John Piper is a boy, so John Piper wants God to be a boy. Silly, silly boy. J.R. Daniel Kirk points out that the Bible does not let Christians claim that God is a boy. Sarah Moon notes that folks like Piper don’t seem to know much about women [fixed]. Paul at Disoriented-Reoriented notes that Piper also doesn’t seem to know much about Christian history. (Those last two links via Dianna E. Anderson.) It’s conventional to note that John Piper... Read more
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson: “Biblical Economic Justice: Supply and Demand Isn’t Enough“ The Bible itself provides ample examples of laws that modify the unbridled rights of property owners: we are commanded to leave the corners of our fields unharvested, and to harvest our crops but once. Any remaining produce becomes the property of the poor, and they are legally entitled to access to that yield. Mandatory funds are established so the poor can sustain themselves, and the rich were obligated... Read more
Ellen DeGeneres is very funny. She’s also endearingly self-deprecating, kind, honest and just sort of all-around adorable. Hiring her as a spokesperson is thus a smart move for JCPenney. And trying to whip up a culture-war tempest over that hiring is a really, really dumb move for the American Family Association. I’ll link to the E!-News story on this, because that seems appropriate — “JCPenney Hires Ellen DeGeneres, Gets Heat From Anti-Gay Group“: Ellen DeGeneres has won 16 Daytime Emmys... Read more
“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.” — Mark Twain Reformed Broker: “Inside the Credit Card Robosigning Scandal“ Credit card accounts get charged-off when a customer falls several months behind on payment. The issuer then sends the file to a collection unit, either an internal division or a debt collection company that it’s hired. If the issuer still can’t get the customer... Read more
Shortly after I picked up the first book in the Left Behind series, but before I’d started writing about it, I wrote a post about the otherworldly strain of escapism in American Christianity. That otherworldliness, I argued, derives from the untenable history of trying to belong to a church that included both slaves and slaveowners. I titled that post “In the sweet by and by,” enlisting the name of an old Southern Gospel hymn that embodied that otherworldly outlook. I... Read more
Attacking, demonizing and defunding Planned Parenthood, therefore, costs lives. The lives of women and children. Mostly, but not only, poor women and children. So if you tell me you dislike or disapprove of or oppose Planned Parenthood because you are “pro-life” I will be forced to conclude that you are using words you do not understand. Perhaps you do not understand what the words “Planned Parenthood” refer to — maybe you’ve been horribly misled about the work that vital organization... Read more
Today is the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s Candlemas, Imbolc and, here in Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is a strange little tradition, an annual non-holiday marking the midway point of winter and the hope for a coming spring. “If Candlemas be bright and clear / There’ll be two winters in the year,” the old saying said, and somehow we came to decide that a furry garden pest would serve as the definitive arbiter... Read more
If you’re not already following the Tea Party Jesus tumblr, start doing so now. The formula is as jarringly effective as it is simple: Take verbatim quotes from public figures in politics and religion and place them in the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth. The example here shows how this works. The quote is from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “I’m not concerned with the very poor,” Romney said this morning on CNN. That’s appalling. I didn’t need any help... Read more
Last month, NASA reported that 2011 was the ninth-warmest year on record: The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around... Read more
The prefix ‘pro-‘ was nounced dead Tuesday after suffering from what grammatical fessionals describe as longed strain and abuse. Officials have ruled the death a homicide. “It was such a positive, upbeat little prefix,” said Dr. Elaine McKenzie, chief coroner for the Oxford English Dictionary and a lific author. “But there’s only so much twisting and straining a word can endure.” Years of imper use and tracted, found abuse had a gressive, cumulative effect, McKenzie said. The final, fatal blow... Read more
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