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Santorum shows the Religious Right isn't dead yet
c. 2012 Religion News Service
(RNS) Does Rick Santorum's Southern surge also herald the return of the
Religious Right?...
Why is it so hard to do religion in prime time?
Why is it so hard to do religion in prime time?...
What not to take from the "Why I left ______" articles
Two similar pieces are getting a lot of play this week: James Whittaker’s blog post about why he left Google and Greg Smith’s op-ed about why he left Goldman Sachs. Both talk of their high level of company loyalty and enthusiasm in the past. Both bemoan the changes in their respective corporate cultures that led them to leave. Neither seems all that hopeful about his company’s future.
What neither of them does, however, is demonstrate that the problem is that Google/Goldman Sachs used to care about more than just making money but doesn’t anymore.
Wednesday digest
New today from the Century: Interview with Isaac Villegas, Marty on Wood on Chesterton, more.
Dennis Sanders: Church planting, venture capitalists and generational shifts
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that we talk a lot
about the future of the church--how we need to move into a time of
innovation as well as transformation. Dennis Sanders recently reflected on this post, and I asked him if I could put his comments here.
Chesterton, by Ralph C. Wood
Ralph Wood, who calls himself a Bapto-Catholic, is certainly qualified
to write on the militant Catholic Chesterton, who seldom withheld his
fire and fury except when he settled for expressing disdain for
Protestantism and other "unorthodox" versions of Christianity.
Multimedia ministry: AME Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie
“Online, I minister to people I may never see. But I am starting a conversation that may lead them to a church.”
Bishop hopes to restart White House contraception talks
c. 2012 Religion News Service
Bridgeport, Conn. (RNS) The Catholic bishop leading the push against the White...
Sunday, March 25, 2012: Jeremiah 31:31–34, Hebrews 5:5–10, John 12:20–33
It's Thursday afternoon or later, and Sunday is coming....
It ain't about works
There must have been some Lutherans sitting in that conference room when the Revised Common Lectionary was birthed. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for Ephesians 2:1-10 having a role on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B.
Tuesday digest
New today from the Century: Interview with Vashti Murphy McKenzie, Lutheranism in the lectionary, more.
Virtual nonkilling spree
In
a blog post at the Wall
Street Journal, Conor
Dougherty describes a video game behavior that demonstrates what Century
writer Scott
Paeth calls "a distaste for playing evil."
According to Dougherty, gamers are finding ways to take some of the most
violent games and tweak characters or characters' behavior so that they
participate in the game with one notable difference--they don't kill.
Virtual good and evil: The moral complexity of video games
Video games have the potential to aid in forming us as moral beings, for better and for worse.
Pope Benedict XVI denounces cultural shift toward gay marriage in U.S.
c. 2012 Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY(RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday (March 9) denounced the...
Atheists likely to outnumber Christians in England in 20 years
c. 2012 Religion News Service
LONDON (RNS) Christianity is waning in England and could be outnumbered by
nonbelievers within 20 years, according to a new study....
Saints compete for top ranking in 'Lent Madness'
c. 2012 Religion News Service
(RNS) As college basketball fans prepare for March Madness, a holier
tournament already has Christians rooting and cheering this Lenten season....
Putin's election rekindles Orthodox Church debate
Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as Russian president has
spurred debates about civil society and church-state relations within...
How to talk to Nicodemus
Jesus and Nicodemus might as well be speaking different languages. Jesus speaks of birth from above; Nicodemus is befuddled. Jesus speaks of the spirit as wind blowing where it will; Nicodemus wonders how this can be. They are like a creationist and a paleontologist comparing notes on fossils--they simply can't fathom each other. Their organizing assumptions are too different.
Here's when we sense that Nicodemus begins to understand what Jesus is saying: when Jesus reinterprets the story of Israel in the wilderness, drawing from the language that has oriented Nicodemus's life and thought. It doesn't seem likely, after all, that the series of puzzling metaphors Jesus begins with would push Nicodemus to understanding. But something clearly does.
Monday digest
New today from the Century: video games and moral formation, internal vs. external church-based advocacy, more.
Dancing with ourselves?
Do we spend more time in closed rooms--trying to articulate to other church professionals why we are right--than we spend speaking to the media and articulating to the larger world why we believe in the inclusive love of God?