Tonight, Prairie Home Companion will take the air without its venerable sound effects man, Tom Keith. Keith died last weekend, and you can read a nice remembrance of him by Garrison Keillor here. I saw him perform live many times, and I listened to the Morning Show on Minnesota Public Radio with my kids for many, many years — it was good, clean fun with an admixture of folk music. I met him once at a coffee shop in Minneapolis... Read more
Another culture-watcher weighs in on what Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marriage — and other notorious marriages — say about the institution of of marriage: If marriage is holy, Indiana woman Linda Wolfe, who married (and divorced) 23 times by 2009, should probably be beatified. Late actress Elizabeth Taylor was married eight times to seven different men in her 79 years—was each marriage holier than the last? In 2004, when Britney Spears married her friend, Jason Allen Alexander, for 55 hours, her record label later released... Read more
I read a lot of religious non-fiction. I write it, and I read it. Most of what I read, however, is assigned — it’s part of a class I’m teaching, or for the Patheos Book Club, or for a book I’ve been asked to endorse. But there are three books that I’d like to read before the year ends. I’m going to read them, in this order, and I invite any of you to join me and read them, too.... Read more
This post is part of a Patheos symposium on the Future of Seminary Education. You can see all of my posts in this symposium here. There’s lots of good stuff being written in the Patheos symposium on seminaries. Most of the good stuff, IMHO, is being written by folks who are not in leadership in seminaries. The posts by seminary leaders are, I think, pretty timid. Here’s some of the latest, best stuff, with some commentary by me: Brian McLaren... Read more
Amazon made another big announcement today, one that will likely spur lots of Kindle purchases for the holiday: If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can now borrow books for a month at a time. Amazon has already arguably put Borders out of business, and they’ve crippled Barnes & Noble. Retail bookstores offer us readers little anymore that Amazon cannot. Now they’re aiming at the public library. I belong to mine, which has recently announced that patrons can borrow ebooks, but the... Read more
Harold Camping, everyone’s favorite apocalyptic whipping boy, has emerged from his sequestration and, according to Gawker, kind of apologized for duping people into selling their homes and emptying their retirement accounts to pay for advertising for his predictions. Camping says: Why didn’t Christ return on Oct. 21? It seems embarrassing for Family Radio. But God was in charge of everything. We came to that conclusion after quite careful study of the Bible. He allowed everything to happen the way it did without correction. He... Read more
Being that Kris Humphries is a local boy (who long played basketball in the gym where Doug Pagitt hobbles up and down the court thrice weekly), Kim Kardashian’s marriage to him got lots of press in Minnesota. Now that she’s filed for divorce (after 72 days), there’s lots more press. Prompting this letter to the editor in today’s StarTribune: It must be the threat of gay marriage that broke up the media-hyped, money-making sham of a wedding of Kim Kardashian... Read more
In fact, I have been feeling rather tired lately. For this post to be more accurate, it would have a paragraph about custody battles and child support payments: Generation X is tired. It’s a parent now, and there’s always so damn much to do. Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account. It wonders where its 30s went. It wonders if it still has time to catch up. Right now, Generation X just wants a... Read more
For a limited time, I’ve lowered the price of my latest book, The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement to $2.99 (Kindle edition only). To learn more about this book, check out these posts on the book. If you’re unfamiliar with ebooks, they’re quite easy to read — for instance, you can download a FREE Kindle reading app to your PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone. (Or, you could buy a Kindle — I was given one as... Read more
It’s just been announced that HarperCollins — which already owns Zondervan — will be purchasing Thomas Nelson before the end of the year. Which leads one to wonder, how long will HarperCollins keep two Christian imprints going? Based on my experience, not for long. I speculate that they’ll keep the stronger brand and kill off the weaker brand. HT: Bob Carlton Read more
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