First, the good news

Last updated on: February 21, 2012 at 1:22 am By Fred Clark

Good news, glad tidings and other otherwise delightful, happy or amusing stuff from recent days. Keith Humphreys reminds us that many men of the cloth don’t spend their days testifying before Congress in all-male panels dedicated to denying rights to women — “Christianity and the Least of Us“: This week’s Economist article about the remarkable work of Jesuit Priest Greg Boyle could thus not be better timed. Father Boyle’s “Homeboy Industries” in Los Angeles has turned around the lives of... Read more

Jubilee: Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Last updated on: February 20, 2012 at 1:01 am By Fred Clark

Internet Monk just celebrated “Jubilee Week: All Grace All the Time!” Jubilee is one of my favorite things. Debts are cancelled. Slaves are set free. Olly olly oxen free. What could be better? First thing that Jesus talked about in his public ministry? Jubilee. It pervades his parables. It’s right there in the prayer he taught us to pray — “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Jubilee is rarely included in discussions of “theories of atonement.” My... Read more

The Münchhausen martyrdom of Rick Warren, Chuck Colson and Fr. Jonathan Morris

Last updated on: June 30, 2015 at 6:08 pm By Fred Clark

These folks aren’t driven by religion. They’re not really even driven by politics. It’s just a big fantasy role-playing game. Rick Warren, Charles Colson, Richard Land and Father Jonathan Morris all might as well be playing World of Warcraft. Let me show you what I mean. Here’s Rick Warren, boasting of his own courage in a tweet allegedly responding to the news that health insurance for women must include health coverage for women: I’d go to jail rather than cave... Read more

Smart people saying smart things

Last updated on: February 19, 2012 at 2:49 pm By Fred Clark

Charlie Pierce: “Austerity: The Beatings Will Continue …“ Austerity has murdered any hope of recovery in the UK. It seems to have done the same thing in Italy. And, in Greece, the citizens of democracy’s birthplace seem to be taking offense at the notion that their first obligation is to punish themselves to make a lot of international bankers whole again, and to cement Angela Merkel’s place in European history, which will be further propped up in Germany by an... Read more

Sunday favorites

Last updated on: February 9, 2012 at 12:05 pm By Fred Clark

Matthew 7:12 In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Read more

I was told there’d be pie …

Last updated on: February 18, 2012 at 10:08 pm By Fred Clark

I forgot the pie. (It’s a tradition. Contentious threads must be followed by pie.) Haven’t got any pie just now, so instead here’s a couple of other things that every right-thinking person enjoys — Martha Plimpton and “Thunder Road”: She’s not the only actress covering this song on YouTube, either. Here’s Jill Hennessy’s version. One more. Jim Boggia: “Well I got this ukelele and I learned how to make it talk …” Read more

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

Last updated on: December 14, 2022 at 11:28 pm By Fred Clark

In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal. Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception. Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it... Read more

Don’t decoy, avoid or make void the topic

Last updated on: February 18, 2012 at 12:06 pm By Fred Clark

Scott Paeth: “Sex for Christians“ From an evangelical perspective, of course, it would be argued in response that sexual fidelity is central to Christian morality, but I’ve got to say that I don’t see it. You can point to Biblical passages that accentuate it, but you can point to other passages where it really is not that big a deal. Certainly in his own teaching and preaching, Jesus had a lot more room for the sexually “impure” than for those... Read more

Different stages of an inevitable justice

Last updated on: February 18, 2012 at 2:20 am By Fred Clark

A first step, a set-back, and a triumph. The Rev. Nadia Bolz Weber: “My testimony at the Colorado Senate Judiciary hearing on civil unions“ Much of the early church were convinced that gentiles could only become Christians if they changed into being Jews first (which, for the record, involved a rather unpleasant process), and much like our first century brothers and sisters there is a segment of the church today who thinks that if we extend the roof of the... Read more

Anthony Shadid (1968-2012)

Last updated on: February 17, 2012 at 9:33 pm By Fred Clark

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid died Thursday, apparently from an asthma attack. He was 43. Shadid was a terrific reporter who displayed enormous intelligence, empathy and curiosity — traits that amplified and enhanced one another in his courageous reporting. Shadid was a frequent guest on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air, someone host Terry Gross often turned to for a deeper and broader examination of developments in the Middle East. The following is from “Fresh Air Remembers War... Read more