Hark, what peaceful music rings

Last updated on: October 13, 2011 at 10:34 pm By Fred Clark

College is not a financial investment

Last updated on: October 13, 2011 at 4:43 pm By Fred Clark

James K.A. Smith casts a skeptical eye toward the latest figures allegedly showing the economic value of a college education. Smith, we should note, teaches philosophy at Calvin College, and this he has a personal stake in countering this idea of college as an “investment” in higher future income. It that’s what higher education is for, after all, then there’s no point in anyone studying philosophy. (I forget the name of the stand-up comic who joked about majoring in philosophy,... Read more

Let's go out to the lake, Earl

Last updated on: October 12, 2011 at 3:46 pm By Fred Clark

Last night, Republicans used a procedural maneuver to block a vote in the United States Senate on that American Jobs Act. That bill would, among other things, provide $85 billion in aid to cash-strapped state and local governments. It’s not entirely coincidental, then, that it was also last night that the City of Harrisburg, Pa., filed for bankruptcy. This budget crunch isn’t unique to Pennsylvania’s state capital. In Highland Park, Mich., the majority of street lights have been removed as... Read more

Debate fact-checking

Last updated on: October 12, 2011 at 11:57 am By Fred Clark

Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up. I’m not a fan of designated “fact-checking” reports following speeches and political debates. Either every report from that paper, station or site checks the facts or else none of their reports can be trusted to do so. This was a widely shared complaint when I worked in... Read more

You just call out my name

Last updated on: October 12, 2011 at 1:21 am By Fred Clark

“You just call out my name,” James Taylor sings, “and you know where ever I am / I’ll come running …” You’ve likely said something similar to someone at some point. “If you ever need me, I’ll be there for you.” That, as Taylor says, is the mark of a friend. But is it really? Because if that’s what it means to tell someone “You’ve got a friend,” then this is something that none of us can ever say to... Read more

TF: A clandestine meeting

Last updated on: October 10, 2011 at 10:39 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 423-425 A key thing to remember about the post-Rapture world of this book is that all the good people are gone. Apart from a handful of characters we know by name, everyone else on Earth is a sinful fool who obstinately rejects God in the face of overwhelming evidence. This is important to keep in mind as we read the final chapter of Tribulation Force, because unless we accept and embrace that premise, the events about to... Read more

Liberal bloggers did not stage the Values Voter Summit

Last updated on: October 10, 2011 at 3:08 pm By Fred Clark

TalkingPointsMemo has a slideshow of exhibitors booths from the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. If you want to see pictures of the featured speakers at the event, check any newspaper or turn on the TV news — with every major Republican candidate for president showing up to speak and to court the conservative evangelical voting bloc represented by this “summit” it was pretty big news. I just want to point out again that the Family Research Council is not... Read more

Leftover Links

Last updated on: October 10, 2011 at 1:02 am By Fred Clark

Spent way too much time last week piling up rocks and too little time posting about all the stuff I’d bookmarked. There are three words in the name of Grace Fellowship Church, but it seems that the pastor and deacons of the Tennessee congregation don’t understand what any of those words mean: “Assault Complaints Filed After Incident at Church.” A gay Gibson County couple said they were assaulted when they tried to attend church services at the Grace Fellowship Church... Read more

David Barton is more influential than Jim Wallis

Last updated on: October 9, 2011 at 7:53 pm By Fred Clark

I am an evangelical Christian. So are David Barton, Tim LaHaye, Al Mohler and C. Peter Wagner. Apart from our shared faith, there are very few opinions I share with those four men. Nearly all of what they have to say about church and state, pluralism, science, economics and social justice gives me the howling fantods. And yet it remains the case that all five of us are evangelical Christians. I suppose I could just pretend that David Barton, Tim... Read more

Sunday favorites

Last updated on: October 9, 2011 at 6:00 am By Fred Clark

Philippians 2:3-8 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.... Read more

What sea bordered the land of Canaan to the west?