the words that dress it up. Jesus is telling this woman that he is not capable of welcoming her. He is telling her that he will not heal her sick daughter. No words can make that worse and no words can make it better. Read more
We've got an overnight car chase with comically absurdist dialogue, jokes about cigarette lighters, and providential mayhem in the service of a divine mission. Am I just imagining this, or is proud Chicagoan Jerry Jenkins deliberately referencing "The Blues Brothers" here? Read more
"Are we capable of welcoming these people?" the Synod on the Family asks. It's a question Christians have been asking since at least the book of Acts. It's also a yes-or-no question, and for the Vatican, both those answers still seem in play. Read more
Monday Night Linkball, including: marriage equality in another coastal elite enclave; endorsing torture makes you a dumb boy, not a Bad Boy; Charisma magazine and other forms of astrology; paying per laugh; and Jim Bob Duggar: birth control expert. Read more
History professor and blogger John Fea recognizes the significance of cultural definitions for evangelical Christianity. He's come up with a semi-serious, Foxworthian quiz to sketch the subcultural outlines and he's invited us to play along. Invitation accepted! Here's Dr. Fea's quiz, with my answers. Read more
Hell Houses are an irredeemably bad idea -- a combination of the very worst forms of evangelism with the very worst forms of community theater. The only thing worse than their warped soteriology and eschatology is their stunted, politicized, culturally shaped notion of what constitutes human sin. They're so very awful and cruel that some might be tempted to respond by, perhaps, Creating a Scene. Read more
Far too many thoughts about the first episode of "The Flash," plus: 6,000 spiders; the TSA encounters a Nobel Prize; the big difference between over and on; patriotic secessionists; and missiology for scientists. Read more
" ... a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak ..." Read more
"Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." Read more
Some Friday night links, because of the angels, including: "Ideomotor Effect: The Movie;" the continuing scourge of white-on-white violence; Riley Finn and Tywin Lannister; Obama fulfills Romney's campaign promise in half the time; and the BBC goes a bit nutty over "Pet Sounds." Read more
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