{"id":51611,"date":"2020-04-14T19:04:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T23:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=51611"},"modified":"2020-04-14T19:04:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T23:04:49","slug":"you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city\/","title":{"rendered":"You don’t wanna go to Fist City"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020.<\/p>\n

Loretta Lynn turns 88 years old today.<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nOn April 14 in 70 CE, the emperor\u2019s son took four Roman legions and surrounded a small city in BFE Nowheresville that he was preparing to destroy in a display of imperial might. Titus had no clue that he was about to dramatically reshape two religions and the history of the world in ways that would outlive his little empire.<\/p>\nOn April 14, in 1434, they took a deep breath and laid the foundation stone for a new cathedral in Nantes, France. They started building it knowing full well that nobody there would live to see its completion. Nor would their children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or great-great-great grandchildren. (The Nantes Cathedral wasn\u2019t finished until 457 years later.)<\/p>\nI know I just posted this Reinhold Niebuhr quote a few days ago, but I think about what it took to start a project like that and I\u2019m reminded of this again: \u201cNothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cWhatever such signs mean, God alone knows.\u201d In the early morning of April 14, 1561, multiple people reported seeing <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">something very strange in the skies above Nuremberg<\/a>. [Insert \u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s aliens \u2026\u201d meme here.]<\/p>\nThe\u00a0Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was founded on April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia by Anthony Benezet, Ben Franklin, Robert Purvis, and a bunch of Quakers. Like those who laid the foundation stone in Nantes, none of the founders of America\u2019s first abolition society would live to see the completion of the work they began. \u201cNothing worth doing is \u2026\u201d<\/p>\nNoah Webster copyrighted his first dictionary on April 14, 1828. A troubling number of Americans believe this was an act of plenary verbal inspiration, revealing that they don\u2019t understand what dictionaries are, what they\u2019re for, how they came to be, or how they necessarily change over time. (These poor folks will cite \u201cThe\u201d dictionary as if they\u2019re citing \u201cThe\u201d scriptures, demonstrating a refusal to understand any of those.)<\/p>\nPresident Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back by a traitor on April 14, 1865. It was the first of countless acts of violence intended to overturn the founding of the United States of America. Among the most notable recent such acts of terroristic violence was the Roberts Court\u2019s insistence that hundreds of polling locations in Milwaukee should be shut down, forcing black American citizens to line up, in person, at only five polling locations during the middle of a pandemic. John Wilkes Booth wold have been proud to see that.<\/p>\nThe Azusa Street Revival began on April 14, 1906, in Los Angeles. Before that, \u201cPentecostal\u201d was a useful adjective to refer to the radical inclusiveness and communal salvation described in the first half of the book of Acts.<\/p>\nThe RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912.<\/p>\nHall-of-famer Marvin Miller was born 103 years ago today. Rod Steiger was born 95 years ago today. He absolutely deserved the Oscar he won for In the Heat of the Night<\/em>. You can watch him thinking<\/em> in that movie.<\/p>\nFrank Serpico turns 84 today. \u201cWe create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer, and not the other way around,\u201d he wrote. The cops who set him up to get shot were never prosecuted. If he gets a second term, Trump\u2019ll probably give them the Congressional Medal of Honor.<\/p>\nJulie Christie turns 80 today.\u00a0Lothaire Bluteau turns 63. Have you seen Jesus of Montreal?<\/em> (I need people to see this movie so that we can argue about whether it uses the story of Jesus to explore the meaning of theater or if it uses the meaning of theater to explore the story of Jesus. It\u2019s really quite good.)<\/p>\nPeter Capaldi turns 62 today. I liked the 12th Doctor. I loved<\/em> Malcom Tucker.<\/p>\nGreg Maddux turns 54 today and can probably still throw a baseball precisely where you can\u2019t quite hit it. Anthony Michael Hall turns 52. Philadelphia bar-owner Rob McIlhenney turns 43 today. So does Sarah Michelle Gellar.<\/p>\nAbigail Breslin turns 24 today, so if you saw Little Miss Sunshine<\/em> in a theater, you\u2019re old.<\/p>\nToday is \u201cBlack Day\u201d in South Korea \u2014 a national day of commiseration for people who didn\u2019t have anybody to celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day with. Here, again, I wish I had a .gif of Martha Plimpton throwing her drink at a TV romance in 200 Cigarettes,<\/em> because Black Day is basically that, only with like-minded friends, and tasty noodles.<\/p>\nTalk amongst yourselves.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>You don't wanna go to Fist City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.\" \/>\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\/2020\/04\/14\/you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You don't wanna go to Fist City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020. Talk amongst yourselves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-14T23:04:49+00:00\" \/>\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=\"4 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\/2020\/04\/14\/you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2020\/04\/14\/you-dont-wanna-go-to-fist-city\/\",\"name\":\"You don't wanna go to Fist City\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-14T23:04:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-04-14T23:04:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020. 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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":"You don't wanna go to Fist City","description":"Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020. 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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. 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