By the time he was my age, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been dead for three years. Read more
By the time he was my age, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been dead for three years. Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 229-231 Before Left Behind there was Hal Lindsey. His 1970s best-sellers — The Late Great Planet Earth and There's a New World Coming — were just as big a publishing phenomenon, selling millions of copies even without the aid of distribution through the mainstream outlets like Walmart and Barnes & Noble that helped boost sales of the Left Behind series. Lindsey, a former tugboat captain turned prophecy expert at Dallas Theological Seminary, popularized premillennial dispensationalism and its... Read more
And all I have to do today is make you happy … "Beautiful," Aimee Mann"Beautiful Child," Eurythmics"Beautiful Day," U2"Beautiful Dream Visions," Sarah Masen"Beautiful Girl," Aztec Camera"Beautiful One," Daniel Amos"The Beautiful Ones," Prince and the Revolution"Beautiful Rain," The BoDeans"Beautiful World," Coldplay"Beauty and Sadness," The Smithereens Hearing Sammy BoDean (Sam Llanas) sing all 10 of these songs would make me very happy. Read more
When you greet a stranger look at his shoesKeep your money in your shoes … A few times a week I get an e-mail or a drive-by comment from someone very upset that I'm defending or advocating for a position they regard as contrary to the Bible. This happens often. Regularly. Constantly. Yet as often as it happens, none of my accusers has ever been angry that I seem to be "glibly dismissive" of the clear biblical teaching of Luke... Read more
Atrios points to this response from the Center for Economic and Policy Research to Robert J. Samuelson's Washington Post column in which he argues that America's poor are lucky duckies because, among other things, they have microwaves and cellphones. Samuelson regards cellphones as a luxury item. Which is to say, in 2010, that Robert J. Samuelson regards having a telephone as a luxury item. Here, for Mr. Samuelson's benefit, is a screencap from McDonald's online application for a crew member... Read more
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the South Shore Bank I had serious reservations before taking my first job out of college. It was, without a doubt, a do-gooder, hopey-changey gig — an internship in the social ministries department of a national Protestant denomination. Most of the work would involve anti-Apartheid activism or lobbying corporations for better environmental practices. And part of the job involved overseeing the denomination's "alternative investments" portfolio. This was mostly George Bailey-type stuff... Read more
I think I'll stick around and show a little faith in this weary town … "Adam Raised a Cain," Bruce Springsteen"Addicted to Love," Ciccone Youth"Adia," Sarah McLachlan"Adore," Prince"Adrian," Jewel"Adventure Rocket Ship," Robyn Hitchcock"Aeroplane," The Everybodyfields"An Affair to Remember," Soundtrack"African Shadow Man," Johnny Clegg & Savuka"After the Flood," Lone Justice Kind of a narrow alphabetical range, but I couldn't resist. I've been seeing lots of ads lately for some new wonder-drug to treat "Shift-Work Syndrome." Here I thought I just had... Read more
I've just finished listening to Dr. David Blight's lectures on "The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877" via Yale's Open University. I couldn't afford to audit a class at Yale, and commuting to New Haven would not have been convenient. Yet this was free and easy. It's almost as though this elite Ivy League institution has forgotten its mission to be all snooty and exclusive. (I keep picturing Kelly Bishop as Emily Gilmore storming into an office and demanding an... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 219-226 Our scene opens with Rayford and Chloe breathlessly gathering around the television for a CNN special breaking-news report: President Fitzhugh has just announced that he is lending the plane that was to become his new Air Force One to the United Nations for use by Nicolae Carpathia. This is big news for Rayford, specifically, but it's a bit baffling as to why the authors think it would otherwise be newsworthy.* The way they tell it, CNN's... Read more
Consider this an early Monday open thread. I'm told some of the current comment threads have gotten a bit tense, and while I don't know what the issue(s) of contention is/are, I'm confident it's not pie. Who doesn't like pie? Like this delicious-looking blueberry pie, for example — — blueberry pie may be the tastiest form of conflict resolution there is. Also, without wanting to impose any restrictions or enforced topics on this hopefully conciliatory peace-pie open thread, I do... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In