Fifteen years ago I believed that white evangelicals' antipathy to environmentalism was due to a lack of familiarity with the facts and the evidence, or to an innocent failure to grasp the essential idea of stewardship in Christian theology. Ten years ago I thought maybe it was due to our failure to present those facts and that theology in a winsome, persuasive manner. Now I just think, feh. Read more
Here are a dozen more pieces of good news -- a dozen more reasons to celebrate, including: 50 years of progress on child mortality; everybody is filing amicus briefs in support of marriage equality; big comebacks for VAWA, housing and the Thin White Duke; Sleazemeisters Gone Bankrupt; Muslims defend free speech; a functional cure for an HIV+ child; and an IFO makes an appearance this week. Read more
The story of Noah is particularly tempting for a certain kind of illiteralist reader. The book of Genesis doesn't just tell us that Noah built an ark, it gives us specs for the project. For the sort of person who reads the Bible with an utter lack of concern for meaning, that passage presents an irresistible temptation. Read more
We're not all doing this on purpose. I suspect that the misuse of "it's" is far more common than the misuse of "its," not because of any confusing over the distinction, but because it's so habitual. It's just too easy to add that apostrophe whether it's in its proper place or not. Read more
Ta-Nehisi Coates finds grim comfort in the horrors of history; Kathleen Geier on how big banks use payday lenders to boost their own overdraft scam; Rosemary Radford Ruether on men's ordination; John McKay on economic populism; and Will Bunch looks at a teachable moment in Philadelphia. Read more
While the playing fields of Dodgertown were integrated in 1948, the rest of Vero Beach -- and the rest of spring training -- was not. This was still the segregated South. This was still Jim Crow. And it would stay that way for another 14 seasons -- until after the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles, until years after Jackie Robinson retired. Read more
That distinction, I think, clarifies why so many conversations about this topic and this question seem so confused and confusing. Those conversations take place between people in vastly different contexts, between people who identify with vastly different contexts. For those in the former context, this question seems rational, reasonable, and "understandable." For those in the latter context, it seems ridiculous and offensive. Read more
If anything good might have come from the ongoing horror show of the Catholic sex-abuse scandal and its coverup, I had thought it might be at least that other institutions could learn from it. The Catholic church was providing a vivid lesson in what not to do, and I had hoped that such a prominent, infamous example would be something other institutions would have to notice and to remember if they should ever discover abusers and predators within their own ranks. But no. Read more
A killer PSA about ID thieves and other charlatans, plus some Wednesday morning links, including: "Never forget that they were wrong;" humility should aid justice, not hinder it; incarnation; "a certain crossroads;" Spock chimes in; a shining city on a hill; why mosquitoes are winning; and what peanut butter can do to hotel plumbing. Read more
One factor that can drastically lower a person's credit score is if they are unemployed. This means that the mere fact that you need a job is now considered, by some companies, to be a reason not to give you one. Didn't poor people face enough Catch-22s already without these idiots having to invent a new one? Read more
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