Worth Reading - 1/22

1. Seven reasons to teach your kids Church History, from The Gospel Coalition:

“Ask my four children what their father loves and ranking high on the list after “Jesus, our mom, baseball, and the Georgia Bulldogs,” might just be “dead people.” Why? The fact that I teach church history notwithstanding, I think it is important that my children—beginning at a tender age—understand the richness of the faith I am commending to them from Scripture. (And yes, they know the hero of that book is back from the dead.)

Presuming they have been listening, my kids can tell you something about Luther, 95 Theses, and a church door in Wittenburg. (They even pronounce the “W” as a “V” because they think it sounds like an insect). They can tell you all about Calvin and his nasty confrontation with William Farel. They can tell you that William Carey is the father of modern missions (and they’ll likely remind you he was a Baptist). They can tell you that Spurgeon smoked an occasional stogie and that a man with the funny name of Athanasius won the day at a meeting called the Council of Nicaea (they’ll probably get the date right too—that’s AD 325).They know an important battle took place at a bridge called Milvian (or as my 6-year-old son calls it, “Melvin”). They have even learned that those folks who show up on our porch on select Saturdays with their Watchtower magazines in hand are modern-day Arians. I was 30 before I knew that much.

By no means should church history supplant teaching your family the Bible. Family worship and God’s Word must come first in your home. But the benefits of teaching them something about the key figures and movements from the rich heritage of the church are myriad. Here are seven reasons why we should teach our children church history.”

2. The Pope and the "breeding like rabbits" comment seems to have been overblown. Here's why:

“I have many thoughts about Pope Francis’ comments about family size, birth control, and rabbits, made yesterday during an interview with reporters as the Holy Father returned to Rome from his trip to the Philippines. But a couple things in particular stick out now that the virtual ink has begun to flow and Francis’ words are being taken apart and reassembled all over the Internet to fit various agendas and narratives.

It is true that the Pope’s comments have been (predictably) mangled in much of the media coverage of them. He didn’t use the word “breed”; he didn’t say that having three children “is about right.” My mantra after one of these papal interviews is usually: read what he actually said. Many times the shock (and, in some quarters, horror) stirred by sensational headlines dissipates when folks read what he actually said.”

3. At the Imaginative Conservative, Joseph Sobran discusses the reading of old books:

“When I was young, I bought the whole set of Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World, intending to read them all. But somehow I never got around to more than a few of them. Ditto the works of Dickens and Balzac.

I’m a voracious reader, but most of what I read is the most perishable kind of literature, journalism. After all, journalism is my racket, and that means keeping up with things that will soon be forgotten. So I start the day with several newspapers, but seldom finish it with a classic I haven’t read before.

In Mark Twain’s famous definition, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read. Gulp! But those daunting all-time must-reading lists are a little misleading. It can take years to master a single great author. Much of what we “know” about the classics is what we’ve heard about them in advance, and we may not get beyond their reputations until we’ve read them several times.”

4. My own post on three vital relationships for every seminarian, here at Ethics and Culture:

“This is always an exciting time on campus. The energy level that the students bring to campus can be sensed as we sing together in chapel, see people in the library, and interact on the walkways.

At the same time, when new members are introduced into a community, there are always periods of adjustment as the new faces (and sometimes the returning ones) try to figure out how to relate to people around them. What does it look like to be a seminary student?

I think there are (at least) three categories that need to be discussed along these lines for beginning students. There are three basic, and new, relationships that an incoming seminary student needs to develop.”

5. The importance of prayer in the workplace, from the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics:

“Fluorescent lights flicker on as bright chunks of sunlight slip through cracks in the blinds. The aroma of brewing coffee wafts though the air amidst quiet conversations between co-workers serenaded by the chirps of awakening computer monitors.

It’s morning in corporate America.

What are your morning office rituals? Perhaps you check your inbox, chat with coworkers, or head straight to the coffee pot. Maybe you choose to spend a few minutes alone in the quiet of your office or cubicle.

These still moments are a precious commodity to savor before the onslaught of the workday.

We all have rituals and routines in the office. These rhythms shape the outcome of our days. Think about the last time you missed your morning cup of coffee. Most likely the quality of your workday suffered!

Rituals and routines matter and yet Christians often disregard what should be the most important workplace habit: prayer.”

Worth Reading - 1/21

1. Motherhood is more than a job. It is certainly a vocation, but it is also a lifestyle.

“I have plenty of hesitations about heeding various calls to “work-life balance,” mostly because they tend to dismiss or downplay the reality that “work” is often a lot less work than “life.”

Parents of young children have a keen sense of all this, of course. Indeed, it’s the reason so many of us would prefer to retreat to the “workplace” when the dirty diapers and toddler tantrums begin to beckon.”

2. At Desiring God, Kim Ranslaben discusses the reason parents are more significant impediment to getting graduates on mission than other barriers:

“My husband and I sat with a couple dozen college students one night to listen to a missions’ mobilizer answer their questions about going overseas after college. The first question was one we’ve heard many times: How do you go about raising money when you’re just about to graduate from college? I know the young man probably got a little confused when his question was met with a smile and a shaking head. The mobilizer told them that money wouldn’t be their problem, and instead he asked the students to guess the primary barrier to them going to the mission field after college.

Answers like student loans, lack of training, and fear were all met by another shaking head. As the room grew silent, the mobilizer’s eyes met mine. I smiled because I knew the answer very well: it’s me.

The number one barrier these young men and women face in trying to take the gospel overseas is often parents just like me.”

3. Turns out the "Boy who came back from heaven" didn't. What does this mean for the Christian publishing industry?

“Last week, Tyndale House Publishers stopped production of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven after Alex Malarkey, the boy in question, announced that he had made up the tale. Cheeky jokes about the family’s surname aside, this is a serious matter that shouldn’t go gently away, but rather stand as a reminder of what it means to speak for and about God, the Christian life and the kingdom at hand.

Years ago, when author James Frey was taken to task for his composites of characters and situations in his jarring book A Million Little Pieces, the publishing world - both Christian and mainstream - erupted in a debate about truth: what it means to tell it, and how it should be told. Sadly, this was not a lesson to which those behind The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven paid attention. Eager to offer a vision of the afterlife that was well suited to the commercial evangelical machine, Tyndale allowed a 6-year-old and his father (mostly his father, Kevin Malarkey) to speak about ecclesiology with flippant idealism and day-dreamy cliché, dangerously undergirded with a misinterpretation of Christ’s saying about praise from “the mouths of babes.””

4. What should we do with the news about the discovery of an ancient fragment of the gospel of Mark? Craig Evans urges us to wait and be patient for more information.

“In 2012 Daniel Wallace, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, mentioned in a public debate that researchers had found a fragment of the earliest copy of the Gospel of Mark. This weekend, another scholar, Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, reconfirmed the existence of the fragment.

This text was written on a sheet of papyrus that was later reused to create a mask that was worn by a mummy. Although the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs wore masks made of gold, notes LiveScience, ordinary people had to settle for masks made out of papyrus (or linen), paint, and glue. Given how expensive papyrus was, people often had to reuse sheets that already had writing on them.”

5. A 12 minute video on a woman who was redeemed from modern slavery:

Worth Reading - 1/20

1. Does the scale of the universe disprove religion? This is the argument of some, and yet Hugh Hunter disagrees in a recent post at First Things:

“The argument from scale is aimed at a religious person who believes that to God, we human beings are, to use Everitt’s catchall term, the “jewel” of creation. Or to follow the literary metaphor, Everitt’s target thinks that mankind is the protagonist in this universal drama. The problem is that our best science reveals that we collectively play the role of Cornelius, arriving on the scene in a fraction of the last million of the universe’s billions of years, and occupying one bit of one solar system of one galaxy among trillions of others.

Anyone can see that if Shakespeare had intended to make Cornelius the main character of Hamlet, he would have given him a bigger and more important role to play. The fact that he did not do this tells us something about Shakespeare, namely that he did not regard the character Cornelius as the “jewel” of Hamlet. Everitt’s reasoning transfers the same observation to the case of God. If God regarded us as jewels, as protagonists, he would have given us more time and more room on life’s stage. But it seems obvious that God did not do this. Everitt concludes that God does not regard mankind as jewels or as protagonists, and theists who believe that God is the sort of being who does regard them that way are mistaken.”

2. National Geographic sent someone to the mountains of China to document the culture of some of the remote inhabitants:

“Large heads bowed, snow coating their thick hides, plumes of steam swirling from their frosted nostrils, they’re primordial beasts genetically inured to intense cold. A wooden sleigh called a chana is attached to each horse by long pine poles and a curved yoke. The design of the sleigh—the width of a horse’s ass, the length of a human body, with two curl-tipped runners—has not changed for centuries.

Our chana driver, Norbek, a rough-cut Kazakh as impervious to the cold as his horses, adjusts the leather straps with bare hands. He has loaded the two sleighs with our backpacks, cross-country skis, and sacks of hay for the horses. Bundled in down parkas, mittens, and insulated pants and boots, we are about to sled into the Altay Mountains of central Asia.”

3. Parachuting Beavers into the wilderness. This is short, but entertaining and true:

“The year was 1948, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had a problem. A people problem. They were moving into the western portion of the state, which had been wooded wilderness for centuries. And they were clashing with some of the original inhabitants—particularly beavers.”

4. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord. They also communicate the puniness of humans. Here is a video that highlights some of the beauty of the latest NASA picture that is going around.

First & Last photo by Cory Poole: https://www.facebook.com/CoryPoolePhotography Super-high resolution image of Andromeda from Hubble (NASA/ESA): http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/ Music is 'Koda - The Last Stand': https://soundcloud.com/kodachrome/koda-the-last-stand Space is crazy,

Worth Reading - 1/19

1. Today is the celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is his famous, "I have a dream speech" in full:

2. This is a link to King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." If you have not read this, it is worth taking the time to read this six page PDF.

3. Russell Moore asks whether seeking to glorify God is, in and of itself, a hate crime? This is a discussion of the degree to which the privatization of religion violates the fundamental nature of religion itself.

“The Bible’s argument is not that all the food and drink ought to be “taken over” by coercively Christian manufacturers and distributors. In fact, the argument is exactly the reverse.

Paul is telling believers to eat the food sold in the marketplace without having to interrogate about its religious pedigree, and only to refrain from eating something if it would cause a problem of conscience for someone else.

The “glory of God” is about living with thankfulness, in ways that are consistent with the ways of Christ. Christians believe they glorify God by loving our neighbors, by serving the poor, by helping the sick and the lonely, by showing honor and kindness to everyone.

The fact that some would find this statement controversial demonstrates ignorance of a basic tenet of mere Christianity, ignorance with public consequences.”

4. Walter Strickland reviews the recent movie, "Selma":

“Selma is a reliable and compelling account of a three month vignette of the larger civil rights movement. Since the basic framework of the historical account is depicted, I am not particularly interested in mulling over the amount of artistic license taken in the dialogues with Dr. King and President Lyndon B. Johnson, and between Coretta Scott King and Malcolm X, although it would be a fruitful study. My purpose is to draw our collective attention to the influence of the Christian faith in the Selma story, the “foot soldiers” of the movement, and the tensions between black civil rights organizations.”

Worth Reading - 1/16

1. Does free speech include the right to offend? Are some people advocating a double standard by supporting PC speech codes and demonstrating outrage at the Charlie Hedbo attack? The question is more complex than this article allows, but there are some interesting questions raised herein.

“The unanimity of outrage expressed on Twitter, the unthinking allegiance to the cause of the hour whatever that cause might be, the social positioning of writers struggling to be the most pure, the most righteous, the most moving in their indignation — all of these things remind me of other scandals, of other rages, in which the targets were not Islamic terrorists but men and women who disagree with elements of liberal dogma.”

2. This is an opinion piece in the NY Times that explains the difference between populism and true conservatism. It is worth every minute of the read:

“Conservatism is famously anti-utopian, understanding life’s imperfections and the limitations of politics. Knowing this, those on the right shouldn’t become enraged or forlorn when the world itself doesn’t fully conform to their hopes. Conservatism considers one of the cardinal virtues to be prudence. And no conservative — certainly no one familiar with the magnificent history of the Constitution — should be opposed to compromise per se. Whether or not accommodation is wise depends on whether an agreement nudges things in the right direction.”

3. Here is an introductory piece in the Baptist Press on the criteria for canonizing the 66 books of the Bible:

“Some scholars today cast doubt over the canon of Scripture — those 66 books that the church has long held to be the complete written revelation of God. They justify their views by claiming: 1) that surviving texts of the Old and New Testaments are corrupt and therefore unreliable or 2) that early church leaders deliberately excluded certain books for personal or political reasons.

As Craig L. Blomberg responds in his book “Can We Still Believe the Bible?”: “... there is not a shred of historical evidence to support either of these claims; anyone choosing to believe them must do so by pure credulity, flying in the face of all the evidence that actually exists.””

4. And people say English is confusing:

Worth Reading - 1/14

1. Peyton Manning has always impressed me as a classy guy. Certainly not perfect, but consistently kind, well-intentioned, and engaged in helping others. Here is an account of some of his charitable activity:

“Everybody knows what Peyton Manning does for the community. We know it in Indianapolis, where since 1999 he did so much for the children’s hospital at St. Vincent that in 2007 they renamed the place after him. They know it in New Orleans where he grew up and in Tennessee where he attended college, and they are seeing it now in Denver where he plays for the Broncos.

But nobody knows what Peyton Manning does for the community. Not all of it. Not close.

Because that’s the way Manning wants it.”

2. The PhD as a path to poverty. This story is altogether too common, so folks should think about what they get their degrees in and why:

“Professor Bolin, or Brianne, as she tells her students to call her, might as well be invisible. When I arrive at the building at Columbia College in Chicago where she teaches composition, I ask the assistant at the front desk how to locate her. “Bolin?” she asks, sounding puzzled, as she scans the faculty list. “I’m sorry, I don’t see that name.” There is no Brianne Bolin to be found, even though she’s taught four classes a year here for the past five years. She doesn’t have a phone extension to her name, never mind an office.”

3. An apology for paper books. They may be better for your health:

“There’s something simple and special, however, about reading a classic paper book that e-books seem to lack. Recently, I was reading before bed while I drank a cup of chamomile tea, and I found that it not only relaxed me, but I fell asleep almost immediately, I slept soundly through the entire night, and I woke up feeling refreshed. I found myself pondering events and scenes in the book, the imagery glowing in my mind in place of my typically exhausting anxieties. I’m going to believe it wasn’t a coincidence: Putting aside my phone — which, in addition to texting, has access to the cyclical, distracting spirals of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat — and focusing on a tale that took me outside of myself, somehow, inexplicably, helped me feel better on many levels.”

Worth Reading - 1/13

1. Tim Challies discusses being an ordinary Christian. This is a timely topic with the release of Merida's latest book, etc.:

“I’ve got a feeling that the people who do the most for God are those who are most content to be ordinary. Some of them remain unknown and unnoticed through their entire lives. Others are elevated and admired. But I suspect that the ones we love the most are the ones who can be satisifed with either a profile or invisibility, with either much or little—whatever God gives. There is beauty in that. I want that.”

2. Here is my review of Tony Merida's book, published last week on my blog:

“Don’t read this book unless you are prepared to have your practice of faith challenged. When he titled this book Ordinary, Merida wasn’t describing what your ordinary life is, he was describing what your ordinary life ought to be.

It turns out that the biblical definition of ordinary is a lot different than how most of us normally life. According to Merida,

“Ordinary is not a call to be more radical. If anything, it is a call to the contrary. The kingdom of God isn’t coming with light shows, and shock and awe, but with lowly acts of service. I want to push back against sensationalism and ‘rock star Christianity,’ and help people understand that they can make a powerful impact by practicing ordinary Christianity.””

3. I picked up much the same topic as Challies in my post last week at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics:

“Sometimes we imagine that changing the world requires stupendous feats, monumental courage, or superhuman endurance. We cheer heroes that devote their lives to particular issues and wish to ourselves that we could make a difference like they do.”

4. Bruce Ashford reviewed Merida's book, too:

“So Tony wrote Ordinary in order to “identify some ‘ordinary things’ that ordinary people like us can do, and if we do them with gospel intentionality (speaking and showing the gospel), then we can make an extraordinary impact.” (p. 9) The introduction addresses the Bible’s testimony on the gospel-social justice nexus and the tendency we evangelical Christians have to sensationalize everything we do in the name of Jesus. The book then unfolds in five concise, easy-to-read chapters that address the key topics of ordinary living as a Christian: neighbor love, hospitality, orphan care, advocacy for the voiceless, and humility. In the conclusion, Tony exhorts us to take up this way of life, which is consistent with God’s character and plan for history.”

Worth Reading - 1/12

1. How much would you pay to have your constipated goldfish unstopped? Would you pay several hundred dollars?

“A goldfish lover from Norfolk paid hundreds of pounds in vets’ fees when his pet became constipated.

The owner took his ailing fish to Toll Barn Veterinary Centre in North Walsham where vets told him it was constipated and an operation would cost about £300.”

2. It is important to remember that Kindergartners are human beings, too.

“I once heard a wise professor of education remark to his class that behind every educational approach stands a picture of the human being. “But many of you,” he said, “will teach for thirty years or more, and no one will ever ask you what image you hold – what picture of the human being shapes your education.”

What image stands behind American education today? Is it a mechanistic picture or a human picture? The Common Core State Standards are rolling out in state after state, redefining much of American education. Designed to help students prepare for college and the workplace, they are also purported to cultivate creative and critical thinking and problem solving. While these are important goals, it is unlikely that the standards will advance them.”

3. Kevin DeYoung the refusal of Stuart Scott, recently-deceased ESPN host, to engage internet critics:

“As a Christian–and I don’t know anything about Scott’s religious beliefs or lack thereof–we know that living for God’s pleasure and living in God’s pleasure are even better and more freeing than living for our kids. And yet, Scott is definitely on to something. Criticism hurts. Unfair attacks on our character are, well, no fair. But let’s not make it worse by our pride. Most folks, even those closest to us, aren’t fixated on us–either to applaud us or condemn us. And those who are have their own problems. Why get upset when people we don’t know and have never met think we’re dirty rotten scoundrels? The internet critic fires his missive and goes back to whatever life he was living before. Don’t let him (or her) have a place in your life he doesn’t deserve.”

Worth Reading - 1/9

1. Trevin Wax interviews the pastor who just preached the world's longest sermon on record. The entire Bible in over 53 consecutive hours:

“My wife leads the kid’s ministry at our church, and there was an activity she was doing with the kids that involved Guinness World Records. I remember thinking, “I wonder what the longest sermon ever preached was.”

First, I love to preach and anytime God’s Word goes out, it accomplishes something and so the longer I preach, the more opportunity for the grace of Jesus to be shared and make an impact in someone’s life. Secondly, I’m really competitive and so I thought it would be pretty cool to have a world-record! As I investigate with Guinness, they do not have a category for “Longest Sermon Marathon,” but they sent back the “Longest Speech Marathon” as an alternative.”

2. The recent attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hedbo is sobering. This is evidenced particularly when comics like Conan O'Brien interrupt their usually jovial monologues to deliver straight up content:

Worth Reading - 1/8

1. Here are forty words you may be misusing:

“I like to think I know a little about business writing, yet I still fall into a few word traps—not to mention a few cliché traps.
Take the words “who” and “whom.” I rarely use “whom” when I should; even when grammar check suggests “whom,” I think it sounds pretentious, so I use “who.”

Then I sound dumb.

Just as one misspelled word can get your resume tossed onto the “nope” pile, one incorrectly used word can undermine your overall message. Whether that’s fair or unfair, it happens-so let’s make sure it doesn’t happen to you.”

2. Standing on principles sometimes means we defend people we don't agree with. Such is the case with the recent Charles Hebdo attack:

“Our principles will be tested in the defense of unsympathetic victims. The old complacency and condescension (“Oh, her skirt was too short.” “Oh, he could hardly help it.”) will not be enough.”

3. Greg Thornbury shares how Carl F. H. Henry helped him remain a faithful Christian:

“We learned how to do form and redaction analysis, a method of study that assumes the author of a biblical text is motivated by a theological agenda rather than by reporting what he had seen. We simply “knew” that the book we were holding in our hands did not have a direct connection to the apostles whose names were associated with the Gospels and Epistles.

For me, this dose of higher criticism was nearly lethal. Any sense that the Bible was divinely inspired and trustworthy, or that the creeds had metaphysical gravitas, started to seem implausible. The best I could muster was that, somehow mystically, perhaps Jesus was the Christ, existentially speaking. I was approaching something close to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman’s own story of losing faith.”

4. Aaron Earls (@WardrobeDoor) shares a nice meditation on the purpose of difficulties in our Christian lives:

“There is no shine with sandpaper. There is no palace without power tools.

Anything of value takes hard work and we as human beings are no exception. In fact, we are the prime example. We take work and God will not be content until He has finished with us.

Philippians 1:6 is both a comforting and terrifying promise, “I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.””

5. The Art of Manliness shares some study tips for Collegians (male and female) as the semester gets ready to begin again:

“When 160,000 undergraduates in the University of California system were asked to name the obstacles that impeded their academic success, the students listed things like work, stress, and depression. But the number one reason, which was given by 33% of the students, was that they simply didn’t know how to study.”

Worth Reading - 1/7

1. Commentary on a recent proposal to turn the study of literature into a quantitative system: 

“To grasp this collective system, Moretti calls for a “quantitative approach to literature”—hence the graphs, maps, and trees—which will “widen the domain of the literary historian” and deal in data “ideally independent of interpretations.” Moretti calls this approach “distant reading,” a method of “deliberate reduction and abstraction” which yields historical patterns through artificial constructs. Moretti hopes emerging literary labs can collect and share data and create a new quarry for the digital humanities, a future heretofore unimagined in literary scholarship: namely, research without close-reading.”

2. Another cry for more traditional forms of education from the Imaginative Conservative: 

“There is no reason to turn up our noses at this, to sneer at it as “mere” memorization. Actors commit hundreds and hundreds of lines to memory. Is that “passive”? Singers commit hundreds of songs to memory. Is that “uncritical”?

One of my favorite professors in graduate school grew up on his grandfather’s farm in Saskatchewan, back in the days when a wheat farmer would spend long hours behind the plow. He told us that his grandfather’s neighbor spent those hazy hours sometimes reciting Milton’s Paradise Lost. He had gotten it by heart. Notice what great difference there is between the phrases “learning by rote” and “getting something by heart”? You cannot do such a thing without considerable intelligence and love.”

3. There has been some movement toward free enterprise in Cuba. This is a good beginning:

“Remember when you bought that first thing – a car, maybe – with your own first income? Remember the feeling of pride it gave you? You’d scrubbed pots and pans in the diner kitchen all summer. Or maybe you were the “go-to” babysitter for everyone in your church. You earned that money, and you bought yourself something.

Now imagine living in a world where that could never happen. You are told by the government that they will care for your every need, no need to pay for anything. Everyone will get the same things, and all will be well. We call this place “Cuba,” and that system has not worked. (See also, Soviet Russia, Bay-area communes and Shakers.)

With the U.S. sanctions against the island nations now lifted, Cuba is beginning to see economic life again. The Communist government also recently changed laws about self-employment.”

4. Matthew Hall discusses the significance of the virtue of humility for Christian Scholars:

“I never had the chance to meet him in person, but I have become an ardent admirer of Carl F. H. Henry. And while I have come to appreciate his brilliance as a Christian thinker, I am always struck by his humility. Don’t get me wrong, Henry was not reluctant to call a spade a spade or to dismantle erroneous arguments, heterodoxy, or injustice. But he did so with a marked humility that is also evident from the countless anecdotes I have heard from his former friends, students, and colleagues.

Christian scholarship must be, by its very essence, characterized by a love for, and earnest desire to seek, the truth. This means it will by necessity involve conviction, critical thought, and the best tools of research and inquiry.”

5. Pennsylvania has relaxed some of its very stringent Home School regulations. The decrease in oversight does not impress at least one author at the New York Times:

“Unlike so much of education in this country, teaching at home is broadly unregulated. Along with steady growth in home schooling has come a spirited debate and lobbying war over how much oversight such education requires.”

The above piece really does a good job of trying to disguise the bias. This would be a good article for a home school student to evaluate to see how the author, Matoko Rich, presents an opinion while pretending to present only factual information. Illustations are chosen to present homeschooling as a low content version of the real thing. The only testimonial of a home school graduate is one student who completed her homeschooling in New Jersey and has since gone on to be a doctoral student at the University of Michigan, according to her academica.edu page. This isn't a bad article, but it is an opinion piece in place of a true new content. This is why we (and our children) must be careful to scrutinize our news sources.

Worth Reading - 1/6

1. A powerful series of blogs from a friend and adoptive parent. She details some of the struggles they go through. It's worth the time to read the whole series:

“Apart from any parenting stress, seminary was very time-consuming. PJ worked overly long hours on classwork, and I worked overly long hours at home with the kids. Money was tight, but time was tighter. This took a toll on our relationship, though I didn’t realize how much until I flew to Texas with the kids while PJ went to Baltimore for a mission trip and a conference. After days of falling apart, I wrote this email to a friend late at night.

I’m so, so mad(?) or resentful(?) or—I don’t even know—at PJ right now. This week has been pure emotional hell while he is on that Baltimore trip. I see tweets all day from great lecturers, and I’m jealous that he gets to sit and soak that up for hours. He has afternoons off, and all afternoon I’m mad that I can’t remember the last time I had a break, let alone hours off every single day. His blogs come in, and I read that he got to spend his evenings focused, unburdened in sharing Jesus. And man alive, I am struggling knowing that he’s teamed up with a girl who gets to do this with my husband every day this week. I so, so desperately wish it were me beside him in this work…Thanks for listening. I feel a huge weight lifted in just telling someone what I’ve been so ashamed to admit: I’m mad at my husband for being on a mission trip.

Note: PJ was actually on an eight-person team, and there was absolutely no wrongdoing—nor even a suspicion of wrongdoing; I was upset about my state in life, not his actions.”

2. On the importance of routine to the creative process:

“Think outside the box, shake things up, and think different: The metaphors we use for creativity suggest that it’s different from many other pursuits.

As a result, it might seem that being creative requires a different approach than most other skills. If you want to be a great tennis player, you need to practice your swing. If you want to nail a presentation, you need to practice it several times. But, it turns out that creativity also requires practice.”

3. NPR did an objective piece on a pastor who struggles with same-sex attraction but chose, with his wife's full knowledge, to get married:

“Allan Edwards is the pastor of Kiski Valley Presbyterian Church in western Pennsylvania, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. He’s attracted to men, but he considers acting on that attraction a sin. Accordingly, Edwards has chosen not to act on it.

”I think we all have part of our desires that we choose not to act on, right?” he says. “So for me, it’s not just that the religion was important to me, but communion with a God who loves me, who accepts me right where I am.”

Where he is now is married. He and his wife, Leanne Edwards, are joyfully expecting a baby in July.”

4. The Facebook comments of the above story indicate this isn't a discussion about personal choice for many vocal people.

5. Sadly, there is a movement afoot to prevent unregulated sledding. The litigiousness of American is one again turning on the fun vacuum: 

“As an American (and Iowan!) I find this sort of flinching risk-aversion profoundly embarrassing. We might like to locate the blame for things like sledding bans somewhere out there in the unruly tort system (and indeed Messrs Ramseyer and Rasmusen do), but we must face the possibility that the blame also lies within. Perhaps it’s better to be safe than sorry, but one wonders whether we won’t become sorry to have made such a fetish of staying safe. In much the same way that dominant firms, jealous of market share, tend to become over-cautious and lose their edge, America the weak-kneed hegemon risks losing the can-do, risk-taking, innovative pioneer spirit that made it the world’s dominant economic and military power. Is it worth devoting so much zeal to protecting America’s young minds from brain damage if the finest among them wind up too conservative to seek anything but a sure paycheck? If Americans need something to fear, it should be that by continuing to inspire this surfeit of heedfulness in generation after generation, America risks heading downhill, and not in the fun way. ”

Worth Reading - 1/5

1. From last year at The Atlantic, an article that claims there is more to life than the pursuit of happiness:

“According to Gallup , the happiness levels of Americans are at a four-year high — as is, it seems, the number of best-selling books with the word “happiness” in their titles. At this writing, Gallup also reports that nearly 60 percent all Americans today feel happy, without a lot of stress or worry. On the other hand, according to the Center for Disease Control, about 4 out of 10 Americans have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. Forty percent either do not think their lives have a clear sense of purpose or are neutral about whether their lives have purpose. Nearly a quarter of Americans feel neutral or do not have a strong sense of what makes their lives meaningful. Research has shown that having purpose and meaning in life increases overall well-being and life satisfaction, improves mental and physical health, enhances resiliency, enhances self-esteem, and decreases the chances of depression. On top of that, the single-minded pursuit of happiness is ironically leaving people less happy, according to recent research. “It is the very pursuit of happiness,” Frankl knew, “that thwarts happiness.””

2. Books at a Glance posted my review of a book on Pastor-Theologian Andrew Fuller. This book is worth your time to read:

“This volume makes a significant contribution to evangelicalism for several reasons. First, the subject is timely: examining the life of a theologically-minded pastor is especially important when movements like the Emerging Church and post-modernism continue to erode the concept of truth and the place for truth in the local church. Brewster sets the stage for this discussion well in his introduction, invoking David Wells’ series on the state of evangelicalism and truth.”

3. With the Pope getting ready to make a pronouncement about climate change, there is some debate over where evangelicals stand:

“For the sake of the Christian church in America, I deeply wish that evangelicals were more vocal about protecting the world that belongs to our Savior. And I wish that we were much quicker to demand justice for those who suffer from the effects of manmade climate change. But when you run to non-credentialed fringe elements as spokesmen for Christianity, and ignore clearly recognized religious associations and authorities, you participate – unwittingly, I’m sure – in a gross distortion of the witness of the church of Jesus Christ in our country.

If you take the time to look, you’ll find that evangelicals everywhere know who this world belongs to, and who has been appointed for its stewardship. “The earth is the Lord’s,” the Psalms tell us. And mankind was placed in the Creation to “tend and keep it” on behalf of its Creator, whom we love.

Please take the time to look. Climate deniers speak for themselves and their sponsors, not for the rest of us.”

4. Desiring God published the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards a few years ago. They are worth a read:

“1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.”

5. At the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics, Hugh Welchel wrote a post on goal setting that complements my post from last week:

“Goals are about getting things done, but they’re also about more than that. ”

Worth Reading - 1/2

1. A list of banished words for 2015 from Lake Superior State University:

“The tradition created by the late W. T. Rabe, former public relations director at Lake Superior State University, begins its fifth decade with this year’s annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

Rabe and fellow LSSU faculty and staff came up with the first list of words and phrases that people love to hate at a New Year’s Eve party in 1975, publishing it on Jan. 1, 1976. Though he and his friends created the first list from their own pet peeves about language, Rabe said he knew from the volume of mail he received in the following weeks that the group would have no shortage of words and phrases from which to choose for 1977. Since then, the list has consisted entirely of nominations received from around the world throughout the year.”

2. A defense of global missions as more than just giving OR going from the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics:

“The way you live every day matters. Hard work, selfless service, and productivity matter. Love for your community and your neighbors matters.”

3. From First Things, an argument that the view of humanity is at the core of most of the so-called culture wars:

“Those determined to impose the latter idea [a low view of human worth] on the rest of us are the aggressors in the culture wars of the twenty-first century, not the Church. A culture war has been declared on us. And while there may be a choice of weapons with which to fight that war, not fighting is not an option. For to surrender, supinely, before the aggressors in the culture wars—including the eugenicists—is a betrayal of the Gospel and a betrayal of the Church’s evangelical mission.”

4. A recent survey points to an uptick in happiness in the world:

“Happiness is on the rise globally, according to an end-of-year survey of 64,000 people in 65 countries.

The market research and polling organisation WIN/Gallup found that 70% of respondents were content with their life - a 10% increase from last year.”

5. An interesting perspective on distance learning and the worth of a Christian worldview:

“What distance education can do is help us to personalize to each student’s strengths and weaknesses to the point where you are maximizing their potential in a way we’ve never been able to do it before, at least not on this scale with this mass of people and I think that’s really exciting. And it’s not really all that “pie-in-the-sky.””

Worth Reading - 1/1

First, let me say happy New Year. I hope that 2014 was successful and 2015 is even more rewarding.

1. Here is my post at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics on what sorts of goals you should set for the New Year:

“The chief end of our entire lives should be to glorify God and enjoy him forever. We do this by acknowledging God in all that we do (cf. Proverbs 3:6) and pursuing his glory in all that we do (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:31).

Being faithful as Christians is our ultimate goal, but to meaningfully pursue that grand vision we need to have discernable goals along the way. New Year’s resolutions can serve that purpose.”

2. Tim Challies offers a prayer for the New Year:

“Whatever may come in the year ahead, I pray that you would glorify yourself through me. In times of joy or sadness, in times of security or trial, in times of peace or temptation, make yourself known and make yourself great through me.”

3. Scott McKnight recommends a new book Stylish Academic Writing:

“Helen Sword, in her book Stylish Academic Writing, contends page after page that the two ought to be combined and that academics with a desire to be more stylish and elegant in their writing can do so.

So let’s start 2015 with this commitment: more stylish academic writing.”

4. Over at Acton Institute, Joe Carter shows that most people waste their additional free time by watching--cooking shows:

“For most of human history, the average person spent much of their day trying to produce enough food to survive. Even in the mid-1800s 90 percent of Americans were farmers.

But that was soon to change, and by the 1870 census farmers dropped to a minority at 47.7 percent of all employed persons.”

5. Here is a pretty cool video (in my humble opinion) about a boat making school in Canada:

The town of Winterton in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, is home to the Wooden Boat Museum that celebrates the skill and ingenuity of local master boat builders like Jerome, who build skiffs, punts or 'rodneys' using hand tools and local wood.

Worth Reading - 12/31

1. Dan Darling from the ERLC warns against letting children claim things aren't fair:

“It sounds innocent enough. Everybody wants life to be fair, right? But this is an insidious phrase, revealing a sin so bankrupt it goes back to the beginning—back to the Fall of Man. It’s essentially what Eve was told by the serpent:

“You’re getting a raw deal. You’re entitled to more. God is holding out on you.”

If you read Paul’s account of the Fall in Romans, you’ll discover that it was this attitude—ingratitude and entitlement—that lit the match of sin, plunging Creation into darkness. And it’s a surefire way to test your own heart and find out where the idols are.”

2. A World War I soldier's room has gone untouched for almost 100 years:

“Dragoons officer Rochereau died at age 22 inside an English field ambulance after a battle in Belgium on April 26, 1918. According to the Guardian, the officer’s parents decided to keep his room exactly as he left it — even after selling the house under the poignant, if legally unenforceable condition the room should not be changed for 500 years.”

3. A blogger admits he probably nicked an idea from someone else, even if he didn't mean to. This is a classy post by Jordan Ballor at Acton Institute:

“There is, however, a notable correspondence between an Acton Commentary that I wrote earlier this month, “The Worst Christmas Song Ever,” and a piece that appeared weeks earlier at The Federalist. In “‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ Is The Worst Christmas Song Ever,” Leslie Loftis takes down this miserable tune in devastating fashion. Loftis points out that the song “has a little of everything to loathe. Condescension. Inane inaccuracies. Smugness. Mullets.””

4. Impressive photography, but a catalog of lostness in this short photo collection by The Huffington Post. Still, it is worth a look.

5. Snowflakes may be unique, but their shapes can be described by a mere 35 different categories according to a recent study. This is a bit whimsical, but interesting, nonetheless:

“The stunning diversity of snowflakes gives rise to the idea that every single one is unique. While “no two flakes alike” might be an attractive metaphor, it isn’t entirely true. Yet that doesn’t stop us from peering at the intricate crystal structures caught on our mittens. It also doesn’t stop researchers from painstakingly cataloguing each and every type of crystal that might form.”

Worth Reading - 12/30

1. Some designs for Apple products that never came to be. Even if you don't read the article, it's worth scrolling through the pictures:

“Each division had its own head of design and developed its product line any way it wanted to. As a result, Apple’s products shared little in the way of a common design language or overall synthesis. In essence, bad design was both the symptom and a contributing cause of Apple’s corporate disease. Steve’s desire to end this disjointed approach gave birth to a strategic design project that would revolutionize Apple’s brand and product lines, change the trajectory of the company’s future, and eventually redefine the way the world thinks about and uses consumer electronics and communication technologies.”

2. Newsweek dropped an article right before Christmas that smooshes all the anti-Bible myths together and presents it as journalism:

“The Bible is not the book many American fundamentalists and political opportunists think it is, or more precisely, what they want it to be. Their lack of knowledge about the Bible is well established. A Pew Research poll in 2010 found that evangelicals ranked only a smidgen higher than atheists in familiarity with the New Testament and Jesus’s teachings. “Americans revere the Bible—but, by and large, they don’t read it,’’ wrote George Gallup Jr. and Jim Castelli, pollsters and researchers whose work focused on religion in the United States. The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm, found in 2012 that evangelicals accepted the attitudes and beliefs of the Pharisees—religious leaders depicted throughout the New Testament as opposing Christ and his message—more than they accepted the teachings of Jesus.”

3. Here is Daniel Wallace's rebuttal to the Newsweek article:

“Every year, at Christmas and Easter, several major magazines, television programs, news agencies, and publishing houses love to rattle the faith of Christians by proclaiming loudly and obnoxiously that there are contradictions in the Bible, that Jesus was not conceived by a virgin, that he did not rise from the dead, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The day before Christmas eve (23 December 2014), Newsweek published a lengthy article by Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.” Although the author claims that he is not promoting any particular theology, this wears thin. Eichenwald makes so many outrageous claims, based on a rather slender list of named scholars (three, to be exact), that one has to wonder how this ever passed any editorial review.”

4. Here is Albert Mohler's critique of the Newsweek article:

“When it comes to Newsweek‘s cover story, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,” Eichenwald appears to be far outside his area of expertise and knowledge. More to the point, he really does not address the subject of the Bible like a reporter at all. His article is a hit-piece that lacks any journalistic balance or credibility. His only sources cited within the article are from severe critics of evangelical Christianity, and he does not even represent some of them accurately.”

5. From the Art of Manliness, How to Keep Your House Warm in the Winter:

“In doing research for this article, I came across one mantra over and over and over again: it’s more about keeping the person warm versus the entirety of the house. The house doesn’t really care if it’s a little chilly, but you care if you’re cold. So throw on hoodies and sweaters, get a warm robe, sip on hot coffee or tea all day, break out the thick blankets and bed sheets; do whatever you need to do to stay warm and comfortable (being comfortable is key — you don’t want the thermostat so low that you have to wear a coat in your own home). In all likelihood, you can probably handle the thermostat being a couple degrees lower if you take some of the measures above.”

Worth Reading - 12/29

1. Paper books may be the smart readers of the future:

“Paper books were supposed to be dead by now. For years, information theorists, marketers, and early adopters have told us their demise was imminent. Ikea even redesigned a bookshelf to hold something other than books. Yet in a world of screen ubiquity, many people still prefer to do their serious reading on paper.”

2. Everything is awesome and everyone is complaining. A discussion of current economic conditions from Politico:

“Let’s face it: The press has a problem reporting good news. Two Americans died of Ebola and cable TV flipped out; now we’re Ebola-free and no one seems to care. The same thing happened with the flood of migrant children across the Mexican border, which was a horrific crisis until it suddenly wasn’t. Nobody’s going to win a Pulitzer Prize for recognizing that we’re smoking less, driving less, wasting less electricity and committing less crime.”

3. Desiring God urges not to get too familiar with the Bible:

“Unexamined familiarity will prevent you from looking at the Book. Because such familiarity crowds out curiosity, it imperceptibly stiffens necks, hardens hearts, and deafens ears. Familiarity may lead us to assume things that are not in the text, and it may blind us to things that are.”

4. The terrorist magazine Inspire advertises the development of a new rectal bomb to deliver airplane attacks:

“Five years after the so-called “underwear bomber” tried to blow up a plane by hiding explosives in his underpants, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as it’s known, is taking another look at bombs hidden in places of an intimate nature, or what the terrorist group modestly calls the “hidden bomb.” A twenty-two page spread in the latest issue of AQAP’s flagship Inspire magazine gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a bomb designed to be hidden inside or near the rectal cavity — except the writer balks at talking about the last, most critical (and intimate) step: where to actually put the bomb.”

5. Randy Alcorn summarizes ten ways to control spending and wisely manage God's money:

“It’s not how much money we make, but how we handle it that matters. And it all begins by recognizing the money we’re handling is not our own. It belongs to another, before whom we will one day stand, and from whom the best words we could ever hear are these: “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master’s joy.””

Worth Reading - 12/25

Because by now you are probably ready to throw away some batteries and find a happy place where playing with new toys and stepping over wrapping paper hasn't been heard of:

1. Here is a collection of the fifty weird and worst nativity sets. The images include a Spam nativity, a zombie nativity, a meat nativity and more. . .

2. The Bethlehemian Rhapsody. This may become a new Christmas tradition:

To download this song, go to http://www.puppetunes.com This delightful parody written by Mark Bradford and directed by Darla Robinson (darla@ puppetunes.com) tells the Christmas story in a new....and UNIQUE....way that will touch the hearts of generations to come. Enjoy!

3. The real story of Saint Nicholas:

Worth Reading - 12/24

1. As you make plans for the new year, read Joe Carter's post that explains how to change your mind:

“After reading the entire post the vast majority of readers will snicker at such a hyperbolic claim and never implement the method I outline. A smaller number will consider the advice intriguing, my assertion only a slight exaggeration, but will also never implement the method. A tiny minority, however, will recognize the genius behind the process and apply it to their own life. This group will later say that my claim was an understatement.

This post is written for those people.”

2. Graham Heslop considers the relationship between theology and pastoral ministry at 9Marks:

“I want to challenge pastors to reconsider their view of theology and its value for local church ministry. My reasons for writing this article extend beyond my love of theology and are born from a genuine concern for the life of the local church, along with its ministers.”

3. The New York Times shows us what 2,000 calories looks like at various fast food joints:

“Here, we show you what roughly 2,000 calories looks like at some large chains. (Depending on age and gender, most adults should eat between 1,600 and 2,400 calories a day.) Researchers have long understood that people are more likely to finish what’s on their plate than to stop eating because they’ve consumed a given amount of food. It’s “the completion compulsion,” a phrase coined in the 1950s by the psychologist Paul S. Siegel. Combine that compulsion with the rising number of restaurant meals Americans eat and the substance of those meals, and you start to understand why we’ve put on so much weight. But there is some good news: As you’ll see below, it’s not so hard to eat bountifully and stay under 2,000 calories. It’s just hard to do so at most restaurants.”

4. If you want to track Santa's flight tonight, here is a link to NORAD's Santa Tracker.

5. Evan Koons shares a few minutes on the significance of the incarnation in this season. It's content packed, but humorous.