Links To Go (May 11, 2016)

I’m Still a Complementarian… And There’s Still That “But”

Or, are we left feeling as if we’re trying on pants two sizes too small: hopping, pulling and shimmying our thighs through increasingly narrow pant legs, losing balance, catching ourselves on dressing room walls, taking deep hold-it-in breaths to stuff our mid-sections behind a wall of denim not shaped for us, and wrestling the top button into a little recalcitrant slit with strenuously trembling arms? (Men: stop wearing skinny jeans!) If putting on complementarity feels that way, it may be an indication that we need an understanding of complementarity–at least its practice–that comes in different sizes for different shapes. For there is no one way to be a faithful man or woman, or no one way to faithfully play out the roles of husband and wife, or no one way to involve women in the service of the church. There is in all of this a particularity, a considering of the specific wife or husband, man or woman, local church, that must not be lost.


Amplifying Evangelism—Using Your Existing Ministries to Bless Your Community with the Gospel

Some years ago, I began thinking about the amazing things that could happen if local churches would vector their time, creativity, resources, and ministries out into the community. I call this the “Two-Degree Rule.” The idea is that we would take the effective and plentiful things we do for ourselves and simply direct these same things out into our community.


Donald Trump’s Feud With Evangelical Leader Reveals Fault Lines

Trump’s direct attack comes three days after Moore wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, “A White Church No More,” that directly called out Trump by name for a campaign that “has cast light on the darkness of pent-up nativism and bigotry all over the country.” Moore pointed out that the evangelical church in the U.S. is no longer the “old white precinct captains in Iowa,” or the “old, white television evangelists.”


This one will make you chuckle: You’ll never guess what kind of Christians pray before meals

This paragraph should be an instant classic (in a “Why does GetReligion exist?” sort of way):

The Baileys, if you haven’t guessed, are very Christian. The girls were, as Halle says, “Gospel-raised,” and though they’re nondenominational, I notice Chloe say a quick prayer before lunch. And they never curse — “gosh” and “heck” are as close as they get. “Oh, we love God,” she tells me when I ask her later. “He’s there with us through everything. He’s our best friend. God gave us this gift, but I don’t think it’s us really doing it. Because sometimes we’ll look up and it’s there in front of our eyes. I really believe it’s a greater power doing it for us.”

Wow. Wow. Wow.
Even though they are nondenominational, they still pray.


The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies

A number of times, Alex tells me that it is not his place to judge his parents, but that six years ago he spent a long period wrestling with “the big question” of whether he hated them or felt betrayed. In the end, he came to one conclusion: that they were the same people who had raised him lovingly, whatever secrets they hid.


Boy wonder may have discovered lost Mayan city

One by one, he went through 22 different star constellations and found that they all matched the locations of 117 known ancient Mayan cities, from Mexico to Guatemala to Honduras to El Salvador. But when he looked at a 23rd constellation, he noticed that one of its stars was unmatched to any known city. Gadoury figured that location — in the middle of the remote jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula — could be the site of an unknown city.
Narrowing in on specific satellite images of this site, Gadoury and De Lisle were stunned by what they saw. Under the jungle’s thick layer of vegetation, they saw signs of a large, linear structure that could be an ancient Mayan pyramid. Surrounding the pyramid, they also saw signs of dozens of smaller structures, alleys and streets — in short, what could be an ancient city never before identified.


Man destroys 126-year-old statue while trying to take a selfie

A man trying to take a selfie destroyed a statue of a 16th century Portugese king that had been in position for 126 years.
The ornate art sculpture crashed to the ground and shattered after the culprit climbed its pedestal.


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