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Monday digest
New today from the Century: René Breuel on conversational witness in Rome, Heath Carter reviews Kate Bowler, more.
Health and wealth
Kate Bowler chronicles how millions of Americans came to see not just wealth but also health as a birthright of the born again.
What is it like to be a creature?
We don’t know which experiences specify our humanity. But the Abrahamic faiths agree that we are made of dust and ashes, a bit of clay or a mere clot.
Book fare
I think and convey ideas more clearly at a desk with a pen in hand than I do on my feet in front of a group of listeners. That’s why books about writing and reading occupy much of my time.
Atheist group can sue IRS over enforcement of pulpit politicking
c. 2013 Religion News Service...
Data and story
Last weekend's This American Life included a great Planet Money segment about GiveDirectly, a charity that gives poor Kenyans not food or equipment or livestock or training but cash. The idea is that, whatever risks or downsides exist in just giving people money, these are outweighed by a) extremely low overhead, and b) the fact that the poor actually know best what they need.
Friday digest
New today from the Century: Carol Zaleski on what it's like to be a creature, Carol Howard Merritt on bivocational ministry, more.
Other people saying things
"The situation is no longer about being pro-former President Mohamed Morsi or pro-General Abd El-Fattah El-Sisi....
A bivocational minister warns against bivocational ministry
What will we do in the next ten years, if we have choked out all of the available pastors in this clergy bottleneck and the shortage comes upon us? Even if we simply plan for 70 percent of our positions to go away as 70 percent of our pastors retire, we will still need the 30 percent who are left.
Feds offer atheists a clergy tax break that they don’t want
c. 2013 USA TODAY
(RNS) The federal government wants to give Annie Laurie Gaylor a tax break for leading the Freedom from Religion Foundation....
The Protestant
The Protestant was sitting alone at a table in the far corner. I assumed it was because no one else spoke Protestant.
An ecumenical mind
Jeffrey Gros, one of the liveliest and most penetrating ecumenical thinkers I ever encountered, died earlier this month. A conversation with Jeff was always illuminating as well as a bit disorienting, for he had the many voices of global Christianity freshly cataloged in his brain.
Thursday digest
New today from the Century: Bromleigh McCleneghan on Antoinette Tuff, Brian Doyle's first encounter with a Protestant, more.
When Antoinette Tuff saw a gunman as a human being
As I read the headline yesterday, my heart began to pound and my throat closed up: “School Clerk In Georgia Persuaded Gunman To Lay Down Weapons.” This was a good story—ultimately a hopeful one—but all I could see was “school” and “gunman."
Oscar’s last day
Fruitvale Station is a powerful, meditative exploration of one ordinary life that met an extraordinary and tragic end.
From declinism to discovery
Finitude, contingency, transience. These three linked words signal basic elements of what it is to be a human—and especially to be a historian....
Why won't Chipotle just use less meat?
Some news in the world of sustainable food: Chipotle is responding to beef supply shortages by considering looser standards. Instead of aiming to avoid all beef treated with antibiotics, the burrito chain and sustainable ag advocate may start accepting cows treated for illness, while still avoiding those given antibiotics as a matter of routine.
It's a defensible place to draw the line.
Wednesday digest
New today from the Century: Kathryn Reklis on Fruitvale Station, Martin Marty on mainline decline, more.
Ethics of Liberation, by Enrique Dussel
Enrique Dussel’s Ethics of Liberation might well seem too theoretical and too filled with jargon to merit attention in these pages....