Weekly Meanderings, 14 November 2015

Last updated on: November 14, 2015 at 7:05 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 14 November 2015 2015-11-14T07:05:42-06:00 Scot McKnight

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John Mark Reynolds nails it:

But that is less important than this: we needed the secular community to put things together for us. Our gatekeepers failed us and have for years. Dr. Ben Carson and his unfolding story points to a problem, less with Dr. Carson, and more with a Christian Media Complex* that is harming the cause of Christ and many of our celebrities by failing to hold them to high enough standards of accuracy.

His ghostwriter and editor could have fact checked his book and easily discovered his error about Westmoreland meeting him on Memorial Day. That is a small error and likely the product of the passing of time on the part of Dr. Carson, but the kind of fact that is also easiest to get right in an important book about a man’s life.

Jesus had to throw the moneychangers out of the Temple because they were cheating the people of God. We are slowly learning that not even the most basic fact checking or sourcing was done on Dr. Ben Carson’s biography despite his use of a ghostwriter and the presence of an editor. This should embarrass us. Dr. Carson did not meet with General Westmoreland on Memorial Day. He did not get accepted to West Point. Biographical details are proving hard to verify and some (his angry youth) are contradicted by people who knew him at the time.

[I was doubly impressed with WaterBrook on my The Heaven Promise on this account.]

Sarah Thebarge, on if you are going through hell, keep going:

I spent the past week blogging about my experience of going through, and emerging from, spiritual darkness. (If you missed it, click here and read the ‘saint sarah’ series.)

I got so many comments, e-mails, texts and messages from people who are going through similar seasons. So I thought I’d take a minute to (hopefully) encourage you with some simple take-aways and suggestions.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

1) Go through it, not around/over/under it.

Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” The same thing is true with seasons of emotional and spiritual darkness. It’s painful. It’s scary. It’s hard. It’s lonely. And no one wants to go through it. But if you look for shortcuts or ways to avoid it, it will only make things worse. If you try to numb out or distract yourself or look for people to blame, you’ll only add to your burden.

[Sarah has six more points so go to the link and read them. Well done.]

Good move by Adidas:

Sportswear giant Adidas announced Thursday that it would offer free design resources and financial assistance to any high schools that want to change their logo or mascot from Native American imagery or symbolism.

The company announced the initiative ahead of the Tribal Nations Conference at the White House, which Adidas executives attended.

“Sports have the power to change lives,” Adidas executive board member Eric Liedtkesaid in a statement. “Sports give young people limitless potential. Young athletes have hope, they have desire and they have a will to win. Importantly, sports must be inclusive. Today we are harnessing the influence of sports in our culture to lead change for our communities.”

Approximately 2,000 high schools in the U.S. use names that “cause concern for many tribal communities,” according to the company’s statement.

At the Tribal Nations Conference, Obama praised the effort by Adidas, and added that “a certain sports team in Washington might want to do that as well.”

AP story about faith in the migrant camp in Calais:

CALAIS, France (AP) — Each Friday, a Sunni muezzin calls Muslims to prayer through a bullhorn. On Sundays, Pentecostal Africans raise their hands to the heavens while those of the Orthodox faith prostrate themselves before a painting of a winged saint overpowering Lucifer.

Faiths abound in the migrant camp at Calais, whose approximately 6,000 residents brighten their often bleak existence by attending religious services organized in tents and shacks. In so doing, they have set aside ethnic and religious enmities that often fuel bloodshed in their homelands.

“We are all God’s children in the Jungle,” said Solomon Gatachow, the Ethiopian who oversees the Orthodox church, using the migrants’ preferred name for their camp. “Muslims helped to build our church. We are neighbors here. We all must respect each other’s religion.”

His St. Michael’s Jungle Church is the biggest migrant-built structure in the camp, with a cross-topped tower and paintings by Ethiopian and Eritrean artists. Arriving worshippers kiss the cross symbol at the entrance gate and the wooden post beside the front door. Those going inside leave their mud-caked shoes and sandals outside. Most sit on benches ringing the church and follow the service via loudspeaker.

Rick Noack and the baby cardbox boxes of Finland:

In Finland, many babies sleep in cardboard boxes. And they enjoy it — at least that is what their parents say.

The tradition might seem strange to most American parents. But Finnish experts say it could help save lives.

They also say it could help the United States lower its infant mortality rate in the same way that it helped Finland. The District, for example, has the highest infant mortality risk among all of the world’s high-income capitals….

Ladhani thinks the answer is yes. “I don’t think there are geographic boundaries to the impact. But design is incredibly crucial to ensure that it addresses the needs and wants of different populations,” she said.

Using a box that is similar to Finnish baby boxes, the project hopes to save up to 58,000 infant lives in the coming five years. The nonprofit’s only condition is that mothers who receive the “Barakat Bundle” agree to a prenatal medical examination — the same condition that was in place in Finland in the early 20th century. This measure could save the lives of at least 3,000 mothers in the coming years, according to the organization. The bundles will either be distributed for free or sold at an affordable price.

The original Finnish baby boxes, which the government pays for, are more than just cardboard boxes. They contain a variety of items that new parents need in Finland, such as snowsuits, hats, bodysuits and a sleeping bag, among other things.

HT: KKNM

Another good reason for us to spend time with Aksel and Finley … it correlates with an absence of Alzheimer’s:

Well this certainly is good news for grandparents, and great news for my wife and me, as we love love love spending time with our little peanut. (BTW, I’ve got plenty of pics here and here, and a new one here!) This research shows that grandparents who look after their grandchildren at least once a week are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.

Although an exact reason for the correlation isn’t clear, researchers speculate that regular social interaction can have a positive effect on seniors.

HT: LNMM

Annie Holmquist, on why writing is on the decline:

1. They Don’t Read High Quality Literature

As has been previously noted, today’s schools often fail to present their students with many literature selections which demonstrate good examples of vocabulary, sentence structure, and other components of high-quality writing. A thorough and challenging reading program, however, is one of Lewis’ keys to successful writing.

“One **of the quickest ways of learning to know good English, is oral reading.**For him who would write the language it is therefore a great economy to learn to read it. It is an invaluable habit to read aloud every day some piece of prose with the finest feeling the reader can lend to it. In no other way can one so easily learn to notice and to remember new words. In no other way can one catch the infinitely varied rhythm of prose, and acquire a sense of how a good sentence rises gradually from the beginning and then descends in a cadence. This rise and fall of the sentence is not merely a matter of voice; it is a matter of thought as well. …

If the student reads aloud from writers whose work was natural, unforced, original, he will gradually come to see his own ideas more clearly, feel his own feelings more keenly.”

2. They Skim

The fast-paced age of the internet has trained all of us – adults and children alike – to become text skimmers. But such a practice diminishes thought and understanding, two facets essential to good writing.

“To gain new words and new ideas, the student must compel himself to read slowly. Impatient to hurry on and learn how the tale or poem ends, many a youth is accustomed to read so rapidly as to miss the best part of what the author is trying to say. Thoughts cannot be read so rapidly as words. To get at the thoughts and really to retain the valuable expressions, the student must scrutinize and ponder as he reads. Each word must be thoroughly understood; its exact value in the given sentence must be grasped.”

3. They Don’t Memorize

“Drill and Kill” and the memorization of facts has become a prominent no-no in an age where creativity and feelings are encouraged. But is the de-emphasis on memorization actually depriving children of valuable writing material?

“To the habit of memorizing, many a person is indebted not merely for high thoughts that cheer hours of solitude and that stimulate his own thinking, but for command of words. The degree to which the language of modern writers is derived from a few great authors is startling. Shakespeare’s phrases are a part of the tissue of every man’s speech to-day. Such writers as Charles Lamb bear Shakespeare’s mark on every page. The language of the King James version of the Bible is echoed in modern English prose and poetry. It formed styles so unlike as those of Bunyan, Ruskin, and Abraham Lincoln. Most teachers would declare that a habit of learning Scripture by heart is of incalculable value to a student’s English.”

Would we see American writing ability increase if these three elements were restored to the classroom?

Speaking of writing, this guy can write... my favorite:

My friend Hilton Kramer, the art critic of the New York Times and afterwards the founding editor of theNew Criterion, was not a man you asked whom he liked in the Super Bowl. An acquaintance once queried me about which was Hilton’s favorite rock group. I responded that I wasn’t certain but thought him a touch partial to Herman’s Hermits. “I say,” as Senator Beauregard Claghorn, the windbag Southern politician on the old Fred Allen radio show, used to remark, “I say, that’s a joke, son.” As a kid, Hilton may have listened to the Fred Allen radio show, but the likelihood of his having heard of Herman’s Hermits or any rock group of lesser fame than the Beatles is, more than unlikely, preposterous. The Lubavitcher Rebbe might as easily been discovered eating a pulled-pork sandwich at Wendy’s.

HT: CHG

Daniel Burke does well here:

Collapsing multiple stories into one anecdote and giving a famous preacher more credit than he deserves aren’t considered cardinal sins in American politics. In the end, condensing his faith journey didn’t cost Bush much, said Randall Balmer, a professor of history at Dartmouth College and author of “God in the White House.”

For Carson, the stakes are quite a bit higher, Balmer said.

“His whole campaign is based upon his narrative, because he has no political experience and no record of public service,” said Balmer. “If it is undermined or called into question, it’s going to be tough for Carson.”

Evangelicals experts agreed. A little fuzzing around memory’s edges is expected. Inventing stories about a violent past would be far less forgivable.

“His selling point is that he is a man of integrity, said Michael Duduit, dean of the College of Christian Studies at Anderson University in South Carolina. “If it turns out he made up stories out of whole cloth, that would be very disconcerting.”

For 30 years, Duduit — an expert on preaching — has been schooling evangelical pastors on how to make a story stick while sticking to the facts.

“I tell them it’s OK to tell a story. Jesus told stories,” Duduit said. “Just don’t add details that didn’t happen. If you do, four or five millennials in the congregation will start Googling you before the sermon is even over.”

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