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.

Worth Reading - 12/23

1. An article at Forbes.com explain why Vermont's single-payer medical system was doomed to failure from the start:

“Last week, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D.) announced that he was pulling the plug on his four-year quest to impose single-payer, government-run health care on the residents of his state. “In my judgment,” said Shumlin at a press conference, “the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families, and the state’s economy.” The key reasons for Shumlin’s reversal are important to understand. They explain why the dream of single-payer health care in the U.S. is dead for the foreseeable future—but also why Obamacare will be difficult to repeal.”

2. Justin Taylor explains the story behind the Civil War era Christmas song, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day":

“On Christmas day, 1863, Longfellow—a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest of which had been nearly paralyzed as his country fought a war against itself—wrote a poem seeking to capture the dynamic and dissonance in his own heart and the world he observes around him. He hears the Christmas bells and the singing of “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14) but observes the world of injustice and violence that seemed to mock the truth of this statement. The theme of listening recurs throughout the poem, leading to a settledness of confident hope even in the midst of bleak despair.”

3. The gap of wealth inequality between minorities and whites has grown since the Great Recession, according to recent Pew research:

“The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010.

The current gap between blacks and whites has reached its highest point since 1989, when whites had 17 times the wealth of black households. The current white-to-Hispanic wealth ratio has reached a level not seen since 2001. (Asians and other racial groups are not separately identified in the public-use versions of the Fed’s survey.)”

4. Karen Swallow Prior writes about the importance of Mary's consent to bear the Incarnate God, in response to the blasphemous accusations of rape from recent years:

“The literal words in the Bible (across various translations) make clear that the angel Gabriel’s words at the Annunciation convey to Mary what will happen, not what has happened, a future conception not a past one. The Annunciation—which is celebrated in the Christian liturgical calendar nine months before Christmas, on March 25, and has been the subject of countless works of art through the ages—is the commemoration of God’s choice of a woman to bear the Savior of the world and of her willing acceptance of that role.”

Worth Reading - 12/22

1. Just like many things, there is another side to the debate over the ecological costs and benefits of raising beef. Here is a pro-beef article from the Wall Street Journal:

“People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change.

As a longtime vegetarian and environmental lawyer, I once bought into these claims. But now, after more than a decade of living and working in the business—my husband, Bill, founded Niman Ranch but left the company in 2007, and we now have a grass-fed beef company—I’ve come to the opposite view. It isn’t just that the alarm over the environmental effects of beef are overstated. It’s that raising beef cattle, especially on grass, is an environmental gain for the planet.”

2. Not surprisingly, employers seem to look with disfavor on individuals whose resumes include religious identifiers:

“According to a study published earlier this year, and co-authored by UConn’s Dr. Michael Wallace, putting any type of religious identifier on a resume minimizes an applicant’s chances of landing a job.

For their study, which was published in the June issue of sociology journal Social Currents, researchers created 3,200 resumes for fictitious job applicants and sent them to prospective employers through a “popular employment Web site.” Each employer was sent 4 different applications containing “varying biographical information but comparable job qualifications.” The only thing that set the resumes apart from each other was the mention of involvement with a particular religious group — for example, “Muslim Student Group” or “Campus Jewish Association.” The religious groups randomly assigned by researchers to the fake resumes were atheist, Catholic, evangelical Christian, Jewish, pagan, Muslim, and a fictitious religion called “Wallonian.” There was also a control group that contained no reference at all to religious involvement.”

Weekend Reading - 12/20

1. Huffington Post (of all places) has put up an really neat infographic of the geneology of Jesus. This is worth the click-through.

2. A techno-geek, self-employed programmer and seminary student offers some helpful advice on maximizing productivity:

“This fall, I have had a lot on my plate: building HolyBible.com, continuing to work for Quest Consultants, and doing a pastoral ministry internship. I needed to be more productive—a lot more. Happily, I have been, and it only took three small changes.”

3. Here is my latest post at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics on the difference between a (relatively) free market and consumerism:

“Greed is a pursuit of personal gain that neglects the common good and places ultimate value on the material prosperity. It results in serving money as a master and excessively valuing possessions on earth, which Christ cautions against (Matthew 6:19–24).Greed and contentment cannot coexist. ”

4. SEBTS professor, John Hammett, writes on the topic of salvation and the mission of God at Christianity Today:

“My own view, which is a multiple intention view of the atonement, goes further to affirm that the atonement of Christ is also intended to, in some sense, reconcile all things to God (Cor. 1:20). Thus my view of the atonement leads me to affirm that God’s mission included making all things new, and is grounded in the cosmic intention of the atonement. Others affirm this aspect of mission, but do not connect it in the same way with a view on the extent of the atonement.”

5. Every year at Christmas-time, Southern Baptists give to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. This link goes to a video that explains who Lottie Moon is. It is well done and worth watching.

Worth Reading - 12/17

1. Blogger Aaron Earls shares ten lessons he's learned from blogging for a decade:

Having blogged for 10 years at the same site doesn’t make me an expert, but it does give me significant experience. Over that decade of blogging here, along with several other personal and professional sites, I have learned some valuable lessons that may help others in the world of online writing.

2. Tim Challies lists his top books of 2014. Not surprisingly, Andy Davis' book, An Infinite Journey is on the list: 

“This book was released at the very end of 2013, but because it was not in wide distribution until early this year, I have chosen to include it as a 2014 title. And it is a very good one! It is a book about growing toward spiritual maturity, but it is more than that; it is also a map for the journey. This makes it something like a systematic theology of spiritual growth and maturity, and one that will benefit any Christian. ”

3. Here is my review from earlier this year of An Infinite Journey that was published in Themelios, the academic journal of The Gospel Coalition:

“An Infinite Journey cuts through much of the ongoing chatter in the law/gospel debate. Davis is a Calvinistic Baptist pastor who, like the Puritans, recognizes the majesty of God’s power both to save and sanctify while still commending the reader to mortify sin through spiritual disciplines. Though there are instructions provided in this book, the process that Davis recommends to foster sanctification is not legalistic and, while elegantly simple, it is not formulaic or trite. Davis avoids the one extreme of merely calling for more grace with little concern for personal holiness. Yet he also deftly evades the other extreme of many books on spiritual disciplines which focus on checklists outlining the basic how-to of Christian living. Instead, An Infinite Journey reflects the mind of an engineer as Davis develops a model that functionally describes how sanctification progresses in the life of a Christian. That is, Davis tells the reader how things work according to the Bible, not prescribing a surefire method for holiness.”

4. A parody of a popular Christmas song, "Vader did you know?":

Worth Reading - 12/16

1. From the Economist, there is a new trend of smaller scale terrorist attacks by radical muslims in places that were formerly considered relatively safe: 

“For the most part, it is still the people of the region who suffer most. Jihadist violence has been predominantly directed at non-Muslim minorities, Shias, Sunni tribes that dare resist IS’s rule, as well as fighters from rival armies and militias. Hundreds have been executed by IS as it has extended its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Beyond, eight Shias were killed in Saudi Arabia last month by suspected IS sympathisers. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has killed scores of Egyptian soldiers in bombings this year.”

2. From First Things, an article on the invention of the so-called wall of separation between religion and public schools:

“The famous phrase “wall of separation of church and state” today enjoys the status of legal precedent, but here’s a curious fact. The phrase comes from the letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Connecticut Baptists who feared that state politicians would suppress them. When the Baptists received the letter, however, they didn’t celebrate and publicize the statement. They didn’t even record it in the minutes of their proceedings. “They pretend it never existed.””

3. William Ross picks up a difficult topic of the nature of the Law and its significance in both the New and Old Testament:

“Someone else knew that man does not live by bread alone, even in his worst suffering and weakest physical moments (Mt. 4:4; Lk. 4:4). Indeed, he himself is the true Word of God (John 1:1). Jesus Christ does not abolish the law, but he fulfills it (Mt. 5:17). In doing so he is the perfect law of God incarnate. And he is the one whose perfect sacrifice and obedience has given spiritual life to God’s people in every age.”

4. Here is my post on the beginnings of a Christian environmental ethics:

“Environmental ethics is a hot topic in the world, since concerns over climate change have led to arguments, protests and physical violence. The issue is as much economic as it is ecological, and there is an element of political power-seeking from both sides of the debate. As is typical, a Christian environmental ethics does not line up with many voices in the contemporary debate.

This is not a discussion of climate change, capitalism, the Keystone pipeline, fracking, coal-ash spills, or any particular issue. First, these are all extremely divisive and tend to distract from meaningful argument about the principals of environmental ethics. Second, I am more concerned to present a biblical approach to the environment, which will shape the beliefs behind particular decision.”

5. From the creator of the Baptist History rap, we have been given the seminary graduation rap to celebrate her husband's graduation from Southeastern:

Happy Graduation Todd!

Worth Reading - 12/15

1. From the Art of Manliness a piece about Winston Churchill's odd but rigid routine:

“A visitor to Chartwell, his home in the English countryside, might have been forgiven for missing this routine, or for thinking it disorderly. Yet while his daily schedule was quite unusual, it was in fact very strict. As one of the researchers who assisted Winston in writing his books recalled, “He was totally organized, almost like a clock. His routine was absolutely dictatorial. He set himself a ruthless timetable every day and would get very agitated, even cross, if it was broken.””

2. From Elise Hilton at the Acton Institute, some thoughts on why "Made in China" may really be saying, "Made by Christian slave labor":

“All of us own something that says, “Made in China.” As the world’s largest economy, China churns out everything from tourist trinkets to sophisticated software. The People’s Republic is “on track to produce $17.6 trillion of goods and services this year,” according to Josh Gelernter at National Review Online. While that may be good news for the global economy, Gelernter says it’s very bad news for many Chinese. They are slaves.”

3. Economist Anne Bradley from the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics offers some perspective for balancing materialism and generosity this Christmas season:

“If the recent trends prove true, material goods will play a large role in our holidays. Many point to capitalism as the cause of this increasingly materialistic attitude toward Christmas.

As Christians, how do we reconcile the tangible effects of capitalism on a season marking one of the most impactful events of all history?”

4. Timothy George writes on Bonhoeffer in Advent at First Things:

“The year was 1943, and another Advent had dawned for Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer loved Advent and had often preached sermons on this holy season of waiting and hope as a metaphor for the entire Christian life. Just one year earlier, during the Advent of 1942, Bonhoeffer had written a circular letter to some of his friends and former students.

’The joy of God goes through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it.’

Those words took on a deeper meaning in December 1943 as Bonhoeffer found himself one of eight hundred prisoners awaiting trial in Berlin’s Tegel military prison.”

Worth Reading - 12/12

1. One entrepreneur is working to turn shipping containers into urban gardens:

“A self-described “hobbyist gardener,” Kuenzi grew up in Redmond, Washington—home to Microsoft—during the tech boom of the 1990s. “At a young age I saw the impact a dedicated group of entrepreneurs could have on the world,” he says. He studied business at the University of Southern California and worked for an early-stage investment group that fostered promising startups in Los Angeles, before moving east to enroll in Georgetown University’s MBA program. He co-founded Local Roots Farms in 2013.”

2. The American Academy of Religion is considering taking a sabbatical by not conducting their annual meeting:

“If the bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, the president of the American Academy of Religion, has her way, she’ll be remembered as the woman who canceled her organization’s conference, which every year attracts a city’s worth of religion scholars.”

3. Here is a post that explains the phenomena of hate watching:

“When NBC aired a live musical last year for the first time in decades, it probably didn’t expect what transpired. Starring Carrie Underwood, The Sound of Music Live was meant to take a beloved holiday tradition and put a new spin on it for a modern audience.

And in the ratings, at least, it was a major success, drawing over 18 million viewers. But if you turned on Twitter while the musical was airing, it might have seemed like all of those people were watching just to mock it.”

4. An illustrated guide to girding your loins:

“Back in the days of the ancient Near East, both men and women wore flowing tunics. Around the tunic, they’d wear a belt or girdle. While tunics were comfortable and breezy, the hem of the tunic would often get in the way when a man was fighting or performing hard labor. So when ancient Hebrew men had to battle the Philistines, the men would lift the hem of their tunic up and tuck it into their girdle or tie it in a knot to keep it off the ground. The effect basically created a pair of shorts that provided more freedom of movement. Thus to tell someone to “gird up their loins” was to tell them to get ready for hard work or battle. It was the ancient way of saying “man up!””

5. The virgin birth is the only credible explanation for the incarnation:

“The general thrust of the secular media is often incredulity toward the fact that so many people still believe the Bible’s accounts to be true. This year, the Pew Research Center released a report on Christmas Day indicating that almost 75% of the American people affirm belief in the virgin birth of Christ. Meanwhile, the Public Religion Research Institute found markedly lower levels of belief, with just under half affirming the historical accuracy of the biblical accounts. ”

Worth Reading - 12/11

1. Watch the skies of Michigan for rocket-propelled porta-johns:

“Orion, Schmorion. While the supergeniuses at NASA were launching their next-gen spacecraft last week, the Michiana Rocketry club was hard at work launching a porta-potty into the sky.”

2. How Education Can Serve a Divine Purpose for Human Culture:

“There are three wonderful things about scholarship: it brings to light the hidden glory of God; it gives you joy in the act of digging up the gold that lies hidden in creation; and it grants you the honor of raising the level and well-being of human life. So whatever made you think that you can become a scholar merely by studying and cramming for exams? ”

3. The Smithsonian Magazine is reporting about the discovery of a fish that can camouflage its scent:

“Skilled predators see their prey in more than one way. Whether they’re detecting motion or heat, sensing electromagnetic signals or relying on good old fashioned eyesight, many predators take a multi-pronged approach to finding dinner. Avoiding becoming their next meal, then, means working out ways to hide that foil all of these senses at once.”

4. Hunt with the world's last full-time hunter/gatherers, from National Geographic.

5. Christian hashtags and trolls, the perception and reality:

“But everyone on Twitter is learning that a hashtag cuts both ways — it can be hijacked or lampooned by detractors, and it’s a key way that online activists are pushing back against opposing messages or what some might even call hate speech.”

Worth Reading - 12/9

1. A beginner's guide to establishing an online presence, from Gradhacker:

“While it may seem like everyone is connected with all the “musts” of online networking and social media, there are plenty of stragglers who are not there yet. I know, because I recently was one of them.”

2. Can we identify those who will possibly prey on our children?

“Karen was an innocent teenager in a hallway of a local megachurch heading home after a youth event. Sam, a building manager, pulled her into an empty classroom and forced her to have sex. No one else was around, and she didn’t know what to do, so she just gave in to Sam’s demands. He threatened her so that she wouldn’t tell anyone, but it was hard to hide because she cried the whole rest of the day. Sam had a rap sheet. He had been hired because he had friends who worked for the church, and no one had bothered to check into his past.”

3. Joe Carter asks whether the Catholic Church changed its position on Usury. From the Acton Institute:

Usury is the practice of making immoral monetary loans intended to unfairly enrich the lender. But what, for Christians, counts as an immoral loan?

4. The 9Marks Journal recommends a cheerful optimism about Christendom in the present day:

“God is looking for men and women who are glad to be alive; who count as a privilege to be his servants at this moment; who are thrilled to be taking part in the coming of the kingdom of God in this generation.”

Worth Reading - 12/8

1. My Post at IFWE on the relationship between the Incarnation and the Mundane aspects of life:

“As we celebrate Christmas, we should celebrate the Incarnation. Not only should we rejoice in the salvation that came through the enfleshment of the Word of God, we should also celebrate the life Christ lived in which he did such ordinary things as eat, sleep, and work.”

2. Over at First Things, Thomas Farr and Hilary Towers think it is time to challenge no-fault divorce:

“High in the catalogue of social pathologies afflicting marriage and the family in America stands our system of family law, the central purpose of which is to enforce no-fault divorce. ”

3. Chelsea Patterson addresses the nature of suffering and why it exists. This is short, but helpful:

“We’re guaranteed to suffer for two reasons. The first is because sin infected everything in our world. When sin entered, nothing in the realm of creation escaped its destroying touch. It ushered in general suffering, such as natural disasters and disease. The second reason is because suffering is a part of being a Christ follower.”

4. Do you need a laugh? Jim Gaffigan's Hot Pocket routine will give it.