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Placing my trust in...?
I'm thinking about Psalm 33. It's a good one. It begins with music and ends with this reminder that princes and horses are not actually running the show. I know. I was surprised as well.
Some days it might feel that way, mind you, but it's not really the way things are. I always want question that kind of logic...ontology again. If Congress reinstates the draft then they are running the show. There is this thing called "power" and some people have more than others in some contexts. How does an ontological theo-philosophical argument slow down Congress or what have you?
Wednesday digest
New today from the Century: Beth Felker Jones on Pinterest, Jon Sweeney reviews Michael Plekon, more.
Pinterest and porn
The temptation of Pinterest is in the part of it that is trite, banal and predictable. But that's not all there is to the site's appeal.
Saints As They Really Are, by Michael Plekon
Michael Plekon is a man of many talents: he is a sociologist, an anthropologist and an expert in Kierkegaard’s thought....
Defining the middle: The rhetoric and reality of class
What does "middle class" mean if it somehow applies to most of the country? And if we are all middle class now, what are the implications?
Survey: Young evangelicals at odds with their political parties
c. 2012 Religion News Service...
Backing Romney, Graham alters stance on Mormons
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association removed language labeling Mormonism a cult from its website after the famed preacher met with Republican nominee Mitt Romney and pledged to help his presid...
Bhutan bans religious activity ahead of election
Political leaders in the tiny Buddhist nation of Bhutan have announced a nearly six-month ban on all public religious activities ahead of the upcoming elections, citing the Himalayan nation’s const...
Ordinary 30B: Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Hebrews 7:23-28
After slogging through 41 chapters of misery and god-awful suffering, Job’s world is suddenly put right again in just six verses.
Bad sermons?
At a reception to launch a new collection of Lucille Clifton’s poems (The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010), the editor of the volume, Kevin Young, described coming across a folder in Clifton’s archives at Emory University. The folder had been labeled “Unpublished Poems.” That label had been scratched out and replaced by something like, “Poems that really aren’t that good and should probably just be thrown away someday.” That label too had been scratched out and replaced with “Bad poems.”
About the stuff
About a week after my mother-in-law died, I went by her house to borrow her sieve....
Tuesday digest
New today from the Century: Steve Thorngate on defining the middle class, Gail Irwin on the importance of stuff, more.
Stump sermons
When the church has nothing more to say than what could be said in a political speech, the church has surely lost its voice.
Jesus' obedience and ours
Opening the book of Hebrews is a bit like stepping into Transporter Room on the starship Enterprise. A few verses are all it takes to beam us suddenly down into an alien world filled with angels, sacrificial purification rites and Melchizedek. There’s very little about Hebrews that looks, sounds or feels familiar to 21st-century people, all of which makes dealing with this letter a challenge (and explains why so many of us avoid it).
A teenager, an old dog and their lesbian mom walk into the...
A colleague asked a few months ago, “Why did you stop writing for the local paper?”...
Monday digest
New today from the Century: The editors on Pulpit Freedom Sunday, Jason Byassee reviews Fleming Rutledge, more.
And God Spoke to Abraham, by Fleming Rutledge
Fleming Rutledge is the most interesting preacher today working the fault line between the mainline churches and evangelicalism. Throughout this remarkable collection of Old Testament sermons she calls for mainliners and evangelicals to realize their common identity in Christ for the sake of our mutual mission in the world.
Majority of Protestant pastors back Romney, but many still undecided
c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS)...