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: February 18, 2012 at 12:14 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings 2012-02-17T20:10:07-06:00 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.

Jim Martin provides a question all pastors need to ask. A good one, Jim. And Bill Donahue asks a good question, too. Good one, Bill. And while we’re at it, read this one by Kurt Fredrickson.

Speaking of pastors, this series by Mike Cope is among the finest sets of posts any pastor can read. Thanks Mike. (When a child dies…)

Brad Wright on a world without grace — thanks Brad. Patrick Mitchel on where the world’s headed, and he had a real nice series that complements our Junia is not alone theme.

Tim Dalrymple blogs about blogging about controversies, and offers good suggestions. Speaking of which… Ben Witherington on John Piper: “John Piper is concerned, as are other Reformed writers and thinkers, for instance some in the Gospel Coalition, with what is perceived to be the stripping of male dignity and honor in our culture. He seeks to rub some healing balm in the wounds of men who have been assailed about their male chauvinism and macho approaches to women and life in general, especially in this case, men who are ministers. But as I have mentioned before on this blog, the problem with the church is not strong women, but weak men who can’t handle strong women, much less tolerate women in ministry. So, they have to provide rationales for these views. And to do so requires all sorts of exegetical gymnastics, ignoring of contexts, and even dubious theology and anthropology… I decided to let this percolate for a while before I reacted. Let me be clear that this sounds like a classic over-reaction to what is perceived to be the malaise of our culture.”

You know you’re a scientist if you… do this!

I’m excited about the potential of this network: the Ancient-Future Faith Network. And I’m glad my friend Fr Rob reviews Lauren Winner’s new book, a book I encourage you to digest.

Dave Strunk on the “confessional” evangelicalism and Al Mohler: “In essence, Mohler’s defense of confessional evangelicalism is indistinct from a more generic yet still orthodox version of evangelicalism. Mohler does an excellent job, as always, of defending evangelicalism against its foes on the left and right. What Mohler fails to do, though, is to offer a compelling apologia for the benefits found in confessional evangelicalism.”

Good set of ideas from Proverbs by JR Briggs.

This is why the Churches of Christ have struggled, and this is what we all need because we are all in one family: “This group, the XCMA (X County Ministerial Alliance), always begins by discussing the week’s lectionary passage (don’t know what a lectionary is? Look it up … and think about getting out of your denominational house once in a while), which this week happened to be from John 17. Jesus’ prayer that “they may all be one.” Each of us got to share a few thoughts about this passage. When it was my turn…I repented. I apologized on behalf of all the members of the Churches of Christ who had been hateful and divisive and exclusive and mean. I upheld these ministers’ identity as believers and Christians and expressed a desire to be unified with them, lest the world not recognize that Jesus was sent from God. And guess what…I got a standing ovation…in fact the only ovation of any kind, along with many handshakes and hugs. Then an older Baptist minister was asked to close us in prayer. He prayed for our group, our churches…and for the “dear brother who has joined us today to take a stand for unity,” and continued to pray for me and the Churches of Christ and since I thought I heard his voice break, I glanced up at him to see tears rolling down his cheeks. He finished and came and embraced me and told me stories of how many times he’d been told that he wasn’t a Christian, how often he’d been excluded and shunned by my brethren. And as a final tear fell from his chin, he thanked me for my simple act of participation. And so I learned that we have done wrong, that we’ve damaged our own reputation, that we’ve failed to earn respect. This IS important…we can’t afford to be arrogant…we just need to be Christians only…not the only Christians.” *And this was at the bottom of that very post: “*He has since removed the post from that blog. You see, for this and other views deemed too ecumenical, he was relieved of his position and now ministers in sales to support his family. He tells me that he has not preached or written in five years, but is starting to want to again.”

Why do you love U2? (Ireland.)

Meanderings in the News

Bath in Books: “This bath is made entirely out of books which Vanessa cut and fitted together over a metal frame to form a bath of books, which is suspended by four antique bath tub, lion-shaped feet. She intends to later cover it in layers of resin and has already applied proper taps and drain, so that it will be a utilizable, functional bath at all effects. The idea is of immersing oneself in knowledge, books, truths, and ‘cleaning’ or ‘purifying’ one’s mind with from external, every day life bombarding from media, by reading ad reflecting on books,- ‘pure sources’, which is of course, metaphorical, implying we can become polluted by ideas of truths and knowledge, which we can only ‘clean’ by reading our way through to our own ideas and reflections.”

Some cool thank you letters here.

Hilary Rosen‘s telling lines on Whitney Houston: “Like Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Elvis and others before her, that inner voice of doubt that we all feel sometimes just could never keep up with the public adulation. And so the only answer in the moment that makes sense is to drown out the external praise and dull the doubt with drugs and alcohol. By many accounts from those close to her, she understood the dangers even as she was too often powerless to change…. Whitney Houston’s music legacy will be an inspiration to young artists for years to come. Without taking one thing away from her amazing talent and my total and complete admiration for her career, I hope her troubled life in the spotlight will also serve as the right warning as well.”

Least informed statement of the week, in Will Oremus: “The issue resurfaced following the industrial revolution, when the advent of rubber condoms, coupled with urbanization and other social forces, spurred a resurgence of birth control. But as late as the turn of the 20th century, the Catholic Church worried that denouncing contraception would have the unintended consequence of informing people of what it was. Better, the thinking went, to leave them ignorant.”

It’s the economy: “In August 2010, Robin Marantz Henig observed in New York Times Magazine that Generation Y (the Millennials) has pushed back each of the five milestones of adulthood: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying, and having a kid. Why won’t Millennials grow up? she wondered. The biggest reason is they can’t, according to the Pew Research Center’s fantastic new survey “Young, Underemployed, and Optimistic.” It begins with school. The good news is that more young adults are enrolled in school than ever. The share of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled has increased by 50% since 1990. That’s awesome. Less awesome is that the cost of college is rising, too. Average debt for public college students doubled between 1996 and 2006. It’s less advisable to invest in marriage with $30,000 in student debt as a couple. “More than one-in-five young adults ages 18 to 34 (22%) say they have postponed having a baby because of the bad economy,” Pew reported. “Roughly the same proportion say they have postponed getting married.”

Rebecca J. Rosen: the problem isn’t technology, it is time itself (or its perception): “When we experience time-deepening we don’t merely feel that we are doing more in a day; we feel that time is actually moving faster. Research into how people perceive time suggests that when people are distracted — when their focus is divided or elsewhere — they mis-estimate the passage of time, thinking that less time has passed than actually has — that time has flown. It’s perhaps because of this perception that when Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery described the changes in work-life patterns in a recent issue of Mother Jones, they called them the “great speed-up.” The Digital Sabbath isn’t the only strategy for dealing with this speed up: The related set of “slow” movements — slow food, slow travel, even slow science — have proliferated in recent years.”

What Europeans don’t get about America (USA), by Richard Florida: “Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal.”

Juan Cole lists ten items taught by the RCC Santorum doesn’t support: “The right wing Republican politicians who have been denouncing the requirement that female employees have access to birth control as part of their health benefits as an attack on religious freedom completely ignore the church teachings they don’t agree with. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are both Catholics, and wear their faith on their sleeves, but they are hypocritical in picking and choosing when they wish to listen to the bishops.”

From the Loom: “If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born. In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. It encoded a protein made only by cells in the placenta. They called it syncytin. The cells that made syncytin were located only where the placenta made contact with the uterus. They fuse together to create a single cellular layer, called the syncytiotrophoblast, which is essential to a fetus for drawing nutrients from its mother. The scientists discovered that in order to fuse together, the cells must first make syncytin. What made syncytin peculiar was that it was not a human gene. It bore all the hallmarks of a gene from a virus.”

Meanderings in Sports

Helen Lee, on Jeremy Lin: “Just a little over a week ago, Lin was sleeping on his brother’s couch and wondering if the Knicks were going to keep him on the team. But as injuries whittled down the Knicks’ roster, Lin’s number was called against the New Jersey Nets on February 4th. He scored an improbable 25 points, started in the next four games, and repeated the seemingly impossible by scoring in double digits each time, including 38 points in a prime-time, nationally-televised performance against Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant.”

Hope you saw this about Gary Carter: “Even as the world watched the Grade 4 brain cancer wither his body, Gary Carter was still, and is always, Kid. It is a testament to Carter’s passion for the game, and for life, that the nickname that at times was applied derisively by crusty veterans ended up on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Joe Posnanski is right about one thing here: Tiger only cares about winning. First place or no place. I’m not so sure the backhanded putt tells us much.

Weekly Meanderings

Previous Post

February 17, 2012

Masculine Christianity's Problem?

Next Post

February 18, 2012 Kids and Desks No Longer Fit

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

What was the name of the sea Jesus calmed during a storm?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mediterranean Sea Sea of Galilee Dead Sea Red Sea