Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Jesus Creed

Home
Evangelical
Weekly Meanderings

Weekly Meanderings

Last updated on: October 22, 2011 at 5:54 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings 2011-10-22T05:54:54-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

North Park University Crew

The “Jana” in this story is my daughter’s friend and played junior high school basketball with my daughter (or should I say my daughter played with Jana!?): “CHICAGO (CBS) — Eight years ago today, Steve Bartman may have helped the Cubs fall apart, but he also brought a Chicago couple together. While many Cubs fans may still harbor bad feelings, one Chicago couple is grateful for his intervention. Jana and George Balis were sitting in the same row at Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against Florida, but were perfect strangers until the end of the eighth inning. … The pair says everyone else in Row 13, Section 142 got up, out of frustration. “They were angry. The only people left in the row were George and I,” said Jana. So George used the opportunity to go talk to the attractive woman at the end of the row, seven seats away.”

Sports have been a big part of our family, and this story about the Texas Rangers features Luke’s high school baseball coach, Jim Panther who was not only a great (and hall of famer) coach but also a good man who made his players better persons.

Elizabeth Esther’s reasons for a Christian school for your kids.

JR Daniel Kirk’s good bit of advice: “With great confidence (and financial expenditure), May 21, 2011 is declared to be the day of Jesus’ return. Or the rapture. Or whatever. But, of course, it wasn’t. Neither was 1994 or 1982. When the obsession with eschatology (ideas about “the end”) produces such crazy results, it’s tempting to leave eschatology aside altogether. Let the obsessed have their little obsession while the rest of us get on with the business of real life, and real faith. But it would be a mistake to give up on eschatology altogether. The Bible is, if not properly “eschatological” throughout, always heading toward a goal, a brighter future.”

Abi, one of our students at North Park University, on the burden of white privilege.

Tim King writes up a piece at Sojourners Jackson says this: ” that examines Bishop Harry Jackson’s strong claims about Jim Wallis.“[Wallis’] ideology is not Christian,” he contends. “It is something else, and it’s being veiled and presented as though — wow, here’s a really Christian approach!” But he says it is actually a carnal, secular approach. “It is, in fact, what Paul would call the doctrine of devils [1 Timothy 4:1],” he cites. “Paul said very clearly in the last days there would come all these so-called ‘biblical doctrines’ that sound good on the surface, but they’ve been engineered in the councils of hell to try to deter God’s people from keeping with God’s Word.” Wallis doesn’t back down, saying: “C’mon, Harry. I believe the Bible’s teachings on wealth and poverty challenge both Republican and Democratic economic views which, sadly, are both often sold out to the interests of the wealthy and large corporations, when they should be focused on the ones Jesus calls “the least of these.” Can we discuss that Harry? I don’t think Bishop Jackson is offended by my ideology but by scripture itself. If he wants to toss out what the Bible has to say about wealth and poverty he might as well toss out the whole book and find a new religion in the Republican Party.” And my former student Tim King closes with this stinger: “Two thousand years ago a rich man turned away from Jesus because he couldn’t stomach what Jesus had to say about wealth. It still happens today.”

Someone needs to get to the principal parties here and get this stopped: “The third Mars Hill I know seems caught in the middle. It is pastored in Sacramento, California by a friend of mine, Scott Hagan. Scott planted another church years ago in the Sacramento area, then moved to pastor a mega-church in Michigan and is now back leading at Mars Hill in Sactown. I have Pastor Scott’s permission to share what I am going to write next. Several weeks ago, Scott and his Sacramento congregation received a “Cease and Desist” letter which came from attorneys representing the Seattle Mars Hill Church. They were told that the Seattle Mars Hill had copyrighted the name “Mars Hill” and they demanded that the California Mars Hill churches stop using the name and any logos with similar lettering.” There is only one real Mars Hill, it’s in the Bible, and everyone else is using the Bible’s language.

James-Michael Smith, at Dojo, sketches some ideas with lots of art work about the political Jesus. And a politicized Jesus is at work in the “clash of civilizations” debate, but which Jesus do we want is the question Lee Camp is asking.

Cynthia Crossen: reading vs. skimming.

Ben Witherington’s informed piece about Jurgen Habermas. John Dear SJ has an informed piece about John Howard Yoder.

Meanderings in the News

The Plague: “The Black Death in medieval Europe was more than the deadliest plagueoutbreak on record: The epidemic appears to be responsible for the cases of plague that still infect humans today. The new findings are based on bacteria recovered from skeletons found in a mid-1300s cemetery for Black Death victims in London, England. The grave excavation was undertaken by Museum of London Archaeology. Kirsten I. Bos of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and Verena J. Schuenemann of the University of Tübingen in Germany led an effort to sequence the genome of the Black Death pathogen, Yersinia pestis, recovered from the medieval grave. After examining Y. pestis samples from 46 teeth and 53 bones, the team determined that the plague hasn’t changed much, genetically speaking, in more than 600 years. The result “indicates that contemporary Y. pestis epidemics have their origins in the medieval era,” the study team writes.”

If you like Joan Didion, here’s Boris Kochka’s essay. And here is Ken Auletta’s essay on Jill Abramson.

Some early hominids were eating grasses, which might suggest to some that vegans are in our genes: “By analyzing microscopic pits and scratches on hominid teeth, as well as stable isotopes of carbon found in teeth, researchers are getting a very different picture of the diet habitats of early hominids than that painted by the physical structure of the skull, jawbones and teeth. While some early hominids sported powerful jaws and large molars — including Paranthropus boisei, dubbed “Nutcracker Man” — they may have cracked nuts rarely if at all, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, study co-author.” Well, it’s awful hard on the teeth, and there were no dentists back then. The results for teeth from Paranthropus boisei, published earlier this year, indicated they were eating foods from the so-called C4 photosynthetic pathway, which points to consumption of grasses and sedges.”

Edward Tenner, observing the rise of philosophy majors: “One of the many small surprises of the recession has been a significant growth in the number of philosophy majors, according the the Philadelphia Inquirer. It has slightly exceeded the growth of enrollments in the last ten years; many other humanities and social science fields have just kept up. At the University of California at Berkeley, despite or because of the state’s economic turmoil, the number of majors has increased by 74 percent in the last decade.”

Motoko Rich, though, observes that it is the sciences, technology, engineering and math that brings the most value.

New nutrition symbols for food. My theory, let the food nutritionists arrange grocery stores into good food sections and bad food sections.

Let the kids play: “What are your memories of playing as a child? Some of us will remember hide and seek, house, tag, and red rover red rover. Others may recall arguing about rules in kickball or stick ball or taking turns at jump rope, or creating imaginary worlds with our dolls, building forts, putting on plays, or dressing-up. From long summer days to a few precious after-school hours, kid-organized play may have filled much of your free time. But what about your children? Are their opportunities for play the same as yours were? Most likely not. Play time is in short supply for children these days and the lifelong consequences for developing children can be more serious than many people realize.”

Speaking of kids, bilingualism gives advantages: “Pop quiz! Bilingualism is: a. A competitive advantage on college and job applications. b. Best acquired before the age of six. c. One area in which Americans are kind of lame. d. Full of surprising ancillary neurocognitive benefits if acquired early. Bilingual toddlers are better able to process new information, more attuned to what others are thinking and feeling, more in control of their will and attention, and four years slower, once they reach old age, to experience dementia than are their monolingual peers. e. All of the above.

Yep, it’s ‘e.’ If you’re not romantically involved, but would like to have children someday, maybe it’s time to consider an international dating site. If you’ve got a baby already, and both parents speak only one language, you could order Grimm’s Fairy Tales in Spanish or Mandarin, though a crash course at Berlitz might be better. Babies are hard-wired to attend to their parents’ voices, and can learn a second language best by interacting with them.”

Speaking of kids, yet again, Brandon Keim sketches what we know about TV and infants.

And a little older kids respond more to pleasure than wisdom: “During most of the teen years, this creates a problem. Risky behaviors feel great and are experienced as more rewarding. Impulse control hasn’t yet caught up—nor have knowledge and judgment. Thus emotion says go, but wisdom hasn’t yet said stop. How science changed my parenting There are important take-home messages here for risktaking, social policy, and our understanding of teens that I will discuss in my next post. But the first thing I took home from this reading had to do with my parenting. TEENS ARE MOTIVATED BY PLEASURE, NOT BY PAIN. Thus telling a 13 year old that he will fail a test tomorrow if he doesn’t study isn’t that effective in inducing willing compliance. He knows that. But risk avoidance is not emotionally motivating. And that video game sure is. Reminding a 13 year old how good it feels to accomplish something, how happy he’ll be when he does well, and how much more time he will have to play if he studies efficiently works a lot better. Those POSITIVE emotions activate their incentive processing center. And teens are VERY sensitive to pleasure.”

Dawkins on Hitchens: “Every day he is demonstrating the falsehood of that most squalid of Christian lies: that there are no atheists in foxholes. Hitch is in a foxhole, and he is dealing with it with a courage, an honesty and a dignity that any of us would be, and should be, proud to be able to muster. And in the process, he is showing himself to be even more deserving of our admiration, respect, and love. I was asked to honour Christopher Hitchens today. I need hardly say that he does me the far greater honour, by accepting this award in my name. Ladies and gentlemen, comrades, I give you Christopher Hitchens.”

Meanderings in Sports

OK, Joe Posnanski is a motor-worder sports machine, an EverReady bunnie for sports, but he’s probably the best going right now. This piece on the ten worst contracts is a good one.

Weekly Meanderings

Previous Post

October 21, 2011

Kingdom Work, Social Justice

Next Post

October 22, 2011 Saturday Book Review: Guy Chmieleski

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Psalm is entirely focused on God's word, using each letter of the Hebrew alphabet?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 24 Psalm 119 Psalm 23 Psalm 51