When I agreed to do this for Tim, I didn’t know two things: how busy this week would end up being, and how Tim makes this quality article aggregation thing look easy. It ISN’T. So please forgive the lack of daily links, and remember (as always): these are shared to stimulate thought; no endorsement or agreement implied. Now, on with the show!

God Loves Fred

I’ve noticed that for all the complaints against fundamentalism these days, we haven’t moved very far beyond it. It’s just now the fundamental foundation for many of my friends is a a kind of cultural narrative of progress.

We’ve been taught to think the world is slowly getting better, and with the right politics, organization, medicine and education we will usher in a better world. And anyone who stands in the way of that objective is vilified and written off.

I’m progressive, I want to help serve the world and my neighbor, I don’t want to have some kind of nostalgia about the past, I want to deal with the time I actually live in.

But the thing that drives me isn’t progressive politics/theology it’s reconciliation.

What To Do When Everything Crumbles

…the older men, when they see the foundation, can’t bear it. Perhaps it’s too small, nothing like David’s temple, so grand and massive. Perhaps seeing this slab of rock is too hard, too much. Perhaps it reminds them of the fall, of the family they lost, the children murdered in the streets, the burning city of God. Whatever it is, they mourn.

And the young people, the ones who’ve never known anything but captivity, they celebrate.

And the sounds of mourning and celebration grow and mingle and rise, carried on the wind to places far away.

When Two Lesbians Walk Into a Church Seeking Trouble

Do you realize that Jesus is not shocked by the shocking things people do? Jesus knew Zacchaeus had robbed people blind and profited off much unethical behavior, yet Jesus was not shocked. He did not offer Zach correction, but relationship: “Come down, Zacchaeus. I’m staying at your house tonight.” (See Luke 19:5.) That shocked everyone! Yet relationship changed Zacchaeus.

God Loves Fred

I’ve noticed that for all the complaints against fundamentalism these days, we haven’t moved very far beyond it. It’s just now the fundamental foundation for many of my friends is a a kind of cultural narrative of progress.

We’ve been taught to think the world is slowly getting better, and with the right politics, organization, medicine and education we will usher in a better world. And anyone who stands in the way of that objective is vilified and written off.

I’m progressive, I want to help serve the world and my neighbor, I don’t want to have some kind of nostalgia about the past, I want to deal with the time I actually live in.

But the thing that drives me isn’t progressive politics/theology it’s reconciliation.

What To Do When Everything Crumbles

…the older men, when they see the foundation, can’t bear it. Perhaps it’s too small, nothing like David’s temple, so grand and massive. Perhaps seeing this slab of rock is too hard, too much. Perhaps it reminds them of the fall, of the family they lost, the children murdered in the streets, the burning city of God. Whatever it is, they mourn.

And the young people, the ones who’ve never known anything but captivity, they celebrate.

And the sounds of mourning and celebration grow and mingle and rise, carried on the wind to places far away.

9 Things We Should Get Rid of to Help Our Kids

Because reality is, life doesn’t give us everything we want. We don’t always get the best jobs or a job at all. We don’t always have someone rescue us when we have a bad day or replace our boss just because we don’t like them. We can’t always have what we want when we want it. We aren’t always rewarded in life.

Here are 9 things we can get rid of to begin eliminating entitlement in our children…

A “Startlingly Simple Theory” About the Missing Airliner is Sweeping the Internet. It’s Wrong.

To make a good theory, Einstein is said to have asserted, “everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Unfortunately, Christopher Goodfellow’s wildly popular theory errs on the side of too much elegance.

You Should Care Big Time About the Big Bang News

It’s fine—and vital—to do science that changes lives. But it’s great to also do science that just gets you drunk on the idea that you’re doing it at all, that refracts the universe in a different way, that shows you yourself from the other side of the mirror. You are precisely the same person you were before you had that perspective—and you’re entirely different too.

The throwback impact of Manu Ginobili

With Ginobili serving as their grizzled captain — think Russell Crowe in “Gladiator,” only with basketballs instead of short swords — the so-called Foreign Legion has been by far the best bench corps in the league, nearly doubling No. 2 Dallas in overall production and efficiency.

I’m back… did you miss me? I traveled to Cuba with my wife, Carolina, as well as Micaela and Gustavo Villanueva. The ladies spoke at a women’s conference, and we guys were along as moral support.

We left the country on October 31. (I wanted to dress up as a terrorist and trick-or-treat the security line, but Carolina vetoed that idea) I haven’t begun to catch up on my reading, so I don’t have links to share today.

So let’s have a links potluck. Have you read anything interesting during this month of November? If so, why not share the link in the comment section. (If you put more than one, the comment may be held until I can approve it)

Thanks!

Why Public Prayer Is About More Than Culture Wars

But that’s precisely the point. A prayer, by definition, isn’t a speech made to a public audience but is instead a petition made to a higher Being. For the government to censor such prayers is to turn the government into a theological referee, and would, in fact, establish a state religion: a state religion of generic American civil religious mush that assumes all religions are ultimately the same anyway. To remove the “sectarian” nature of prayer is to reduce such prayers to the level of public service announcements followed by “Amen.”

Broken Vows

When a marriage is functioning as God intended, it’s a living illustration to all the world—it screams, “This is what our Savior does for His bride!” This is a wonderful and glorious thing. Witnessing a healthy marriage, where a wife is submitting to her husband and her husband is sacrificially loving her, says more about the gospel’s power than many a sermon.

Strange Fire Conference: A Case for Cessationism

Cessationism does not mean that God no longer does anything miraculous. As a pastor I see miracles often. Every time a spiritually dead person comes to faith is a miraculous work of grace. Every time a person is healed solely in answer to the prayers of God’s people totally in contradiction to the medical science predictions, it is a divine miracle. If God so chose, he could allow someone to speak today in a language they didn’t previously know.
Cessationism means the Spirit no longer gives believers miraculous spiritual gifts as a normative Christian experience as it was for the apostles.

Stop Wishing the World Were Different

One of the great scriptures is 1 Chronicles 12.32 which speaks of David’s mighty men. It says the men of Issachar were “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” If we want to shape our times for God, we too must be people who know the times.
First step: Stop wishing the world were different and start creating the world you want.

The Christian College and the Crisis of Faith–and why that might be a good thing

This is why I am crushed whenever I hear that an institution has invoked the fact that “Bible Professor X caused some students to have faith crises” as grounds for dismissal. This is what good Bible teachers do!
What if we extended this to other disciplines—if physicists had to fear for their jobs whenever they caused students to understand nature in a new way, or if philosophers came under fire whenever they encouraged students to question reality in a new way?
Wanting to spare students from having faith crises implies that the students arrive at university with a perfect understanding of the nature of the Bible, in which case, we do not need to teach Bible classes at all.

Musical Notation, As Described By Cats
[Music theory taught by GIFs of felines… what could be better?]