Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
I recently had an interesting back and forth with a guy I went to prep school with on "Renouncing Privilege." Evidently he and I have a different take on what that means, as evidenced by his comment: Many of the students were, and probably still are wealthy, still privileged. I would not try to make …
Continue reading "Renunciation is Central to Christianity, But You’d Never Know It"
Back in February I moved this album to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpO5lnk-79U I have always been entranced by this work, as you can tell here. But tbh I never thought this would be one of the more popular albums I posted there. I was wrong, but not for the best reason: Daniel Fernandez, who was one of …
Continue reading "Remembering “Les Reflets”–French Christian Folk at its Best"
News has broken today that Israel Folau, the Australian full back, has been sacked by Rugby Australia. His offence was to post on Instagram that hell awaits “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolators”. Let’s leave aside the fact that professional sport includes many more drunks, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators than […] …
I was saddened by the last voyage of Rachel Held Evans. It is never good for such a thing to happen, especially at this time in life. She was not so far from us and my wife and I know several of her fellow parishioners at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Cleveland. It's best to …
Continue reading "The Thing About Myself that @rachelheldevans Brought to Mind"
via Dr. Wang Yun Wu: Leading Chinese Scholar Abandoned Atheism after Witnessing a Miracle
Historical amnesia is a common American malady. One of those aspects of American life that is oft forgotten is that of the "acceptable religion," the idea that certain religions are more socially acceptable (and thus more amenable to their adherents moving up) than others. In the past, this was mostly an intramural contest within Christianity …
Continue reading "The “Acceptable Religion” Concept Makes a Comeback"
The news that Lifeway Christian Stores will all close brought back a memory of something that happened in one of them that was, in some ways, life altering. In 2010 the Church of God decided to abolish the Department of Lay Ministries, which I was working for at the time. That left me without a job …
Continue reading "My Lifeway Memory: Doing Church of God Business in a Baptist Bookstore"
I've spent the past several weeks going on about social and political things, but this week I'd like to discuss a pet peeve of mine in the glorious church Church of God I'm a part of: the issue of honorary doctorates, and the calling of their recipients "Doctor." Fortunately our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. …
Continue reading "About Those Honorary Doctorates in the Church of God…"
It's not often that Vox gives a voice (which is what they're supposed to do) to a Baptist, but one John Thornton, Jr., a youth pastor in North Carolina, has written an intriguing article about why millennials are so anxious and burnt out these days. As a college professor who teaches in a state which …
Continue reading "Running Scared: My Response to a Baptist Pastor on the Millennials"
Tom Jacobs at the Pacific Standard finds himself surprised at the way voters conflated prosperity and morality, which eased their way to vote for Donald Trump: The findings suggest the Trump campaign's emphasis on the candidate's success in business—which has subsequently been shown to be based largely on smoke and mirrors—increased the perception that he …
Continue reading "The Shocking (to Some) Truth About Prosperity and Morality"
Positive Infinity 