Thursday digest
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New today (and yesterday) from the Century:
- Rodney Clapp asks where you pray:
"Prayer is not something we do first and foremost on our own. We pray with other Christians." (subscription required) - Will Willimon reviews Wes Granberg-Michaelson's memoir: "What do you get when you take an attractive, intelligent kid born into a
loving, happy, Midwestern family and relinquish him for baptism,
telling him he is now "engaged to profess Christ"? (subscription required) - Amy Frykholm on fracking: "I am struck by the idea of intentionally shaking
our own foundations in the name of our intractable addiction to fossil fuels. I
find myself thinking in psalmic terms, like Psalm 46: 'The nations are in an
uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.'" - I highlight some troubling survey findings about racism: "I've certainly been
turned down for many jobs over the years, some at places where I know my white
face and so-Anglo-he-probably-has-a-castle name didn't help my chances. But
I've never been pulled over for no reason, followed around by staff at a store
or stopped on the street and asked to prove that I'm a U.S. citizen." - Adam Copeland questions the latest "young adults are amoral" book: "I refuse to blame young adults themselves
for not having been given the resources to take on moral questions —
it’s not their fault that faith communities, schools, and parents failed
them." - William Vance Trollinger reviews Claude Fischer's social history of the U.S.: "Sociologist Claude Fischer is unhappy with historians' failure to provide a
grand narrative of American history." (subscription required) - I question an L.A. Times story about evangelical political mobilization: "Tom Hamburger
and Matea Gold don't do enough to prove their now-more-than-ever hook, but it's still an important story to follow as we slog through yet
another election season." - A poem about Jesus' death, by Luci Shaw
Links from elsewhere:
- Turns out pastors are super happy.
- Rick Perry is good on television.
- A great Ayn Rand review from the Onion's funny-but-not-joking division, the A.V. Club.
- Elizabeth Warren's Red Sox flub points to the disconnect between political symbol and what's supposedly symbolized.
