Weekly Meanderings, 24 May 2014

Last updated on: May 24, 2014 at 12:17 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 24 May 2014 2014-05-22T20:20:25-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Kris and I were gone two weeks in New Zealand and it seems this week was taken up with enough chores that I was not able to do the Weekly Meanderings as I sometimes am able to do… but here are a few links:

A conservative says the Republicans need to expand their sense of freedom to include security and order:

It is hardly surprising, then, that many Americans feel threatened when conservatives seek to cut food stamps, slash welfare programs, stop the expansion of Medicaid, and limit unemployment benefits(even as job seekers far outnumber available jobs). The intentions behind these initiatives may not be cruel, but their results sometimes are. For an adult without savings and with a few mouths to feed, a $90-per-month cut in food stamps or a three-month bout of unemployment can mean serious difficulty. For those without health insurance, an unexpected emergency can mean bankruptcy. Even as conservatives tout a few sources of order—families, religious institutions, charities—their policies almost seem designed to exacerbate the destabilizing, disruptive aspects of market forces. It’s no wonder that the average American says Democrats are “more concerned with the needs of people like me” than the GOP.

If Republicans hope to win back the working class and make inroads with minorities (who are disproportionately likely to be poor or near-poor), then, they will need to do more than appeal to abstract notions of liberty. In a country that already has great freedoms, many voters will prefer to sacrifice a bit of liberty for a higher degree of economic security—and I find it hard to blame them. Conservatives should find ways to give these voters more order and stability, not less. Families, churches, and community groups are indeed crucial here, but they alone can’t guarantee well-paying jobs, health insurance, safe neighborhoods, and good schools. (HT: JS)

Wonderful story about Nury.

I really liked this post by Jack Levison:

For now, I want to recall just one episode in the life of the church in Antioch: the time when a prophet named Agabus came up from Jerusalem to Antioch and predicted a famine. By way of response,

“the disciples [in Antioch] determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; this they did …” (Acts 11:29-30).

There are a couple of things to note here that divide their world from ours—and it’s not just gold-plated chariots versus late model black Mercedes Benzes.

The first thing that divides us (if we’re honest) is that we tend to give in response to tragedies. For example, if there’s a tsunami, I give to World Vision. A mudslide in nearby Oso? I hop online and give to the American Red Cross. Chemical weapons in Syria earn a donation to Doctors without Borders. Political prisoners? That’s Amnesty International territory. You get the point: I give after a tragedy rather than before.

The Christians in Antioch gave before there was a famine. They didn’t wait for the famine to take place in order to put a band-aid on the problem. They didn’t wait for people to starve before parting with their hard-earned cash.

This means, of course, that they didn’t know how much was needed, since the famine hadn’t yet happened. Their giving had to be determined by an internal barometer rather than an external one.

Which leads me to my main point: they didn’t give just what was needed. They gave on the basis of what they had to give. Their generosity, in other words, came from their sense of having enough, even more than enough.

Jessica Misener on missing her born-again days:

I’m not the only millennial with what author John Jeremiah Sullivan calls “a Jesus phase.” A BuzzFeed post I made aimed at people who grew up going to evangelical youth group continues to be among my highest performing; anecdotally, I’ve talked to scores of people in all walks of life who also used to go on mission trips and know all the words to “Lord I Lift Your Name on High.” Statistically, exiting your Jesus phase is also a real phenomenon: According to polling organization the Barna Group, there’s a 43% drop in Christian church attendance between the teen and early adult years. Statistics show that younger people are currently leaving evangelicalism at faster rates than older people, which many credit to differing beliefs on topics such as same-sex marriage. For me, it was a traditional soul- and spirit-crusher: graduate school.

After college, I moved to Connecticut to study religion at Yale. …More and more, I realized that the Bible was a flawed, messy, deeply humanbook — and that in treating it as an unimpeachable guidebook for life in the 21st century, many conservative Christians were basing their entire worldviews on a text that, in my opinion, wasn’t that much different from any other historical collection of letters and stories.

But my secret is this: Even though I staked my life on an arbitrary historical document for six years, I liked who I was when I was born-again. I woke up each day determined to conquer my “sinful nature,” i.e., my id that was prone to thinking only about myself, and determined to put others first. I was more selfless. I was a more caring and giving friend back then; I listened deeply, instead of waiting for my turn to talk. I prayed for people and made care packages and wrote nice letters and volunteered. With a divine outlet compelling me to focus on something besides self-preservation, I felt free from the prison of ego….

I know — I think — that Christianity isn’t real, but I miss believing it was real.

Geoff Surratt on four leadership mistakes in churches:

Allowing the urgency of the mission to dictate leadership culture

Using growth as justification for culture

Seeing staff (and volunteer) churn as healthy

Replacing rather than developing staff

Franklin Graham on … well, you read it:

(CNSNews.com) – Rev. Franklin Graham, son of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham, said that “true followers” of Jesus “cannot endorse same-sex marriage” regardless of what President Barack Obama, the Congress, the Supreme Court, or the media say about the issue, adding that marriage was “settled by God Himself” and cannot be modified by man.

“True followers of Jesus Christ, whose salvation is based entirely upon God’s Word, cannot endorse same-sex marriage, regardless of what our President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the media or the latest Gallup poll says about the matter,” said Rev. Graham in his May 2014 column for Decision magazine.

“This moral issue has been settled by God Himself and is not subject to man-made revisions or modifications,” he said. “In the end, I would rather be on the wrong side of public opinion than on the wrong side of Almighty God who established the standard of living for the world He created. Marriage is a biblically moral issue, not a political or theological one.”

Rev. Graham made those remarks after first discussing how “pressure from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community” on the A&E cable channel had tried to force Duck Dynasty off the air last year because its patriarch, Phil Robertson, had expressed his “biblically based convictions.”

4 myths about working with Steve Jobs at Apple:

Apple has the best designers.

Apple’s design team is infinite

Apple crafts every detail with intention

Steve Jobs’s passion frightened everyone.

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