I'm a little too young to introspect<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; "spiritual" as a Christian euphemism for unserious and non-binding; keeping out the outsiders still not an effective strategy for church growth; Werewolves of Buenos Aires; plus a few of my favorite things.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I'm a little too young to introspect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; "spiritual" as a Christian euphemism for unserious and non-binding; keeping out the outsiders still not an effective strategy for church growth; Werewolves of Buenos Aires; plus a few of my favorite things.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2014\/12\/WerewolfCurse-190x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/\",\"name\":\"I'm a little too young to introspect\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; 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hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I'm a little too young to introspect","description":"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; \"spiritual\" as a Christian euphemism for unserious and non-binding; keeping out the outsiders still not an effective strategy for church growth; Werewolves of Buenos Aires; plus a few of my favorite things.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I'm a little too young to introspect","og_description":"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; \"spiritual\" as a Christian euphemism for unserious and non-binding; keeping out the outsiders still not an effective strategy for church growth; Werewolves of Buenos Aires; plus a few of my favorite things.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2014\/12\/WerewolfCurse-190x300.jpg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/","name":"I'm a little too young to introspect","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-29T23:05:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Monday Night Linkage, including: Republican House leader says he didn't realize white-supremacist group was a white-supremacist group when he accepted their invitation; \"spiritual\" as a Christian euphemism for unserious and non-binding; keeping out the outsiders still not an effective strategy for church growth; Werewolves of Buenos Aires; plus a few of my favorite things.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I’m a little too young to introspect"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). 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{"id":26096,"date":"2014-12-29T18:05:37","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T23:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=26096"},"modified":"2014-12-29T18:05:37","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T23:05:37","slug":"im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/29\/im-a-little-too-young-to-introspect\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a little too young to introspect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2022 Louisiana Republican\u00a0Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, has admitted that he spoke at a conference hosted by a white nationalist group<\/a>. Scalise says he didn\u2019t know at the time that that\u2019s what the group was. It\u2019s called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, it was founded by infamous white supremacist David Duke, and it runs a website called whitecivilrights.com, but Scalise says he had no idea what the group\u2019s agenda was. OK, then.<\/p>\n

Rule of Thumb: If your party is struggling with the perception that it\u2019s overly comfortable with racism, you probably shouldn\u2019t elect congressional leaders who like to hobnob with old-school white supremacists.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Another rule of thumb: If you\u2019re being criticized for a habitual, systemic tendency to assign blame improperly due to knee-jerk hostility\u00a0and an inability to hear legitimate criticism, then maybe it\u2019s wise not to respond by making a massive show of your assigning blame improperly<\/a> due to your knee-jerk hostility<\/a> and your inability to hear legitimate criticism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

$\"WerewolfCurse\"$ <\/a>\u2022 You won\u2019t find it listed among the dictionary definitions, but one common use of the word \u201cspiritual\u201d among Christians is as a qualifying, lessening adjective employed to limit, neutralize, neuter or dismiss the apparent meaning of a prior statement. Thus \u201cspiritual<\/em> poverty,\u201d etc. Here\u2019s a classic example of the word being used in this way<\/a>. Nice try, padre.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Standing athwart Pentecost and yelling Stop! \u2014 still not an effective church-growth strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 So I was outside with the dog having a cup of coffee after dinner when I heard Canada geese honking. I looked up and saw actual, literal wild geese flying with the moon on their wings. I saw this!<\/em> It was, in fact, pretty cool.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m still not sure I\u2019d say it was one of my favorite<\/em> things. I mean, the wild geese were lovely and all, but if we\u2019re limiting the\u00a0list to just a few<\/em> of my favorite things, I don\u2019t think I could honestly rank them higher than an after-dinner cup of coffee. Or my dog, for that matter.<\/p>\n

So, OK then, I\u2019ll need to amend Oscar Hammerstein\u2019s lyrics. Lose the geese to make room for the coffee. Bump the whiskers on kittens to make room for my dog. Need to get baseball in there too, so let\u2019s swap out the doorbells because, come on, who really likes<\/em> doorbells? I\u2019m keeping\u00a0the crisp apple streudel, though \u2014 that stuff is awesome.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In Argentina, if you have seven sons, the seventh can be \u201cadopted\u201d by the country\u2019s president. This, apparently, ensures that the seventh son will not become a werewolf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scoff if you will, but you can\u2019t argue with results. The tradition dates back to 1907, and in all those years, none<\/em> of the seventh sons adopted by Argentinian presidents has ever turned into a werewolf. So, clearly, this works<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Since it\u2019s still Christmastide (12<\/em> days, remember), here\u2019s one of my favorite holiday traditions<\/a>:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RfurmGiKZ5k<\/a>\n

Darlene Love has said she\u2019s retiring this annual performance, but I\u2019m hoping Stephen Colbert will try to talk her out of that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"