The congregation of Saddleback Church includes hundreds of women who rely on Planned Parenthood for health care they cannot afford to get elsewhere. But if punching down at the less-wealthy women in his congregation is the price of indulging in smug self-congratulation, that's a price that "pastor" Rick Warren is happy to pay. Read more
This is that thing where you just post a bunch of links to other stuff because you woke up to find you'll be spending the morning shoveling snow instead of writing that thing you were going to write about Michele Bachmann and Rick Warren. Read more
That’s how Rob Bell reads the Bible. And that’s how Eugene Peterson reads the Bible. And that’s how I read the Bible. “Everything has to be interpreted through Christ,” Peterson said. Read more
Leftover links and observations from the week that was, including: the Geico pig vs. the Lucky Tiger; back to school; surveys I'd like to see; the quest for the Golden Poo; why 2 Timothy 3:16 doesn't convince people to believe 2 Timothy 3:16; cleaning up brownfields; what it means to be almost a pacifist; a life, in boxes; and why the highest paid outfielder for my favorite team is a 50-year-old man who hasn't played in more than a decade. Read more
Hosea 11:1-11: "My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath." Read more
Note that the abortion rate among evangelical Christians is indistinguishable from the abortion rate of the rest of the population. That may tell us more about likely actual voting behavior than any issue-oriented polling does. Read more
Evangelism is an invitation, not an imposition. It is a form of hospitality. Hospitality never involves ganging up on the outsider and bloodying their nose. (Violently ganging up on the outsider is, in fact, what got Sodom and Gomorrah in so much trouble.) Read more
Taken by itself, the beginning of Chapter 7 is almost bearable. Unfortunately, though, we can't take this passage entirely by itself. Chapter 7 follows the previous six chapters, and those were pretty eventful -- at least in terms of body count. Read more
It's the Friday music game -- I'll show you mine and you show me yours. Today it's more songs with names in the title, names starting with D or E this week, including: Danny, Desmond, Don Juan, Earl, Ed, Eddie, Eileen, Eleanor, Eli, Elie, Elliot, Elly, Emily, Emma, Eugene, Evangeline and Evelyn. Read more
Contrast the sports section with the alleged "hard" news sections of the newspaper. Here the facts are rarely stated as plainly or as confidently as "Texas Tech 71, Gonzaga 69." Instead, all claims are treated as equally valid by virtue of the fact that someone is claiming them. News reporters consider it their responsibility to quote these claims accurately, not to evaluate them against any notion of knowable reality or anything as seemingly objective as a scoreboard. Read more
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