Saturday, August, 28, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. What did Jesus know?
2. What role does Jesus play in our lives
3. Top 5 people to convince me God exists
4. Why am I a Quaker?
5. Thoughts on simplicity
6. Working your way through doubt
7. Don’t let discouragement pile up
8. An encounter with mental illness
9. Plant your spiritual pivot foot
10. How to reboot your spirit
11. Why the Bible is a tough read for Americans
12. How Erasmus messed up the KJV
13. Elders: for men only?
14. Loving our Muslim neighbors unconditionally
15. Rachel Held Evans on Christianity and evolution
16. A preview of The Nines
17. A review of “The Resurrection of Jesus”
18. A review of “Jesus Manifesto”
19. New Sufjan Stevens EP release “All Delighted People EP”
20. Scott Adams writes about the Artist’s Secret
21. The Sacred Groves
22. Ten questions for personal creativity and fulfillment
23. Writer’s block: what to do when the well runs dry
24. Forty days can change your life
25. Why 20-somethings don’t care about Prop 8
26. Facebook displeased with portrayal in “The Social Network”
27. Q&A from a “Football Outsider”
28. States call on Craigslist to discontinue adult services ads
29. Apparently, cities are hurricane magnets
30. A classical singer analyzes five male metal singers
31. Metal masterpieces rendered as 8-bit audio
32. A hymn for atheists (YouTube)

Video of the week: I’m Not Afraid (remix)

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, August, 21, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. The parable of the good Muslim
2. A mother’s dilemma regarding hell
3. Doubt and the rituals of grief
4. On theology and friendship
5. The probability of God
6. Heresy and the Godhead
7. A pastor really ought to believe in God
8. Clergy and burnout
9. Blogging as Theological Discourse
10. Twitter lessons from Rick Warren
11. What if I am wrong?
12. Gay exorcism
13. Should Christians celebrate the overturning of Prop 8?
14. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture
15. Is there an historical Adam?
16. Reasons to love artists
17. What art says about life
18. Fourteen reasons your creativity may be suffering
19. Is contemplative prayer a legitimate Christian practice
20. A review of “The Celtic Way of Prayer”
21. A review of “A God-Sized Vision”
22. Reviews of “Hipster Christianity” by (1) Vicky Beeching and (2) Julie Clawson
23. A review of “Not That Kind of Girl”
24. A review of “Socialnomics”
25. Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2014
26. Why college professors should get tattoos
27. How to deliver the perfect 18 minute Ted Talk
28. What to do when you hate your job
29. The relationship between household labor time and sexual activity in married couples

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, August, 14, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 10:10 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. The importance of being alone
2. The importance of dirty feet
3. The importance of understanding your weakness
4. Lord, teach us to worship
5. How has God called you to worship?
6. Ramadan and Vikings safety Husain Abdullah
7. Scot McKnight interviews Brian McLaren
8. My life as a “whitewashed feminist”
9. Do slippery slopes exist?
10. Why is being a pastor so unhealthy?
11. Death by ministry?
12. Starting a competition between churches
13. Christopher Hitchens and death
14. A poem: The Song of Wandering Aengus
15. Loving Leviticus
16. Syllabus for Patron Saints for Postmoderns course
17. Syllabus for Medieval Christian Thought course
18. A review of “Razing Hell”
19. A review of “Evolving in Monkey Town”
20. A critique of Rachel Held-Evans‘ Washington Post piece
21. A review of “Walking Gently on the Earth”
22. A review of “The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics”
23. The paradox of watching Quentin Tarantino
24. How to cut your to-do list in half
25. Craigslist accused of promoting prostitution…again
26. Should the retirement age increase with an increase in life expectancy?


Picture of the week (found with no attribution) House on a rock


Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, August, 7, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. When does your day start?
2. The faith of Ray Bradbury
3. Show me how to die
4. I’d rather be hated than loved with conditions
5. Celtic spirituality: what’s real and what’s usable
6. The genesis of doubt
7. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Experience
8. Fundamentalism since the 1970s
9. Religion in college
10. When sex offenders go to church
11. Are there slippery slopes?
12. ‘Negotiated infidelity’ is stupid
13. What marriage doesn’t do
14. Would a hero say what you just said?
15. You are the sun
16. A review of Arcade Fire’s new album “The Suburbs”
17. A review of “Olive Kitteridge”
18. A review of “The Power of a Whisper”
19. Making a living at writing
20. Good ideas deserve time
21. Favorite summer beach reads
22. Campbell’s Soup responds to Andy Warhol
23. Gamers find protein structures
24. How to treat a client
25. Cartoon of the week

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, July, 31, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some (or, rather, a lot of) stuff I came across this week…

1. Worship: I start as a blank screen
2. When the Secular is Sacred (or, Why you should listen to Mumford and Sons)
3. Carlos Whittaker’s tattoo
4. A review of Andrew Peterson’s album “Counting Stars”
5. Anne Rice announces she is quitting Christianity
6. The most important part of your story: when you’re about to quit
7. Suggestions for books about the Church
8. C.S. Lewis and spiritual formation
9. A recap of the Echo 2010 conference
10. Why are Christians so bad at dying?
11. A typology of Christian approaches to homosexuality
12. Doubt, family, and friends: part 1, and part 2
13. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Reason
14. Defining ID
15. Mike Ham refuses to (1) “move on” from the evolution-creation debate; (2) Rachel Held Evans responds
16. Bill Mounce comments on the Committee on Bible Translation
17. Thoughts and questions about Pauline authorship
18. What are a pastor’s post-preaching logistical options?
19. Should gulf coast churches apply for BP payouts?
20. A review of “Omensetter’s Luck”
21. A review of “The Book of Questions”
22. A review of “Missional Small Groups”
23. A review of “Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory”
24. A review of “The Lost World of Genesis One”
25. Time comments on their recent cover showing disfigurement in Afghanistan
26. A tribute to Harper Lee
27. A suggestion for the Chicago Manual of Style: emoticon usage
28. Idea killers
29. Do you ever stop to think?
30. Building stronger, healthier, more effective teams
31. How to be a good neighbor
32. Social Media has (1) bred a new culture of sharing (and (2) a related cartoon)
33. Lessons learned from Randy Elrod’s Twitter suspension
34. Zero percent of Americans would pay for Twitter
35. The problem with aging video game consoles
36. Addictive game of the week

Have a great weekend!

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Sunday, July, 4, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 5:24 pm

The meanderings are a little late this weekend as I spent all last week at the Cornerstone music festival. See if you can find me in this photo  from the Flatfoot 56 show (the theme at the show was “Shark Week”). I’ll be posting on the festival sometime; until then, here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. None of us are leading Biblical lives
2. Is it unbiblical for moms to work outside the home?
3. Motherhood: a blog fight, a culture war, and grace
4. Where are the female Christian communicators?
5. Broken by the church
6. Feeling judged by the Church
7. Reconciliation personified
8. Having fun in Church
9. Hanna-Barbera theology
10. Stuff Christians Like: the “everyone is on vacation” church service
11. Why Christians are jerks online
12. Be careful what you worship on July 4th
13. Shane Claiborne on Interdependence
14. How to build new habits
15. Ron Rosenbaum on the New Agnostics
16. A review of (1) “Evolving in Monkey Town” and (2) another review
17. The Christian Hipster bookshelf (how many have you read?)
18. Top 10 books of the first half of 2010
19. Study finds people read more slowly on e-readers
20. Top 20 songs of the first half of 2010
21. BeliefNet sold to (1) BN Media and (2) further information
22. Thoughts on penalty kicks

Have a great week!

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Saturday, June, 26, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Writing a personal theology statement
2. The faith of Roger Ebert
3. The faith of the Ghanese football team
4. Religion as baggage, or, why it’s impossible to discuss theology with believers
5. You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do
6. Canceling church to do ministry
7. An interview with Anne Jackson (free download)
8. Various reviews (1) of Ted Haggard’s new church (2)
9. A review of “Evolving in Monkey Town”
10. A review of Christopher Hitchens’ memoir “Hitch-22”
11. A review of “The Lost World of Genesis One”
12. A translated excerpt from “To the End of the Land”
13. Craigslist and human trafficking
14. The end of men?
15. Mommies and swimsuits
16. Art requires discipline
17. The sixth love language…mix-tapes
18. Peter Jackson may direct The Hobbit after all
19. Stuff Christians Like: not using Snopes or Google before forwarding

Have a great weekend!

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Sunday, June, 20, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 8:53 pm

I’m a little late in posting; I was in the local community theater production of “My Fair Lady” and our performances were this weekend. Anyway, here’s some stuff I came across last week…

1. Thoughts on evangelical mysticism (Dr. Armstrong needs to hang out with more Quakers)
2. Is the Bible your precarious, presumptuous replacement of the Spirit (pneuma) poured out at Pentecost?
3. Anne Jackson on porn addiction
4. Thoughts on VBS
5. Translating Galatians 2:21 – Christ died “for nothing” or “as a free gift”
6. Facebook for churches (part 1 of 5)
7. Thirteen things learned at the BioLogos Conference
8. Adam and Eve: literal or literary
9. Thomas Nelson acquired by a private equity firm
10. A review of “Churched”
11. A review of “Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham”
12. Creeped out by guardian angels
13. How to survive a Christian bookstore: find your happy place
14. Seven suggestions to be an effective mentor
15. Would you be more effective with a “5 Hour Workday”?
16. Contrariwise: literary tattoos
17. It’s not too late to make your summer bucket list
18. Toy Story 3 gets a negative review

Have a great week!

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Saturday, June, 12, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 3:28 pm

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Being the aroma of Christ
2. How to react when you are wronged
3. Ira Glass on wrongness
4. An NPR interview with Ted Haggard
5. A blog post on Ted Haggard to which Ted Haggard actually left a comment
6. Is “the Devil” responsible for our sin?
7. Readings on God and Evil
8. How do we define Biblical words?
9. Does the Bible support the idea of Biblical inerrancy?
10. The Bible for smart-alecks (WARNING: potentially offensive)
11. Senseless Art? The struggle…
12. How bad habits create boring stories
13. Start. Work. Finish…avoiding procrastination
14. The importance of margin
15. A review of “Making Ideas Happen”
16. A review of “I Am Hutterite”
17. Psychoanalyzing fictional characters
18. An interview with singer-songwriter Sarah Tracey
19. Xenophobia at a police auction in Dayton, TN
20. World Cup simulated odds
21. Liquid mountaineering – how to literally walk on water (YouTube)
22. Movie of the week: “Hoppity Goes to Town” (YouTube)

Have a great Weekend!

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Saturday, June, 5, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 11:19 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Join those praying for women and children being trafficked during the World Cup
2. Are humans inherently good or bad?
3. Spencer Burke interviews Brian McLaren on Pluralism
4. Is it bad to be a stumbling block?
5. How does your view of God affect your religious practices?
6. Have you had these “religious experiences”?
7. Shifting clouds: a narrative
8. God is present and immanent and involved
9. A demon puppet leading the sinner’s prayer
10. Preaching and Speech Act Theory
11. How to refine your ideas
12. “Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.”
13. The hidden cost of social networking
14. Why beliefnet sucks…
15. The first in a series of posts reviewing “The Seven Pillars of Creation”
16. A review of “After You Believe”
17. A look at the autobiography and biography of Andre Agassi
18. A summer reading list
19. Librarians cover Lady Gaga
20. What it takes to become a master writer
21. Guillermo Del Toro leaves “The Hobbit”
22. Minnesota students turn observatory into R2-D2

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, May, 29, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 3:04 pm

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Preachers who are not Believers
2. When having an “only child” is not a choice
3. Mutual submission and Ephesians 5:22
4. The problem of narrating a fall
5. Is free-will anti-science?
6. Lost, Tolkien, and the creation of mythology
7. Lost: the death of American individualism
8. More thoughts on Lost
9. Cultural re-entry
10. How millennial are you? (I scored an 84)
11. Sit-Com idea #678: three men, who each believe they’re Jesus, share an apartment
12. A review of “After You Believe”
13. Summer reading list
14. Mark Twain’s autobiography to be published in November
15. One drawing for every page of Moby Dick
16. Should the 17th Amendment be repealed?
17. Bill Nye explains “Top Kill”
18. Google Pac-Man costs $120mm in lost productivity

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

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Saturday, May, 22, 2010

Weekly Meandering

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. I cannot make anyone love Jesus
2. The gospel according to…
3. The artist’s dance
4. The gift of rejection
5. A review of “Introverts in the Church”
6. A review of “In Praise of Slowness”
7. Speed praying or why I am a Quaker
8. Biblical languages as spiritual discipline
9. Karl Barth and Korean theology
10. A sermon at the funeral of a Christian’s suicide
11. Random thoughts on the emergent church
12. John Acuff’s post on CNN.com
13. A pastoral response to Glenn Beck
14. How to be a more energetic leader
15. Why are there so few female Christian pop artists
16. Some thoughts on Dissociative Identity Disorder
17. High school duo makes animatronic dragon in parent’s garage

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, May, 8, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 2:13 pm

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Mother’s Day or Motherhood Day?
2. Creative moms
3. Christian thoughts on birth control as the pill turns 50
4. Comparing financials of churches and charities
5. Churches for church leaders
6. The big idea of big idea preaching
7. Words can kill…teachers, watch what you say
8. Ingredients for creativity in preaching
9. Bill Murray reads poetry to construction workers

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, May, 1, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Does God have a specific plan for your life?
2. NT Wright retiring
3. Four styles of preaching
4. Young pastors and graphic novels (comic books)
5. The Lord’s Prayer in Elvish (Quenya to be specific)
6. A Prayer: In Our Faithlessness
7. A review of “O Me of Little Faith”
8. A review of “No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction”
9. A review of “An Altar in the World”
10. Writing a storyline instead of a mission statement
11. Q&A with a sports economist

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, April, 24, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 2:11 pm

Here’s some stuff I came across this week (and the week before)…

1. What’s your way to worship?
2. Asking people to leave church
3. Ten ways for a church to love its neighbors
4. AFA director promotes the deportation of all Muslims from the US
5. Is the “black church” dead?
6. Peggy Noonan: How to Save the Catholic Church
7. A review of “If the Church Were Christian”
8. Why we dye Easter eggs
9. Top 5 books on “Desert Spirituality”
10. Capturing beauty (in imperfection)
11. Thoughts on sermons: (1) Silence, (2) eye-contact
12. Are people basically good?
13. What about Total Depravity if there was no historical Adam and Eve
14. All One in Christ: Wrightians and the Neo-Reformed
15. Does our personality influence our theological leanings?…and a response
16. MP3s of the 2010 Wheaton Theology Conference
17. Non-quote takeaways from a Christian conference
18. In 2010: what is emerging?
19. An interview with the author of “Stuff Christians Like”
20. Thoughts on (1) blogging/social media and (2) texting in church
21. Why Millennials are so judgmental about promiscuity
22. Gender and racial bias in adoption, or, where did the white girls go?
23. Jennifer Knapp says she is gay
24. Women’s basketball and sexuality
25. Hitler “Downfall” parodies get pulled by YouTube
26. A review of “How to Train Your Dragon”
27. Plastic surgery for dead presidents

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, April, 3, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Crucifixion, chaos and sleep
2. Pete Enns on Paul’s Adam
3. Converting from Evangelicalism to Orthodox Judaism
4. John Piper addresses his upcoming leave of absence
5. Thoughts on John Piper’s leave of absence
6. Denominational map of the United States
7. Theology journals to follow
8. The tragedy of a 15 year old’s abortion
9. “Splice”…’a quasi-serious exploration into the implications of playing God.’
10. Stephen King’s upcoming baseball novella

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, March, 27, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Discerning Christ in indigenous culture
2. I did not expect (1)so many Christians to be (2)so vitriolic about (3)health care reform
3. A good post on health care reform
4. Why the delay (till 2014) in implementing health care reform provisions?
5. Apparently the old economic chestnut about guns and butter came from the Nazis
6. Christian colleges and mixed gender housing
7. Kevin Smith to parody Fred Phelps in “Red State”
8. Artists let others wrestle
9. First Things: Tournament of Novels bracket (some of the matchups are brutal)
10. Seven books that will make you a better writer
11. Can the same word used in the same passage mean different things
12. (1)To tweet, or (2)not to tweet?
13. Jesus’ Facebook page

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, March, 20, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Anne Jackson: Can girls get hooked on porn, too? (audio)
2. Does the Church treat women as “temptresses”?
3. “Jesus Christ is an infuriating person.” – the exclusivity of Christ
4, An intro to textual criticism, or “where did John 5:4 go?”
5. Help people trust their Bibles, or explaining textual criticism in the church
6. A sermon needs unity, order, and progress
7. Why are evangelicals inattentive to early Christian voices?
8. Does the artist affect the art?
9. My ESPN bracket…I’m kinda proud of it.
10. Why changing our clocks is a stupid ritual/tradition/sham

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, March, 13, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Things do not have to be easy for me to feel accomplished in my faith
2. Atheism’s role in Christian thinking
3. Six questions for an atheist in an evangelical church
4. Pastoral friends
5. How Facebook killed the church
6. Is your church Glenn Beck approved?
7. A review of “The Three Amigos and Their Three Dantes” (Lewis, Williams, and Sayers)
8. SXSW started…next year Jen and I are going (she doesn’t know that yet)
9. The kids at PS22 cover Coldplay
10. Water consumption in Edmonton during the Olympic Men’s Hockey final
11. Tron Legacy official trailer (YouTube)

Have a great weekend!

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Saturday, March, 6, 2010

Weekly Meanderings

Posted at: 6:00 am

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

1. Church leadership and the GLBT community
2. NT Wright on Genesis 1-3
3. Should Christian colleges teach evolution
4. The problem with comparing preachers
5. Are we suffering from inverted anti-intellectualism (or) postmodern fundamentalism
6. A woman tweets her drug-induced abortion
7. Tony Campolo: Are short term missions making matters worse in Haiti?
8. Greg Boyd on hell (YouTube)
9. Faith and cancer (YouTube)
10. Scot McKnight reviews Brian McLaren’s new book
11. Another review of “Picking Dandelions”
12. Are Chick Flicks emotional porn?
13. Oscar’s 15 biggest best picture snubs
14. Is “Avatar” more like “Pocahontas” or “The Wizard of Oz”?
15. Which is more efficient: blocking websites or shaming their users?
16. If I ever have a church with an elevator I’m totally doing this…
17. Ok Go’s new video for “This To Shall Pass” (YouTube)

Have a great weekend!

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