The lights are down, the tree is gone, and the needles have been vacuumed off the living room floor. Busy day. Between trips to the attic, I watched the Broncos-Steelers game. After complaining about Tim Tebow’s ostentatious disregard for Matthew 6:5-6, it was odd rooting for him. But a rule is a rule, and I always root against the Steelers and the Lakers, for the same reason. My unofficial theological view: Tebow winning is not a miracle; Roethlisberger losing may... Read more
1 Corinthians 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. Read more
The WordPress platform I’m using here allows me to “tag” posts with keywords, thereby creating category indices for each tag. Unfortunately, I wasn’t using WordPress for the first eight years of this blog and so those older posts aren’t tagged. Plus it’s taken me a while to get the hang of how best to use such tags, so even most of the newer posts aren’t tagged (or aren’t tagged in the most helpful way). So in the months ahead, I’m... Read more
OK, let’s step aside from politics and religion (mostly) for a moment and talk about comic book superheroes and Doctor Who. Because we can. Like most people who are fans of comics and/or Joss Whedon, I’m geekily excited about the Avengers movie coming out this summer. I was never more than an occasional reader of the Avengers comics, but those characters made an impressive appearance in one of my all-time favorite comic book stories — the 1986 Daredevil “Born Again”... Read more
I’m enjoying the Christian Century’s ongoing “What’s the Gospel in Seven Words?” feature. Some of the responses are whimsical, such as Martin Marty’s “God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow” or Mary Karr’s “We are The Church of Infinite Chances.” Others attempt more theological precision, such as Walter Brueggemann’s “Israel’s God’s bodied love continues world-making,” or Max Stackhouse’s “God enters history; renewed covenants promise salvation.” I’m pleased to see that, overall, these attempts to distill the gospel into seven words... Read more
David Moore at the Burner blog really, really, really does not like Mark Driscoll’s new book about marriage. Moore is not a feminist, or even an “egalitarian,” but he still finds: “This book is an astoundingly unbelievable work of disrespect for women.” It’s good to see that assessment coming from that corner of the evangelical world. I mean, one sort of expects that someone like Rachel Held Evans would find the book immature, chauvinistic and disturbing. Or that she would... Read more
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s epic brain-freeze during a Republican primary debate is often referred to as a “gaffe.” That’s a strange word that gets used strangely — it gets applied to simple misstatements and unintentional double-negatives, to brain-freezes like Perry’s, and to slightly off attempts to praise local culture — such as when a candidate in Philly orders a cheesesteak with provolone, like most natives do, instead of with Cheeze Wiz, like most non-native members of the media imagine most... Read more
So here’s what Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said yesterday in New Hampshire: I will go to the NAACP convention, and tell the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps. For a self-proclaimed “historian,” this is appalling ignorance. Or, at least, ignorance would be the most charitable possible interpretation. But it strains credulity to believe that Newt Gingrich really believes what he said — that he is really so profoundly stupid as to believe that the... Read more
I posted this on Epiphany last year: “Epiphany: One of us.” And since I don’t think I can improve on that this year, I’ll just repeat an excerpt here — For an illustration of what we Christians celebrate on Epiphany, think of the movie Freaky Friday. Either one will do — the original with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris or the remake with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Neither is really a great movie, but they’re both memorable and... Read more
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with “one count of damaging a building by fire or explosive.” But he was not charged with terrorism. Why not? McEwan links to this AP story: “Authorities: Man charged in fire at Florida clinic says he was motivated by dislike for abortion” Authorities say a homeless man charged Thursday with setting a New Year’s Day fire that gutted a family planning clinic told... Read more
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