This 7-story statue of Jesus, the pride and joy of Solid Rock Church, was smote by lightning and burned to the ground last night. Now, only the steel frame remains. Pat Robertson, what say you? (I am sorry for the church’s loss, and they’ve already promised to rebuild it. But, maybe, God will prevail upon them to spend their money on some people who need it.) HT: Courtney Perry Read more
The Chronicle of Higher Education has the story of Salman Khan, a 33-year-old who has uploaded over 1,400 educational videos to YouTube on various topics. The videos were at first meant merely to tutor his faraway relatives, but they’ve gone viral, and he seems to have tapped into a growing disgruntlement with conventional higher educations. And now, his experiment is paying off, literally: Mr. Khan said that several people he had never met have made $10,000 contributions. And last month,... Read more
To celebrate the end of school, I’m spending the week in the northwoods with the kids. On the way up yesterday, we listened to the book of Luke in the car. And, when playing the Bible for the kids in the car, I like to use The Bible Experience, since it’s a lot more engaging to listen to than a straight-reading (there’s lots of voice actors, background noise, music, etc.). And it got me to thinking of how sad it... Read more
Got an email today from a guy looking to read a paper I wrote on Hans-Georg Gadamer, one of my philosophical heroes. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything worthy of emailing out about him, or really even a primer on philosophical hermeneutics, but I did recommend a book, which I happen to love for it’s simplicity and brevity at explaining an extraordinarily complex philosophical system: A Teacher’s Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. Last night, as I sat at the Twins game, compliments... Read more
One thing that I do not understand about the hyper-Reformed is this contradiction in their theology. One the one hand, they maintain that God is impassible — God does not change and, even more troubling to me, God does not grieve. But on the other hand, they often proclaim that God’s wrath burns white hot at me because of my sin. Well, I’m not the first to proclaim the very opposite, but I’ll reaffirm it here: God Is Not Unchanging. ... Read more
Well, not exactly. But Michael Bérubé writes in The Times Higher Education that the dissertation may have run its course. As part of a study of tenure and promotion in the humanities, it became clear to him that there was an impending crisis. While schools still require junior faculty to publish their dissertations with university presses, publishing houses are not financially able to edit, print, market and sell books that will only move a couple hundred units. Bérubé writes, Still,... Read more
Everyone has weighed in on Jim Joyce’s blown call at first base last week, a call which cost pitcher Armando Galarraga a potential perfect game. And by everyone, I mean that there are 6,300 articles on Google News about it and 300,000 blog posts. As a former umpire with 20+ years behind the plate, here are my thoughts: 1) If Joyce were to blow a call, it should have been in Galarraga’s favor. What I mean is, going into the... Read more
Doug and I are collecting an outstanding array of faculty — including Stina Busman, Carla Barnhill, Greg Boyd, Andy Root, and Russell Rathbun — to present short courses on all sorts of subjects — from the God of the Old Testament to organic gardening — at our JoPa Summer Institute on Life & Ministry. It’ll happen this July 19-23 in Minneapolis, and we hope that you’ll consider joining us. Go to the Institute page for more information and to register. Read more
I had the unhappy experience of listening to yet another online conversation yesterday in which two erstwhile and, I would have assumed, friends of emergent went to great lengths to distance themselves from emergent, taking pains to say that they are not affiliated with “the capital ‘E’ emergent brand.” Meanwhile, on the Huffington Post, Phil Shepherd says, In the years of unpacking my faith journey, I found that I was not alone in this conversation. In fact, that there were... Read more
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