Worth Reading - 3/3

1. Bruce Ashford shares 11 books that are helpful for understanding Christian perspectives on cultural engagement:

“If ever in history there were a non-event, this is it: my top eleven books on cultural engagement for an American Christian to own (and read). A few weeks ago, a friend of mine requested that I recommend a list of five books on Christian cultural engagement and it “got me to thinking.” Although I tried to limit myself to a list of five, I failed miserably, and thus you have before your eyes a list of eleven. So here’s the list, but before we proceed, allow me to make several comments.

First, “cultural engagement” is a very broad term, encompassing many things, and a short list like I am providing only scrapes the surface. Second, I’ve tried to include a mixture of beginning, intermediate, and advanced books in order to provide recommendations for every type of reader. Third, although I don’t agree with everything that is said in any of the books I recommend, I do think each of the books I recommend provide helpful guidance in how to engage our 21st century Western context.”

2. Anne Bradley asks whether everything needed for human flourishing was contained in the Garden of Eden:

“We were given all of the resources we need in the Garden of Eden. We were placed into an environment with just the resources we needed and a mind designed to mirror the creativity of our God.

Only he can create something out of nothing, but we reflect his creative capacity through our ability and responsibility to create something out of something.

As we use our resources and our minds, we are called also to help those around us to do the same. When we are unable to work and exercise creativity, we suffer, and those around us suffer. When we do exercise creativity and produce valuable items, we flourish and so do our neighbors.

If we truly want to help the least of these, let’s reflect on the Garden and revel in the ways that God is making new what was broken by the Fall.”

3. Using his characteristically irreverent humor, Dave Barry writes about how previous generations had more fun because they didn't worry so much about being parents:

“My mom, like my dad, and millions of other members of the Greatest Generation, had to contend with real adversity: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, hunger, poverty, disease, World War II, extremely low-fi 78 r.p.m. records and telephones that—incredible as it sounds today—could not even shoot video.

They managed to overcome those hardships and take America to unprecedented levels of productivity and power, which is why they truly are a great generation. But they aren’t generally considered to be a fun generation. That was supposed to be their children—my generation, the baby boomers.”

Worth Reading - 3/2

1. From David Mills, five rules for your child's reading. Some thoughts on helping choose good children's books:

“Kids want to read. Even with the web and video games, they want to read. Which means they want to read books they shouldn’t read as well as books they should: books everyone is talking about, including their Christian friends, books they see advertised all over the place — books you have to read or be the weird kid who hasn’t read them. Let me offer a few suggestions for parents whose children may want to read these books, if for no other reason than that other children are reading them.

First, do not assume, as I once did, that the average children’s or young adult book may be secular but is at least respectful of the moral law and of parental authority. It likely is not.

The back cover of one featured by a local chain bookshop, to take an example almost at random, includes in its description of the major characters: “Zach: Sophisticated college boy, wise in the ways of French painting as well as other French things.” The narrator has the usual life problems of a teenager, at least the teenagers in these stories. She loses her virginity to Zach, and this is treated as part of growing up, of becoming a better, more mature person — someone assertive, confident and clear-headed. This idea of the child’s good life is typical of this kind of book, even the ones without any mention of sex, the ones that would be rated PG if they were movies.”

2. Some thoughts from Titus 3:14 on how God works though ordinary means in our lives:

“As we go about our lives and routines, entering into this interdependent community, you may think your actions go unnoticed.

However, we stand out by faithfully and obediently living into our ordinary lives. When we approach our work with the greater mission of glorifying God, things change.

Our attitudes are more positive, our work is more efficient, our daily lives are more significant, and we feel fulfilled because we are living for Christ. These changes will be noticed by those around you, and this will be a testament to how awesome and important God is to us.”

3. Linguistics are always entertaining, because so much that seems so natural to us is really quite obscure to those outside our language. Here is a recent article from the New York Times on how "You're Welcome" became a gloat:

“Why is it that “you’re welcome,” a phrase that is meant to be gracious, is often tinged with gloat? It wasn’t always so double-edged. The saying stems from the Old English “wilcuma,” which wedded the words “pleasure” and “guest” to allow hosts to express their openness to visitors. According to the journalists Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman, “welcome” was being recast as a response to “thank you” as soon as 1603, in Shakespeare’s “Othello.” By the early 1900s, “you’re welcome” had emerged as a reflexive retort to “thanks.” What began as an invitation was now a nod to your own generosity. Think of the exchange of trains across the Atlantic, and the subtext becomes clear: I sent you a train, so you sent me a train, so I sent you another train, and now you . . . kind of owe me a train. In “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” Robert Cialdini, a marketing and psychology professor, cautions that the reciprocal sheen of the “thanks, you’re welcome” contract belies a power struggle: Even “a small initial favor can produce a sense of obligation to agree to a substantially larger return favor.” In the conversational volley, the person who says “you’re welcome” gets the last word.

Perhaps it was inevitable that “you’re welcome” would break free from the realm of etiquette to assert itself as a stand-alone expression. These days, it has become commonplace to say “you’re welcome” apropos of nothing, signaling, roughly: “No need to thank me. I already know how great I am.””

4. From the Smithsonian, the science of how "slurpee" waves formed off the coast of Nantucket:

“When my fiancée and I left snow-entombed Boston last weekend for the relatively balmy isle of Nantucket, we thought we were putting this winter’s outlandish weather behind us. “It’s warmer here,” one of our island-dwelling hosts promised. “Very, very slightly.”

Our first morning on the island, we all strapped on Nordic skis and set out on what proved to be a desultory session, spoiled by bare earth poking through the trail. Shrugging, we carried our skis over the dunes to the beach, where we were surprised to find a wide, white field hugging the coastline in either direction. It looked like untrammeled snow—except snow doesn’t move like that. The Atlantic had become roiling, undulating slush. ”

5. From the Economist, the history and allure of the smartphone:

“THE dawn of the planet of the smartphones came in January 2007, when Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, in front of a rapt audience of Apple acolytes, brandished a slab of plastic, metal and silicon not much bigger than a Kit Kat. “This will change everything,” he promised. For once there was no hyperbole. Just eight years later Apple’s iPhone exemplifies the early 21st century’s defining technology.

Smartphones matter partly because of their ubiquity. They have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history, outstripping the growth of the simple mobile phones that preceded them. They outsell personal computers four to one. Today about half the adult population owns a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will. Smartphones have also penetrated every aspect of daily life. The average American is buried in one for over two hours every day. Asked which media they would miss most, British teenagers pick mobile devices over TV sets, PCs and games consoles. Nearly 80% of smartphone-owners check messages, news or other services within 15 minutes of getting up. About 10% admit to having used the gadget during sex.”

Weekend Reading

1. A blogger retired at 30-years old. While that isn't a goal we should necessarily aspire to, his perspective on managing his money is informative.

“When do you hope to retire? 65? 60 if you really get frugal? Mr. Money Mustache left the working world at 30, and he wants you to, as well. The popular personal finance blogger (who only reveals that his first name is Pete) has gained a loyal following by insisting that early retirement is really pretty easy, if people only shake off their wasteful attitudes about debt and consumerism. He spoke with Vox via email about how people can amp up their saving and investing and quit their jobs a few years earlier.”

2. How to protect the poor from payday lending:

“Near the top of the list of things I despise is companies that take advantage of the plight of the poor and desperate. But just above that on my list is something I hate even more: being poor and desperate. That’s why I loathe payday lending companies that charge usurious interest rates—and why I’m not yet ready to see them abolished.

Here’s how payday lending works. If you have a job (and pay stub to prove it), a payday lending company will allow you to write and cash a post-dated check. For this service the company will charge an absurd interest rate. A typical two-week payday loan with a $15 per $100 fee equates to an annual percentage rate (APR) of almost 400 percent. So if you need $100, you write the check for $115 and they’ll give you $100 in cash. Two weeks later they cash your check or you can renew or “rollover” the amount—for an exorbitant fee.”

3. The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention is creating a new strategy designed to overcome the limitations of the traditional mobilization models.

““We want to empower limitless missionary teams to make disciples and multiply churches among unreached people,” Platt said. “We need a strategy that doesn’t cap our number of missionaries merely based upon how much money we have.”

Platt noted the IMB operated “in the red” last year, with the agency’s operating expenses exceeding income by nearly $21 million.

”Right now our funnel is really small ... such that we’re turning people away,” Platt said. “And what I’m saying, what we know, is that we need to blow open this funnel and create as many pathways as possible for Christians and churches to get the Gospel to unreached people.””

4. An essay on sympathy for politicians, and a call to pray for them this Lenten season:

“I have a lot of empathy for politicians, which is not on the whole a dishonorable profession except for the dishonor some individuals bring to it. Always, their actions or inactions aid some while undoubtedly producing possible hardship for someone else, and politicians are often faced with intractable interests that cannot be reconciled.

Tell you what: As part of your Lenten discipline, pray for your least favorite public office holder. Just a couple times, perhaps, until you get the hang of it, then with more regularity. It may do him or her some good, but I think it might be of more benefit to the rest of us.”

5. Why Dorothy L. Sayers began with herself when seeking societal change:

“Sayers knew that the words of Chesterton had changed the face of her own world. As she explained in a 1954 letter, “If I am not now a Logical Positivist, I probably have to thank G. K. C.” Sayers’s attraction to logical positivism, a philosophy that held that only empirically verifiable facts can ground truth, explains why, in 1947, she dismissed Begin Here as “a very rush job, undertaken much against my will,” with factual “errors and omissions.”

Little did she know that Begin Here would foreshadow our eventual attack on the “just the facts, ma’am” attitude. One day postmodernists would echo her insight that “with the abandonment of an absolute Authority outside history, the seat of absolute authority within history tends to become identified with the seat of effective power.”

Thanks largely to Chesterton, Sayers’s solution to the arbitrary absolutes and power of secular culture was the divine authority of Christian orthodoxy: an absolute transcending all culturally contingent dogmas. She would have reminded us that the creative work of contributing to culture, as an expression of the image of God, the imago Dei, must therefore always begin here, with these words: “In the beginning, God created.” ”

Worth Reading - 2/27

1. From Joe Carter, some time tested methods for memorizing almost anything:

“Before we learn to memorize the narrative of Bible, though, let’s practice using the tips mentioned in this series to memorize another list of item. Choose a list that suits your particular interest. For example, a movie buff can practice by memorizing all of the Best Picture Oscar winners for the past 20-30 years; history buffs can memorize the U.S. Presidents or the monarchy of Britain; literature buffs can memorize the titles of Shakespeare’s plays, etc. The key is to choose a list that you have an interest in rememmbering and that have between 25-50 times. It may take 30-60 minutes to come up with the images and put them in your memory palace. Then you’ll want to practice by going through your memory palaces and reciting the items in order.

If you do a practice run like this over the weekend, you’ll be completely prepared next week to quickly and easily memorize the events of Genesis.”

2. Read Trevin Wax's critique of H. Richard Niebuhr's classic work, Christ and Culture. It's a book you should read if you have not already:

“What should we make of such a landmark work? First, Niebuhr is to be commended for laying out various historical postures Christians have adopted toward culture. These approaches are so memorable that, more than a half century later, scholars who consider the task of Christian ethics feel they must interact with them in some measure. Niebuhr’s breadth of knowledge is on display in his attempt to summarize and point out the strengths of each position, as well as his decision to illustrate his work with biblical or historical examples.”

3. Writing and mothering as a vocation. It's all meaningful work according to Courtney Reissig: 

“We elevate at-home motherhood because we want to show the watching world that we matter, too, in the same way that Hatmaker makes the argument that her kids need to see her doing meaningful work elsewhere. Both are coming from the idea that this work is mundane, needing validating or escape. But God provides us with another way. It’s all meaningful, from wiping bottoms to writing sentences. We can all work, mothers and non-mothers, and find great meaning in what we do on any given day—not because the world tells us it is meaningful work, but because the God who created work tells us so.

So write on, fellow writers, there is meaning in your work. But let’s not forget there is meaning in doing the dishes, too”

4. Along with the llamas on the loose, which enlivened the internet yesterday, there was also a raging debate over the color of a dress. Here is the science on why that controversy was possible:

“Not since Monica Lewinsky was a White House intern has one blue dress been the source of so much consternation.

(And yes, it’s blue.)

The fact that a single image could polarize the entire Internet into two aggressive camps is, let’s face it, just another Thursday. But for the past half-day, people across social media have been arguing about whether a picture depicts a perfectly nice bodycon dress as blue with black lace fringe or white with gold lace fringe. And neither side will budge. This fight is about more than just social media—it’s about primal biology and the way human eyes and brains have evolved to see color in a sunlit world.

Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at. Without you having to worry about it, your brain figures out what color light is bouncing off the thing your eyes are looking at, and essentially subtracts that color from the “real” color of the object. “Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance,” says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. “But I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” (Neitz sees white-and-gold.)”

5. In the press of the here and now, we can often get distracted from the weight of history. Recently the 70th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima was celebrated. Here are pictures from the Smithsonian Magazine of that monumental battle:

“Seventy years ago, U.S. Marines secured Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima, beginning a long and bloody fight for control of the World War II Japanese outpost. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s image of soldiers planting an American flag atop Mount Suribachi has lived on as a symbol of the battle, winning the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for photography and inspiring the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

The United States eventually secured the 8-square-mile island, located approximately 760 miles south of Tokyo, but not without sacrifice. American troops would fight for a month more after taking Mount Suribachi and the first of two Japanese airfields. Capturing Iwo Jima was of strategic importance to B-29 air raids on mainland Japan. It also demonstrated to the Americans that the Japanese army would defend their lands at all costs, something which influenced United States’ decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year.”

Worth Reading - 2/26

1. From Bruce Ashford. How a Man Named Lesslie Changed the Way I Think:

“As a Christian citizen of the United States, it is clear to me that I am living in an increasingly post-Christian society. The majority of Americans no longer consider traditional Christian doctrine (e.g. original sin) or traditional Christian ethics (e.g. sexual morality) plausible in the modern world. Christians who do not abandon these beliefs are increasingly considered morally inferior or even hateful.

Given the fact that the United States is a democratic republic, the beliefs of citizens affect the lives of other citizens socially, culturally, and politically. This reality makes it increasingly important for us as Christians to figure out the best way to comport ourselves in the public square. I consider three thinkers especially helpful for this task: Richard John Neuhaus, Lesslie Newbigin, and Abraham Kuyper. In this post, I wish to articulate what it is about Newbigin’s life and writings that is helpful for us in our 21st century American context.”

2. Do students have the resources to consider the nature of vocation? How can higher education help fill the void?

“After ten years of teaching in higher education and interacting with students from a wide range of backgrounds, I’ve come to realize that most young people lack the resources for thinking clearly about their vocations.

Unfortunately, this is also true at Christian universities and colleges.

The purpose of Christian institutions of higher learning is multi-faceted. At the very least, they ought to teach students how to think critically and how to love God with their minds.

They should also equip students to apply their faith with authenticity, to all spheres of their lives.

Given that the successful completion of a college degree ideally results in students acquiring a job in their area of emphasis, it follows that Christian universities and colleges should also be passionately instilling in students a biblical vision for their future careers.”

3. Do learning style's really exist? Anna North questions the application (and misapplication) of the teaching tool:

“Students do have preferences when it comes to receiving information visually or verbally, said Mark A. McDaniel, a psychology professor at Washington University and a co-author of the book “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning.” But to prove that designing lessons to fit students’ preferred learning styles actually helps them learn better, you’d have to randomly assign students to receive, for instance, either a visually or a verbally based approach. If teaching to students’ learning styles works, said Dr. McDaniel, “what you should see is visual learners do better on the visual than the verbal instruction, and verbal learners do better on the verbal than the visual instruction.”

Not many studies have actually done such a random assignment, and of those that Dr. McDaniel and his co-authors examined in a 2009 paper, “none of them showed that kind of interaction.” And, said Harold Pashler, a psychology professor at the University of California, San Diego, and one of Dr. McDaniel’s co-authors on the study, no compelling evidence for teaching to students’ learning styles has emerged in the years since: “There’s one or two somewhat oddball studies,” he said, “but there’s a number of new negative findings that are more substantial.””

4. Roger Olson presents the case against the liberal drift among so-called moderate baptists. I disagree with his assessment of the SBC conservative resurgence being over "secondary issues" (like inerrancy!!!), but it is an insightful article and reveals the unorthodox drift that the conservative Southern Baptists anticipated:

“This post is intended primarily for Southerners among Baptists who consider themselves “Moderate.” For those of you outside that movement, I’ll explain briefly.

Throughout the 1980s and until today many churches and individuals affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.) felt excluded by the SBC’s leadership because of their embrace of egalitarian beliefs and their denial of “biblical inerrancy.” They considered the new SBC leadership too conservative. The presidents and professors of the SBC-related seminaries were ousted and replaced by people they considered “fundamentalists.” Almost two thousand formerly SBC-related churches throughout the South separated from the SBC and together founded a network of “moderate” Baptist churches called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) (1990). (The CBF, however, does not include all moderate Baptists. There are other groups of Southern moderate Baptists.)”

5. A thoughtful assessment of natural rights, the imago Dei, and the moral economy of sex from First Things. This is worth a read:

“Properly understood, then, the American founding principles of natural rights, and contemporary notions of “autonomy” as the basis of rights, are not allies but adversaries. Natural rights entail obligations, of a due respect for others, and a due respect for ourselves. This respect is otherwise known as responsibility, ultimately to the Creator who endowed us with our rights. Like the centurion in the Gospel of Matthew, we are persons under authority (Matthew 8:9). Rights and obligations are brother principles, both owing their existence to the God who made us creatures of equal dignity, possessing the logos that makes our self-government possible.

Contemporary notions of autonomy, by contrast, reject all authority, all obligations outside the individual will. The joint authors of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey stated this view succinctly, in their notoriously false claim regarding the individual liberty protected by the Constitution: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” The authors seemed not to realize that this notion of liberty is wholly unmoored, not only from the Contitution, but also from any intelligible teaching of natural rights. Indeed, as a statement of purest narcissism and solipsism, it fails even to assert an intelligible basis for a positive right in the laws we human beings make. The right announced in Casey presents itself as a bulwark against the tyranny of the majority or of any unjust authority, but it cannot give an account of itself as such. If every individual may live according to his own “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe,” then the concept shared by the greatest number, or by the most powerful of wills, will be the basis of any law we are capable of making. A mass of untrammeled wills can only be governed by raw force. And so the notion of an unfettered autonomy of the individual is self-devouring, resulting only in tyranny.”

Worth Reading - 2/25

1. What of the SBC and racial-integration? Recognizing the problems with a lack of diversity, the SBC is making a concerted effort to represent the communities in which the churches are located. For one author, this is cause for skepticism. This post was picked up by Sojourners and some other state Baptist papers. The cause is a worthy one, but the doubt in the article belies the reality that the SBC is doing more to address diversity than any other denomination.

“One reason most churches are segregated is that racial reconciliation has meant whites expecting African-Americans and Latinos to worship with them, De La Torre said, perhaps throwing in a “Taco Tuesday” as an attraction.

“For me to worship at an Anglo church, I must accept white theology, pray in a white manner, sing white German songs and eat meatloaf at the potluck,” he said.

De La Torre said it’s far more useful for whites to come to African-American and Latino churches, hear the reflections of religious thinkers from those cultures and take those lessons home.”

2. Justin Taylor provides a concise introduction to Karl Marx:

“Marxism is not the most important, the most imposing, or the most impressive philosophy in history.

But until recently, it has clearly been the most influential. In just two generations, Marxism inundated one-third of the world—a feat accomplished only twice in human history (by early Christianity and by early Islam).”

3. From the Acton Institute, a post discussing the impossibility of a completely libertarian and egalitarian society. This builds off a recent interview of Pope Francis:

“On religious liberty, the pope said religion must be practiced freely but without offending, imposing or killing, saying that killing in the name of God was “an aberration.” No modern pope would say otherwise, but it is not entirely correct to say that no true believer has ever killed in the name of God (the Old Testament is full of such acts); I wonder if any religion has ever avoided doing so. So long as religions have different understandings of God, man and the world, they will necessarily risk offending or imposing the “truth” of their beliefs on others. The easiest way to avoid these problems would be to make all religions the same, which is also known as syncretism. Those who promote syncretism usually do so in the name of peace or religious indifferentism.

In defending the freedom of expression, Francis said each person has not only the right but the “duty to say what he thinks will help the common good” but once again, without offending. He then explained that it is “normal” for someone to react violently if his mother or faith is insulted, adding that the Enlightenment sought to treat religion as something that need not be taken seriously (“poca cosa”). “Each religion has dignity, each religion that respects human life, the human person, and I cannot make fun of it,” he said to define clear limits to free speech about religion. He didn’t say whether religions that do not respect human life deserve equal respect.

Francis’s limits rankled free-speech advocates, as it should have: What good is free speech if one can’t discuss certain topics such as religion? Who’s to say what is respectful or not? Aren’t such limits used to shut down dissent rather than respect the feelings of others? It seemed as though what the pope defended was not free speech as much as the desire to keep people in their place by not questioning authority, especially his own and other religious leaders.”

4. How large is the Christian population in the world? This recent post at First Things presents World Christianity by the numbers:

“The annual “Status of Global Christianity” survey published by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a cornucopia of numbers: Some are encouraging; others are discouraging; many of them are important for grasping the nature of this particular moment in Christian history.

This year’s survey works from a baseline of 1900 A.D., and makes projections out to 2050. Within that century and a half there’s some good news about the global human condition that ought to be kept in mind when remembering the bad news of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first. For example: In 1900, 27.6 percent of adults in a world population of 1.6 billion were literate. In 2015, 81 percent of the adults in a global population of 7.3 billion are literate, and the projection is that, by 2050, 88 percent of the adults in a world of 9.5 billion people will be literate—a remarkable accomplishment.

Of the 7.3 billion human beings on Planet Earth today, 89 percent are religious believers, while 1.8 percent are professed atheists and another 9 percent are agnostics: which suggests that Chief Poobah of the New Atheists Richard Dawkins and his friends are not exactly winning the day, although their “market share” is up from 1900.”

5. An interview between Keith Whitfield and Don Carson about how the next generation of pastors should prepare for ministry:

Worth Reading - 2/24

1. An article from the Washington Post on why many digital natives prefer reading in print:

“Frank Schembari loves books — printed books. He loves how they smell. He loves scribbling in the margins, underlining interesting sentences, folding a page corner to mark his place.

Schembari is not a retiree who sips tea at Politics and Prose or some other bookstore. He is 20, a junior at American University, and paging through a thick history of Israel between classes, he is evidence of a peculiar irony of the Internet age: Digital natives prefer reading in print.

“I like the feeling of it,” Schembari said, reading under natural light in a campus atrium, his smartphone next to him. “I like holding it. It’s not going off. It’s not making sounds.”

Textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer print for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally. A University of Washington pilot study of digital textbooks found that a quarter of students still bought print versions of e-textbooks that they were given for free.”

This touches on Naomi Baron's recent book, which I reviewed previously.

2. A recent edition of Christianity today has an article about Hannah More by Karen Swallow Prior. It is worth reading:

“Imagine yourself seated at a fashionable London dinner party in 1789.

The women are wearing hoops several feet wide, their hair dressed nearly as high and adorned with fruit or feathers. In between hips and hair, bosoms overspill. The men sport powdered hair, ruffled shirts, embroidered waistcoats, wool stockings, and buckled shoes. Politeness and manners reign around a table laden with delicate, savory dishes.

As guests wait for the after-dinner wine to arrive, a handsome but demure woman pulls a pamphlet from the folds of her dress. “Have you ever seen the inside of a slave ship?” she asks the natty gentleman seated next to her. She proceeds to spread open a print depicting the cargo hold of the Brookes slave ship. With meticulous detail, the print shows African slaves laid like sardines on the ship’s decks, each in a space so narrow, they can’t lay their arms at their sides. The print will become the most haunting image of the transatlantic slave trade—as well as a key rhetorical device used to stop it.

The woman sharing it is Hannah More.”

My review of Prior's book can be found here.

Also, she is speaking tonight (2/24) at SEBTS, with free tickets still available.

3. Timothy George discusses the selectivity of social concern. Leaders march for solidarity in Europe, while Africa sees similar violence and gets much less attention:

“Seldom in recent memory has the Western world seemed more united than on January 11, 2015, when an estimated 1.5 million people, including forty-four world leaders, flooded the streets of Paris to protest the atrocities carried out by Islamist terrorists at the offices of the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Who can forget the impressive show of unity—with the notable absence of the top constitutional officers of the United States—as Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders locked arms and marched side by side in an anti-terrorism rally along the Boulevard Voltaire?

Yet while masses marched in Paris to protest the vicious murders of seventeen persons, including twelve journalists, a catastrophe of far greater proportion was unfolding on the “dark continent” of Africa. On January 3—just four days before the Paris attacks—in the fishing towns of Baga and Doron Baga on Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, the jihadist terror group known as Boko Haram carried out its deadliest attack to date. The soldiers defending the area could not repel the incoming insurgents, who burned Christian churches to the ground and slaughtered more than 2,000 people, including children and women. Some of those fleeing the surprise attack drowned in Lake Chad as their overcrowded boats capsized and they tried to swim away from the melee.”

4. Elise Amyx from the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, writes that economic freedom is not enough. We must also demonstrate a strong concern for human flourishing.

“Economic freedom may be our world’s more powerful poverty relief system, but it’s not enough for human flourishing.

It is the reason why economists report 80 percent of the world’s abject poverty has been eradicated since 1970, thanks to open trade, entrepreneurship, and free enterprise. In China alone, small market reforms since 1978 have raised 600 million people out of extreme poverty.

Economic freedom also correlates with higher life expectancy, lower levels of child mortality, cleaner environments, higher incomes for the poor, better protected civil liberties, less child labor, less unemployment, and higher per capita income.

Christians are called to care for the poor (the Bible mentions the words poor and poverty 446 times!) and economists have shown us that economic freedom is a powerful way to make that happen.

But, if you’re someone like me who is convinced that economic freedom is responsible for lifting millions out of poverty, it’s easy to forget that freedom is not enough on its own.”

5. Social Media has made it easy to organize social movements, but hard to win according to a recent TED talk:

Worth Reading 2/23

1. From Derek Brown, nine possible reasons for a spiritual drought:

“If you have been a Christian for any amount of time, you know that spiritual passion, sight, and affections ebb and flow. At times our sense of spiritual realities can be strong and vibrant; other times, our hearts feel like lead weights and we find ourselves longing for God to visit us once again and bring refreshment (Psalm 85:4-7). These seasons are usually referred to as times of “spiritual drought” or “spiritual dryness,” and find intimate expression in many of the Psalms. David often cried out to God in times where his soul seemed like dust, and he yearned to be refreshed by the presence of the Lord (Psalm 13; Psalm 63). Other Psalmists expressed their longing to have their parched souls to be replenished by the Lord (Psalm 42). Those who have tasted of the goodness of Christ know what it means to be without that taste; it leaves us pleading, “light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death” (Psalm 13:3)

Spiritual drought, though a persistent and unwelcome visitor, is not something with which we must constantly live. There are Biblical means by which we can, by grace, put ourselves in the way of refreshment; we can be restored to once again feel the joy of our salvation. But this can only happen if we are able to discern why we might be experiencing spiritual dryness so we can take the appropriate action. With this in mind, I would like to suggest a few reasons we may be experiencing a season of spiritual drought and provide the correlating remedies.”

2. Why churches should be involved in Social Media:

“Throughout history, people of all generations have gathered in town squares—public spaces where the local community gathers for social and commercial purposes. In the old days, it used to be a literal “town square,” and it still is in some places. Until social media came around, town squares were shopping malls and other social areas. Social media is the 21st century town square.

The Apostle Paul preached in open squares where the people gathered. In Acts 13 it was to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia. In Acts 17, it was to the literal town square of conversation—Mars Hill.

People today aren’t sitting around in debate clubs. They aren’t going to the town squares in the middle of cities. Instead, they’re having discussions on social media. It’s where people are gathering, debating, discussing ideas and connecting with others. Why wouldn’t you want to be there?

If churches truly want to see the Gospel impact and influence a community, they should go to the place where the most significant conversation is actually taking place right now. Today, that’s on social media.”

3. An article from last year about a tower that draws water from the air to provide drinking water where it is needed:

“In n some parts of Ethiopia, finding potable water is a six-hour journey.

People in the region spend 40 billion hours a year trying to find and collect water, says a group called the Water Project. And even when they find it, the water is often not safe, collected from ponds or lakes teeming with infectious bacteria, contaminated with animal waste or other harmful substances.

The water scarcity issue—which affects nearly 1 billion people in Africa alone—has drawn the attention of big-name philanthropists like actor and Water.org co-founder Matt Damon and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who, through their respective nonprofits, have poured millions of dollars into research and solutions, coming up with things like a system that converts toilet water to drinking water and a “Re-invent the Toilet Challenge,” among others.”

4. An accounting of the life of someone who persevered in truth despite difficult times, from First Things:

“Alice’s perseverance, bolstered by faith in her vocation and by the loyalty of her students, eventually prevailed: she finally received her long overdue tenure, and when Hunter’s students acquired the right to evaluate their teachers, they repeatedly rated her among their best professors.

In 1980, when Donna Shalala became President of Hunter, she introduced an award for the professor who had earned the highest student evaluation. Four years later—the year of her retirement—Alice von Hildebrand was voted the top professor, out of eight hundred teachers, and a student body of 25,000. She received her award at a ceremony at Madison Square Garden, with the very liberal President Shalala commending her.

Since then, Alice has continued to teach and lecture about the beauty of truth, drawing on the work of her husband, always rooted in the teachings of the Church. Memoirs of a Happy Failure is a story of true patience and faithfulness—of apparent failure giving way to a lasting triumph.”

5. The question of stockholder activism, particularly through the divestment from fossil fuels remains. A new, lighter approach is being used by some activists:

“Your faithful correspondent last week exposed the fossil-fuel divestment endgame of religious shareholder activists. As You Sow President Danielle Fugere sees her group’s activities as awareness-raising exercises for climate change, but AYS’s alignment with environmentalist and divestment firebrand Naomi Klein suggests they’d settle for nothing less than nationalizing oil companies. This week, I’m happy to report another group frequently called to task in this space, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, opposes the AYS divestment onslaught.”

Weekend Reading

1. One writer protests the architectural designs intended to eliminate displays of poverty by moving the homeless along. Something that deserves deeper consideration:

“More than 100 homeless people are “living” in the terminals of Heathrow airport this winter, according to official figures – a new and shameful record. Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have warned that homelessness in London is rising significantly faster than the nationwide average, and faster than official estimates. And yet, we don’t see as many people sleeping rough as in previous economic downturns. Have our cities become better at hiding poverty, or have we become more adept at not seeing it?

Last year, there was great public outcry against the use of “anti-homeless” spikes outside a London residential complex, not far from where I live. Social media was set momentarily ablaze with indignation, a petition was signed, a sleep-in protest undertaken, Boris Johnson was incensed and within a few days they were removed. This week, however, it emerged that Selfridges had installed metal spikes outside one of its Manchester stores – apparently to “reduce litter and smoking … following customer complaints”. The phenomenon of “defensive” or “disciplinary” architecture, as it is known, remains pervasive.”

2. 19th century, anti-Catholic bias is impacting contemporary discussions of religious freedom. This illustrates why seeking justice in principle, not favorable policies, is the best course of action. The ruling party may not always be in charge to stop the 2nd order effects of their policies:

“Eleven years ago this week, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Locke v. Davey that continues to have a detrimental impact on religious liberty. But the seeds for that ruling were planted 140 years ago, in another attempt to curb religious liberty.

When James Blaine introduced his ill-fated constitutional amendment in 1875, he probably never would have imagined the unintended consequences it would have over a hundred years later. Blaine wanted to prohibit the use of state funds at “sectarian” schools (a code word for Catholic parochial schools) in order to inhibit immigration. Since the public schools instilled a Protestant Christian view upon its students, public education was viewed as a way to stem the tide of Catholic influence.”

3. On the importance of choosing words wisely and not exaggerating rhetoric. This is an important and timely piece by Aaron Earls:

“For those of us who write, we definitely have a responsibility to monitor the topics and themes of our writing. We must make sure we are delivering more than online bickering and finger pointing.

For all of us who read, think before you click or share. Rewarding clickbait headlines and controversy-stirring posts serves only to perpetuate more of the same. Look for something more positive to read, like and retweet.

Both writers and readers working together can change the way online content is presented and consumed. In particular, Christians can and should be seeking to build others up.

Hate and heresy clearly exist, but we are not combating them by misidentifying them.”

4. How can you prepare your children for suffering?

“In my youth ministry experience, I have found that the best way to tackle the hard truths is simply to teach exegetically through entire books of the Bible. Given the choice, most of us would love to bounce around from Romans 8 to John 10 and over to Galatians 2 and Revelation 21. It would be tempting to let Romans 9, 2 Thessalonians 2, and Luke 16 sit out a few plays at small group. But dodging the difficult texts robs us of the opportunity to prepare students for the suffering that certainly awaits them.

May God help us to teach the Scriptures completely and accurately with the hope that the seeds of truth planted may grow into foundations of hope and assurance when the day of suffering comes.”

5. My post yesterday at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics deals with a recent trip we took to see how some old fashioned work was done:

“Understanding the connection between the product on the shelf and the process that made it, especially the historical, labor intensive process, is becoming more important in a world of specialization where many of us never see a tangible result from our work.

I’m hopeful that our latest adventure, and future trips like it, will cement those images in my children’s minds and help them value the miracle of contemporary society.”

Worth Reading - 2/20

1. Why is Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem instead of in Wake Forest?

“Before it became a university in 1967, Wake Forest was a college, and sure enough, it was located in the bucolic town of Wake Forest.

“The college was such a size and the town was such a size that everybody knew almost everybody else,” says Wilson, who was a student there from 1939 to 1943. “You felt always as if you were walking and living among friends.”

The town’s charm endures to this day, but during a period of great national transition in the 1930s and ’40s, a lot more than quaint storefronts and quiet streets was required of a community for it to support and sustain such an institution, especially one tight on cash.”

2. Remember a few months ago when violence in Ukraine was a big concern? The trouble still hasn't gone away. Here is a view from the inside:

“Ukrainian soldiers remember the onslaught that rained down on their positions from the middle of July 2014 onwards. Time and again they came under fire from Grad missiles and artillery shells. Now it appears that at least some of those attacks were carried out from across the Russian border.

Denys, a former fighter of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade and resident of the Kiev region, spent more than a month between July and August at a Ukrainian army stronghold near the city of Chervonopartyzansk in the Luhansk region, near the Russian border.

He says he knows for sure that out of about 500 soldiers who were together with him there, about 10 were killed. “In fact all of us had wounds of various degrees of severity,” he says. He believes total casualties in his brigade over that period amounted to hundreds of people.”

3. Economic freedom leads to prosperity. The Daily Signal provides 13 graphs that show how free particular countries are:

“The annual index, now in its 21st year, is a guide for measuring improvements in 186 countries’ economic freedom. This year’s index put the United States 12th on the list.

According to Anthony B. Kim, the Index’s co-editor, the index tracks four primary areas:

1. Rule of law (property rights, freedom from corruption)

2. Government size (fiscal freedom, government spending)

3. Regulatory efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom)

4. Market openness (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom)”

4. The window for freedom of conscience in the medical profession, including the practice medicine according to the HHippocratic oath, is diminishing, according to First Things: 

“Hippocratic-believing professionals, such as faithful Catholics and Muslims, are increasingly being pressured to practice medicine without regard to their personal faith or conscience beliefs. This moral intolerance is slowly being imbedded into law. Victoria, Australia, for example, legally requires all doctors to perform—or be complicit in—abortions: If a patient requests a legal termination and the doctor has moral qualms, he is required to refer her to a colleague who will do the deed.

Such laws are a prescription for medical martyrdom, by which I mean doctors being forced to choose between adhering to their faith or moral code and remaining in their profession. Some have already suffered for their beliefs. During a speaking tour of Australia in 2010, I met doctors who had moved from their homes in Victoria to escape the abortion imposition. I asked them what they would do if Victoria’s law were to go national. “Quit medicine,” they all said, or move to another country.”

5. Elise Hilton provides some advice for stopping human trafficking before it starts:

“Human trafficking is increasingly gaining public awareness. Law enforcement, social workers, first responders – all are beginning to receive training regarding human trafficking. And that’s all very good.

But it’s hardly enough.

It is much easier to help a person in a high-risk situation avoid trafficking than to try and put a human being back together after they’ve been brutalized by traffickers. Individuals, communities, church and charitable organizations must all learn what situations in their own areas put people at risk for trafficking, and work to correct those situations.”

Worth Reading - 2/19

1. John Calvin and the right use of the present life:

“Just as Scripture points us to heaven as our goal, so it fully instructs us in the right use of earthly blessings, and this ought not to be overlooked in a discussion of the rules of life.

[A]s we run the danger of falling into two opposite errors, let us try to proceed on safe ground, so that we may avoid both extremes. For there have been some people, otherwise good and holy, who saw that intemperance and luxury time and again drive man to throw off all restraints unless he is curbed by the utmost severity. And in their desire to correct such a pernicious evil, they have adopted the only method that they saw fit, namely to permit earthly blessings only insofar as they were an absolute necessity. This advice showed the best of intentions but was far too rigid. For they committed the dangerous error of imposing on the conscience of others stricter rules than those laid down in the Word by the Lord.”

2. Learned deafness, or muffling the sounds around us, may be encouraging noise pollution to increase and creating processing problems:

“Unsurprisingly, urban areas are the noisiest, while those questing for quiet can find it on pre-European colonization levels in large swaths of the west.

But one scientist is now warning that all that sound and our efforts to avoid it might actually be allowing noise pollution to get worse—and could cause a phenomenon he’s calling “learned deafness.” To control the sounds in our own personal worlds, we might resort, for instance, to wearing headphones that blare our favorite music in our ears. (It can make the day nicer, not having to listen to that bus chug by or the cabbie screaming out his window.) Or we might just close our ears off and ignore the auditory stimuli of the world around us.

Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the U.S. National Park Service, spoke this week to a group of scientists about the country’s rising level of background noise and the resulting tune-out of natural sounds, the Guardian reports. “This learned deafness is a real issue. We are conditioning ourselves to ignore the information coming into our ears,” he said.




Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-learned-deafness-might-be-letting-noise-pollution-win-180954343/#hXODQ18ZoBD1tTQR.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter”

3. Last year, Micah Fries considered whether families should recognize Lent. This is a helpful read in light of the ongoing internet drama:

“If your observance of Lent is a momentary spiritual exercise, and it doesn’t spur you to intimacy with Christ all year, you should reconsider your observance of Lent. For too many, Lent, along with many other practices, may be an attempt to assuage their souls by engaging in a momentary Christian exercise. This is abundantly dangerous. Your faith is intended to be a daily faith; a faith that’s experienced moment-by-moment, day-by-day. When Lent is a time that encourages and strengthens that daily faithfulness, that’s fantastic. However, if it’s a means of applying a spiritual bandage to your soul, beware. It may actually serve to push you away from the experience of committed faith.

So should you observe Lent? Ultimately, Lent isn’t the issue. Lent isn’t inherently valuable, nor does it personally add spiritual value to you. It’s little more than a tool — an observance — to point you toward Jesus or away from Him.”

4. From Joe Carter at Acton, an argument that manual labor deserves a place in our discussion of work:

“For far too long, we’ve downplayed or dismissed manual labor because it is toilsome. Toilsome labor—work that is often associated with the hands rather than the head—is work that is incessant, extremely hard, and exhausting. Yet as Scripture says, we can find satisfaction in toilsome labor (Ecclesiastes 5:18).

We must ensure there’s a place for manual work and toilsome labor in the faith and work conversation. We’re failing in our efforts if we aren’t showing people how through such labor they are participating in God’s own work.”

5. A humorous but informative talk by Mike Rowe on work:

Worth Reading - 2/18

1. How to survive winter in Antarctica, from the Atlantic:

“The U.S. Antarctic Program doesn’t fly over Antarctica during the winter, even between bases, because temperatures get below -50 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which gasoline freezes. In the depths of winter, around the beginning of July, temperatures can drop below -100 degrees Farenheit. Compounding the cold is the altitude—the South Pole station is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. In such conditions, even breathing can be painful. Many who attempt to join the 300 Club—a group that endures a 300-degree temperature change by heating themselves in a 200-degree sauna and then streaking naked to the pole and back in sub-negative-100-degree weather—will often wear a scarf, if nothing else.”

2. Fifteen truths about internet trolls:

“As long as there have been online communities, beginning with bulletin board systems, there have been trolls. According to Whitney Phillips, a New York University lecturer, Usenet users first used “the word ‘troll’ to describe someone who deliberately disrupted online discussions in order to stir up controversy.” Whenever 4chan rose to prominence in the mid-2000s, users began to proudly describe themselves as trolls.

Since then, Internet users have had to deal with trolls in a number of ways, in nearly every corner of the internet. What have we learned from these experiences over the years? Here are 15 of these lessons.”

3. College sports afficianados are now evaluating and ranking 6th grade athletes:

“I grew up playing and, in some cases, excelling at sports. Whether it was Park District soccer, Little League baseball, or street hockey with my friends (who had also screened D2: The Mighty Ducks one too many times), you could not keep me off of the field (or cement rink).

As young as the 4th grade, football was definitely my game. Growing up in the Chicago-land area, football was a big deal. As I’ve learned from folks who hail from states like Texas and Alabama, football was an even bigger deal down there. My good friend Matt who lives and dies with the Crimson Tide recently informed me that other than myself and a couple of family members, the only people he follows on Twitter are University of Alabama football high school recruits. That’s intense.

What would be more intense (and more than a little creepy)? For football scouts and college recruiters to be monitoring 12-year-old players.”

4. For some reason, some folks have taken to arguing about the faith of the Egyptian Christians that were martyred by ISIS. Here is Scott Hildreth from SEBTS to bat that foolishness down:

“As Southern Baptist leaders expressed Christian solidarity and outrage over the murder of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya, others began raising questions about the validity of calling these men Christian martyrs. Some of the confusion comes from the fact that the International Mission Board listed the majority of Egyptians (which would include many Coptic communities) as an unreached people group, those needing missionary focus. The question they raised was, “How can unreached peoples be considered Christian martyrs?”

To be honest, when I first heard this question I wondered why anyone could respond this way to an act the entire world was condemning. However, upon further reflection I thought that perhaps the question deserved a response from a Southern Baptist theologian and missiologist. I cannot judge the motive of those asking the questions. If anyone has less than honorable intentions, they may never be convinced. But those who are legitimately curious have a right to expect a theological and missiological answer from one who has ascribed martyrdom to the men.”

5. A video of a Wisconsin driver who hits 9 cars in a parking lot in less than a minute.

Worth Reading - 2/17

1. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary polled their faculty to find the most common recommendations for books to read before coming to seminary:

“Seminary is (or should be) a time of intense study, filled with lots of interesting reading. Yet, in order for seminary students to make the most of their time, they ought to have a good grasp of the academic and, especially, spiritual skills and disciplines required to succeed in seminary. ”

2. From the Atlantic, a tough, but significant read about what ISIS really wants:

“What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.”

3. From Bruce Ashford, a tribute to John Richard Neuhaus's impact on his thinking:

“I am grateful for my encounters with Richard John Neuhaus. From him, we can learn the value of reading widely and leveraging that knowledge in an appropriate manner in the public square. We can learn to build coalitions and communities that sustain and enhance our cultural engagement. We are reminded by Neuhaus to avoid the twin errors of naked public squares, on the one hand, and theocracies, on the other. We remember, and learn from, his warm and gracious interaction with ordinary people. In short, Neuhaus’ life and writings remind us of the value of cultivating a public theology and of raising up public theologians who can speak and act in the public square for the common good.”

4. The Gospel Coalition considers whether language makes humans unique:

“So what does language have to do with the Christian doctrine of the imago Dei? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Scripture never provides an explicit definition of the image of God, but it does provide a number of contextual clues. In Genesis 1-2, we read that humans are created in the context of a covenant. Broadly defined, a covenant is a solemn relationship between two parties, with mutual promises and obligations. Other elements of a covenant often include a historical prologue and threats for covenantal breach. In all of these respects, a covenant relationship requires language. Language is what enables us to recount history, make commands, offer promises, issue threats, and so forth. Further, the ability to reflect on the covenant relationship itself requires the capacity for recursive thought. If image-bearing implies a covenant relationship, and if a covenant relationship requires language, then we must conclude that language is an essential part of our identity as human beings.”

5. Smithsonian Magazine seeks to explain why footbinding lasted so long in China:

“Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones. In addition to altering the shape of the foot, the practice also produced a particular sort of gait that relied on the thigh and buttock muscles for support. From the start, foot-binding was imbued with erotic overtones. Gradually, other court ladies—with money, time and a void to fill—took up foot-binding, making it a status symbol among the elite.”

Worth Reading - 2/16

1. With the world in a tizzy of Scott Walker's non-answer to a question about evolution, Justin Taylor takes the opportunity to demonstrate the wide variety of definitions for the term:

“David Harsanyi points out that “the same journalists who fixate on ‘science’ that makes the faithful look like slack-jawed yokels almost inevitably ignore science that has genuine moral and policy implications.” He provides a good list of questions that liberals are rarely asked about science (e.g., does human life begin at conception? is a 20-week old unborn child a human being?). When Barack Obama was a candidate for president he famously said that the question of when a human is entitled to human rights was a question “above his pay grade.” And when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked “what is the moral difference between what [serial late-term abortionist] Dr. Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting her moments before birth?” she likewise refused to answer, accusing the reporter of having an agenda. To my knowledge, Time magazine did not track down Obama or Pelosi’s high-school biology teacher to reprimand them on their non-answers, as Time recently (and bizarrely) did with Scott Walker.”

2. Joe Carter at the Acton Institute provides an explanation for the recent slaughter of 21 Christians in Libya:

“Islamic State (IS) released a video on Sunday that appeared to show the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya. The footage showing the deaths of the Egyptian martyrs appeared on the Twitter feed of a website that supports IS.

In the video, militants in black marched the captives, dressed in orange overalls, to a beach the group said was near Tripoli, the capital of Libya. The victims—all men—were forced down onto their knees and then beheaded.

A caption on the five-minute video read: “The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church.” Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: “Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for. . . The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama Bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.””

3. A video on sloth, for when we don't become what God wants us to be:

A reminder for when we've spent too much time hitting the "bottles" of productivity, efficiency, usefulness, staying "busy," thinking they'll make us whole. A reminder of our first call: to behold. Music. "Shades of Spring" and "As I Figure" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Original music from Episode 6: The Economy of Wonder by Kyle Calvin Campbell.

4. The Economist covers the sluggish recovery of the tsunami ravaged areas of Japan. It turns out, the worst part of the recovery has nothing to do with the nuclear plants:

“NEARLY four years after north-eastern Japan’s huge earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown on March 11th 2011, more than 170,000 people are still stuck in temporary housing along the ravaged coast. One of them is Sumiko Yoshida, a woman in her 70s who lives with her husband in cramped, mouldy quarters in Rikuzentakata, a fishing port that was washed away by the tsunami. More than 1,750 people died there, including the Yoshidas’ son, Isao, a city official who was helping others to get to higher ground. With no place to call home and no butsudan (household altar) for her son, Mrs Yoshida says she cannot properly mourn him—a photograph on a makeshift table has to do. She has suppressed her grief for so long, she says, that the tears will not come.”

5. The speech given by a judge in Mississippi who just sentenced three white men to life in prison for the racially motivated killing of a black man. This is from NPR and has been reproduced in full. It isn't a pleasant read, but it has power:

“Mississippi soil has been stained with the blood of folk whose names have become synonymous with the civil rights movement like Emmett Till, Willie McGee, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Vernon Dahmer, George W. Lee, Medgar Evers and Mack Charles Parker. But the blood of the lesser-known people like Luther Holbert and his wife, Elmo Curl, Lloyd Clay, John Hartfield, Nelse Patton, Lamar Smith, Clinton Melton, Ben Chester White, Wharlest Jackson and countless others, saturates these 48,434 square miles of Mississippi soil. On June 26, 2011, four days short of his 49th birthday, the blood of James Anderson was added to Mississippi’s soil.”

Weekend Reading

1. Robert Smith writes of seeing his son's murderer. A meaningful expression of a desire to authentically forgive:

“I asked prayer warriors to pray for me as I prepared to write the young man and to pray that he would respond affirmatively and ultimately add my name to the visitors list so that I could come and tell him in person—“Jesus loves and forgives you and so do I.” After nearly two years, in September 2012 I finally mailed that letter.

He added me to his visitors list in 2014. Soon by God’s grace I will see the young man whose face was the last face our son saw before standing in the presence of the Lord. I will offer the young man the forgiveness that Christ offers to me and to all who will believe.”

2. The temptation to star in someone else's story. Another gracious but critical take on the Brian Williams saga:

“It was inevitable that Brian Williams would become the punch line of so many bad jokes once his fellow journalists learned that he had lied about his experience covering the Iraq War in 2003. Specifically, he claimed to be riding in a Chinook helicopter that took heavy fire. This was not true, and Williams’ weak attempt to explain it away as the fog of memory launched the mocking Twitter hashtag “BrianWilliamsMisremembers.” A number of news sites have covered this Twitter-fest. How heartening that so many of us still care about the truth.”

3. On parenting, remembering what you signed up for:

“There’s something misplaced about being exasperated when our children struggle with anger or selfishness or disobedience. “If I hear one more word from you...” Our children are these little people who are learning how to live life; of course they’re going to struggle to do what’s right at times. In the moment, sometimes all we want to do stop the annoyingness. But parenting isn’t about just stopping annoying behaviour so we don’t have to listen to it; parenting is about guiding, teaching, disciplining, nurturing, and helping our children when they fail, as they inevitably will.

Last week my 3 year old daughter, after eating a snack of crumbly, messy seaweed, came to me and said, “Mom, do you know why I make messes? Because I’m a little kid. And little kids make messes.”

She’s right. Little kids make messes.

And us parents, well, cleaning them up is kind of what we signed up for.”

4. Justine Sacco: One stupid tweet, one ruined life:

“The furor over Sacco’s tweet had become not just an ideological crusade against her perceived bigotry but also a form of idle entertainment. Her complete ignorance of her predicament for those 11 hours lent the episode both dramatic irony and a pleasing narrative arc. As Sacco’s flight traversed the length of Africa, a hashtag began to trend worldwide: #HasJustineLandedYet. “Seriously. I just want to go home to go to bed, but everyone at the bar is SO into #HasJustineLandedYet. Can’t look away. Can’t leave” and “Right, is there no one in Cape Town going to the airport to tweet her arrival? Come on, Twitter! I’d like pictures #HasJustineLandedYet.””

Worth Reading - 2/12

1. Things to think about before you click "send" on your next e-mail:

“I stopped counting how many times I’ve had the email etiquette conversation, both in regards to emails I’ve sent, and ones I’ve received. It’s something we’ve all experienced. So much so that we regularly chalk it up to the idea that, “something just gets lost in email conversation.” And it’s not only on email! We regularly miscommunicate and/or misinterpret conversations on social media platforms as well.”

2. Nathan Finn on the dangers and possibilities of denominationalism:

“Near the end of my time in college, I was a history major who knew I wanted to be a professor. However, I also felt a keen sense of calling to full-time ministry. I wrestled with two different paths. The first was to attend seminary, earn the M.Div., and then pursue Ph.D. work in church history. The second was to attend a university and pursue the M.A. and Ph.D. in history. I knew I could write the same dissertation in either setting; it was more a question of vocation. After seeking advice from pastors and professors, I opted for the first path. I haven’t regretted it.

Almost fifteen years later, I now teach church history in a Southern Baptist seminary. But unlike my colleagues with specializations in Patristics or the Reformation era, my doctoral studies focused upon modern fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Furthermore, most of my writing thus far and about half of my teaching responsibilities relate to the history of the Baptist tradition. Contrary to the direction of the wider historical academy, I find myself engaged in that most outdated form of religious history. Hello, my name is Nathan Finn, and I am a denominational historian.”

3. In an interesting twist, the online magazine Tablet has begun charging for people to comment. This is designed to keep down the number of trolls:

“Tablet magazine announced in a blog post yesterday that they’ll be taking an unusual step to deal with sometimes unruly commenters: charging readers who want to submit — or even view — comments on their site.”

4. Reading as a central part of parenting:

“When we think about parenting, the word “books” probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But reading to our children is a fundamental aspect of parenting little people, though we rarely talk about it in the context of raising children.

Most of us are already reading to our children. It is something that mothers in particular already do, whether it’s the classic bedtime story or another scenario. Thinking carefully about reading to our kids can help us do it better in a way that will help us and them better steward the gift of intellect that God gives each one of us. John Stodt said that “the secret of holy living lies in the mind.” Books help us steward our children’s minds because it is what we know and understand that drives and directs how we feel and what we do. Reading out loud to our children is a potentially a powerful parenting tool when it is done intentionally and biblically. Here are five reasons to read out loud to our kids.”

5. Southeastern will be conducting a free online course to help people connect work and worship. Here is a promotional video:

Worth Reading - 2/11

1. From the Art of Manliness on Backhanded compliments. This is a good read for either gender:

“A friend of mine told me about a compliment she received the other day from a co-worker. “Bridget,” he said to her, “you look like you’ve lost a lot of weight! You’ve still got a ways to go, but keep it up!”

The colleague clearly intended for the comment to come off as praise, but it instead had the very opposite effect. Rather than hearing “Congrats on the weight loss!” all my friend heard was, “You’re still fat.”

Bridget had been the recipient of what’s called a “backhanded compliment.” It’s a bit of praise laced with an insult — a rose with a thorn.”

2. David Brooks from the NY Times on the importance of forgiveness. In other words, let's get over the Brian Williams thing:

“There’s something sad in Brian Williams’s need to puff up his Iraq adventures and something barbaric in the public response.

The sad part is the reminder that no matter how high you go in life and no matter how many accolades you win, it’s never enough. The desire for even more admiration races ahead. Career success never really satisfies. Public love always leaves you hungry. Even very famous people can do self-destructive things in an attempt to seem just a little cooler.

The barbaric part is the way we respond to scandal these days. When somebody violates a public trust, we try to purge and ostracize him. A sort of coliseum culture takes over, leaving no place for mercy. By now, the script is familiar: Some famous person does something wrong. The Internet, the most impersonal of mediums, erupts with contempt and mockery. The offender issues a paltry half-apology, which only inflames the public more. The pounding cry for resignation builds until capitulation comes. Public passion is spent and the spotlight moves on.”

3. Justin Taylor writes about reading Scripture literally:

“I am also thinking about intramural Christian debates about interpretation—whether we are talking about Bible translation or the days of creation or the fulfillment of prophecy—where one side will insist that they interpret the passage “literally.”

I am not a fan of linguistic legalism and I recognize the need for terminological shortcuts, but I am an advocate for clarity, and the use of an ambiguous term like literal can create confusion. It’s a single term with multiple meanings and connotations—which is true of many words—but the problem is that many assume it means only one thing.

So my proposal is that if we have a moratorium on this word, we have a chance of speaking and hearing with greater understanding.

Since I have no real authority to call for an actual moratorium and it has little chance to succeed, my alternative proposal is that when someone asks you if you take the Bible “literally” or a passage “literally,” you ask what they mean by the word and then proceed to answer in accordance with the definition they provide.”

4. Joseph Sunde at Acton Institute unpacks Mike Rowe's latest discussion on good vs. bad jobs:

“When Rowe says “there’s no such thing as a bad job,” he doesn’t mean that work won’t sometimes be hard and difficult and toilsome and unfair. He means that through each season, work orients our hearts and hands in healthy, formative, sacrificial, and productive ways, and we best not trample over the crucial components that such a process provides. By tinkering with and bickering over the byproducts (the numbers, the paychecks, the contracts), we do nothing to improve the source. “Doesn’t matter how well-intended the policy,” Rowe concludes. “The true cost a $20 minimum wage has less to do with the price of a Big Mac, and more to do with a sound of thunder.”

As we put our hands to the plow and train up the next generation to do the same, let our attitudes and goals not be determined or driven by the price of a paycheck or Big Mac, but grounded in the service and sacrifice it represents. Less thunder. More flourishing.”

5. Another helpful parenting post from Aaron Earls. This one is about viewing children as humans, not as machines.

“What annoys you the most? For me, it’s inanimate objects—machines, technology and the sort.

While it’s not to say I never get angry at others, I tend to think people mess up all the time. It’s kinda what we do. But machines … they’re supposed to work.

When I push the button on my laptop, it should start up. If it doesn’t, it can’t blame its nonexistent emotions. It should respond immediately and appropriately because that’s what it has been created to do.

In evaluating my parenting, I realized much of my anger with my children arose from my having the wrong perspective about them. I was viewing them as if they were machines.

You may be doing the same. Here are six questions to see if you fall into the same temptation of treating your children like robots.”

Worth Reading - 2/10

1. Trevin Wax on the danger of assuming evangelism:

“Let me say at the outset that individualistic Christianity which is only about “me and Jesus” and my personal ticket to heaven is inadequate as a presentation of Christianity. It minimizes the importance of the local church, the Old Testament narrative, and misses the world-transforming power of the gospel here and now. I sympathize with authors and pastors who want to help Christians to understand salvation holistically.

That said, there is a danger is saying something like, “Of course, evangelism and missions are important, but let’s not forget…” and then continuing with all sorts of other good Christian responsibilities. As a corrective to myopic visions of salvation, this kind of statement can be helpful. But if we want to put forth a Christian worldview that is truly comprehensive, we can’t simply assume the existence of personal evangelism with an “of course!” before giving most of our attention to all the other good deeds a Christian may do in the world.”

2. Some really cool photos from Smithsonian magazine from space and of celestial objects:

3. Technology can be a very good thing, but should we adopt technology simply because it is available? Shouldn't we evaluate it's consequences carefully? This is the argument of a post at the Imaginative Conservative:

“Technology and the written word are both here to stay, but we should heed Plato’s warning that inventions can, if used wrongly, take the place of learning to read well—and submit to—books. There will always be the danger of mistaking an achievement in innovation for real wisdom. No matter how convenient an opportunity may be, or how badly you need to write your next research paper, nothing should reduce the value of knowing a work. I offer you the challenge to do this always, by humbly submitting yourself to books.”

4. The importance of writing as if history actually happened. This is an insightful piece on being truly counter-cultural Christians in an age that strongly demands it:

“But I am interested in writing as though the past happened, and that means acknowledging the limits of such ‘declinist’ discourse. I don’t begrudge my peers for looking a bit squinty-eyed at the anxious rallying cries we’re hearing about gay marriage within the church. I wager few of today’s college students know the Religious Right ever happened, and sometimes I’d like to forget about them myself. But they did. And like it or not the image—regardless of its accuracy—of the fearful evangelical leader shouting about decline still pervades our media world. ”

5. Have you ever seen someone go 207 mph on a rocket powered bicycle?

Worth Reading - 2/9

1. Energy Efficiency measures have improved significantly in recent years, such that in some cases, investing in improved efficiency measures may be economically worth it in the short term:

“The idea that money is available for the taking defies economic logic. But sometimes it’s true. That’s the case with a vast opportunity that’s routinely overlooked by institutions across the country — from universities to hospitals, companies to governments.

The opportunity is investing in energy efficiency. “The returns are tremendous, and there’s virtually no risk,” said Mark Orlowski, the founder and executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, an organization that is building a network to advance research, education and practical tools to help institutions, primarily universities and colleges, make investments that mitigate climate change.”

2. A pretty cool story from CNN about a Target employee giving assistance to a young job-seeker. This is from the North Raleigh area, not too far from my home:

“Turns out, talking to strangers is not so bad after all.

At least for a North Carolina teen, who went to Target to look for a clip-on tie for a job interview. Instead, he became the subject of a touching moment and a viral photo.

Audrey Mark told CNN affiliate WTVD she was shopping at a store in Raleigh on Wednesday when she noticed something unusual.

”I see this young teen being hovered over by this Target employee,” Mark said.

Curious, she got closer to see what was going on. The employee was not just tying the teen’s tie, he was imparting some wisdom as well.”

3. Hugh Welchel at The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics differentiates between faith and works righteouness:

“Works righteousness is a form of self-righteousness that believes that our salvation can be earned and/or sustained by doing good works. It says we can make ourselves righteous before God by our obedience.

This is epitomized in the New Testament by the Pharisees for whom Jesus reserved his harshest criticism, calling them whitewashed tombs and hypocrites.

The Bible makes it clear that salvation comes through unmerited grace. It does not come because of our works, but because of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.”

4. Aaron Earls at Facts and Trends shares five ways to teach your kids theology:

“Teaching your kids math can feel daunting. But teaching your kids theology can feel downright terrifying.

Some parents feel overwhelmed with a lack of time. They just don’t see how they can fit something else into their day. Others may not feel as if they have adequate theological training. They don’t feel comfortable going much beyond, “Jesus loves you.”

So how can you weave theological teaching into their daily lives, without necessarily setting them down for an in-depth family sermon (though there is nothing wrong with that)? How can you impart good theology into the lives of your children, without possessing a theological degree?

You don’t need to feel like you’re trying out the latest parenting fad or complicated system. Instead, here are five simple ways to teach your kids theology virtually every day.”

5. How a brain tumor can unlock a deeper walk with Christ:

“How could this happen? I was 22 years old and the epitome of health. I was a competitive dancer and avid runner. People like me do not get brain tumors, or so I thought. When you are young, you tend to think you are invincible. Yet I was given the gift of a life shattered for my good and God’s glory. In trial our dreams sometimes die. Then we are forced to consider what really matters and what is really important.

After I ingested all the information of my predicament, we decided to go into a six-month waiting period. The tumor was in a place that was not ideal for a successful operation. We decided to wait six months and see what happened.”

Worth Reading - 2/6

1. The importance of roughhousing with your kids, from the Art of Manliness:

“Psychologist Anthony Pellegrini has found that the amount of roughhousing children engage in predicts their achievement in first grade better than their kindergarten test scores do. What is it about rough and tumble play that makes kids smarter? Well, a couple things.

First, as we discussed above, roughhousing makes your kid more resilient and resilience is a key in developing children’s intelligence. Resilient kids tend to see failure more as a challenge to overcome rather than an event that defines them. This sort of intellectual resilience helps ensure your children bounce back from bad grades and gives them the grit to keep trying until they’ve mastered a topic.

In addition to making students more resilient, roughhousing actually rewires the brain for learning. Neuroscientists studying animal and human brains have found that bouts of rough-and-tumble play increase the brain’s level of a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF helps increase neuron growth in the parts of the brain responsible for memory, logic, and higher learning–skills necessary for academic success.”

2. Russel Moore discusses his understanding of what evangelicals will be looking for in the 2016 election:

“Jefferson won over the Baptists and evangelicals without pretending to be one of them. After all, he was derided as an infidel by his critics. Jefferson and the Baptists came to religious liberty from two very different starting points. He based it on an Enlightenment understanding of natural rights. They based it on a gospel in which consciences must be free if they are to stand in judgment on the Last Day. The Founding-era evangelicals, such as fiery Virginia Baptist revivalist John Leland, didn’t care about motives, but about who would work to secure freedom. That’s a good model for the next election.

In recent years candidates have assumed that they can win over evangelicals by learning Christian slogans, by masking political rallies as prayer meetings, and by basically producing a long-form new birth certificate to prove they’ve been born again. This sort of identity politics is a luxury of a past era when evangelicals were part of a silent majority in the U.S., with our First Amendment freedoms assumed and guaranteed. That is not the present situation.”

3. From Desiring God: You can't serve God and Theology:

“Jesus himself says, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24; see also Hebrews 13:5). The God of Christianity and the god of money are irreconcilably opposed. They cannot room together in the human heart. If you find yourself serving money — consuming yourself with earning, gathering, and spending — by definition you are not serving God.

But is money more spiritually dangerous than theology? The answer may be trickier than we think, especially within the numbing comfort of a proudly affluent and educated American Church. Money is a tangible, countable, often visible god. Theology, on the other hand — if it is cut off from truly knowing and enjoying God himself — can be a soothing, subtle, superficially spiritual god. Both are deadly, but one lulls us into a proud, intellectual, and purely cosmetic confidence and rest before God. Theology will kill you if it does not kindle a deep and abiding love for the God of the Bible, and if it does not inspire a desire for his glory, and not ultimately our own.”

4. An article with lots of pictures about some of the most beautiful and most visited castles in the world:

“While castles, palaces and châteaux naturally pique such curiosity, not all have Neuschwanstein’s European fairy-tale looks. Some of the world’s most-visited castles, found across Asia, feature red exteriors, pagodas and gates.

Consider Bangkok’s gold-spired Grand Palace, where Thai kings lived for 150 years, and where 8 million annual visitors now traipse through ornate rooms, manicured gardens and temples, including one that houses a revered Buddha carved from a single block of jade.”

5. You can't separate stewardship from economics, from Greg Forster at the Acton Institute:

“As Forster indicates, for the bulk of human history, the type of collaboration, exchange, and reconciliation we see today was outright prohibited, leading not only to widespread material poverty, but significant social/spiritual division, isolation, and disconnect. Even now, as projects like PovertyCure seek to highlight, the world’s poorest suffer not for lack of initiative, creativity, or love for neighbor, but because they have been cut off from circles of entrepreneurial exchange and collaboration.

On this, Forster offers a simple but healthy reminder: economics matters, for orienting our hearts, hands, and imaginations, yes, but also for the cultivation and preservation of the broader political/social/economic order.

As we continue to refine our thinking about the shape and arc of Christian stewardship, let’s not forget or neglect the role of economics in unleashing it for “love, justice, and reconciliation” across society.”