Archive for January, 2010
US media decline to cover most international events. Guess who fills the niche?
Coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008. “Even CNN has pulled back. In the ’80s when I covered these events, there would be a truckload of American journalists and crews and editors, and now Al Jazeera outnumbers them all.”
Mary re-imagines the world
What is interesting about Mary’s song in Luke 1 is that it appears that she takes the tradition of the Hebrew ascent song and writes a song of descent. “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl…”
On Confession
One of my favorite Protestant bloggers talks about Confession:
Some Christians love to talk about the sins of Obama or gays or the mainstream media, but get really animated when I suggest we need to talk about our own, even if they are listed in the Bible dozens of times.
If the Gospel isn’t grabbing you by [...]
Paying zero for public services
Vijay Anand wanted to do something about widespread bribery in India. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people…
A wonderful revelation to the world
It was Thursday. The day was gloomy. The snow lay eight inches deep on the ground; and dry, crisp snowflakes were falling thickly from the sky when Father Seraphim began his conversation with me…
Does feeling like a victim make you selfish?
Three experiments demonstrated that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior…
Evangelism in post-Christian contexts: The content of the Kingdom
In the gospels, whenever Jesus shares the message of the kingdom, it’s very often in response to something he has just done. What concrete actions can the church be practicing that would actually demand some kind of gospel explanation? What is the content of the kingdom?
Stripped of opportunites for wonder, gratitude and guilt
Two centuries ago, our forebears would have known the precise history and source of almost every one of the limited number of things they ate and owned. They would have been familiar with the pig, the carpenter, the weaver, the loom and the dairymaid…
An early creed
The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit…
Theodicy: When apologetics incurs God’s wrath
Theodic discourse, that is, pious justification of evil and suffering, provokes God’s anger in the book of Job. Accusatory Job encounters divine favor, and is commended by God for having spoken rightly and sincerely about God…
A world of hits
A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better.
The man on the plus sign
One couple came to see a priest after they had been to a service, and they said, “Our teenage son wants to know who the man is hanging on the plus sign.” They didn’t know it was Jesus and they didn’t know it was a cross…
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