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Life
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that a mother has a legal right to end her pregnancy up until the point at which the fetus can live outside her womb. On this day may we lament death, pray for those who chose to terminate pregnancies, and commit to become people who welcome life…
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The Gospel According to Jobs
This article should raise the ire of the Apple faithful. That would be something in which I would take a small pleasure. 🙂 Let the tirades roll like a Michigan fan calling for the head of Rich Rodriguez! One small quote just to get it rolling: Steve Jobs’s gospel is, in the end, a set of beautifully polished empty promises.…
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Learn from Failure
This column by David Brooks is tremendous. His columns are tremendous as a standard, in my book. As a culture, we have to come to a place individually where we admit our shortcomings and learn. Learn from FAILURE. But our culture has tried to shield us from failure. I am guilty of this as a parent. We all have our…
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Sorrow
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “When I looked for light, then darkness came.” Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath. — President Barack Obama speaking at the memorial service in Tuscon, AZ.
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Cracks in the Cathedral
Fascinating commentary on the demise of the Crystal Cathedral. A powerful paragraph: Robert Schuller is not the problem—contemporary evangelicalism is. Schuller was only leading the parade of those who believe they are responsible for making the gospel relevant. The lesson is not that Schuller got it wrong or that his theology is out-of-date; it is not that we just need to…
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Prayers
For Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Remembering the lives lost and the families suffering in this tragedy.
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Harmful and Objectionable
This email blast is really interesting about Apple and its apps. The Manhattan Declaration wanted to have an app for iPhone and was rejected. This excerpt is chilling: Apple rejected the app, saying in a letter on December 22 that the app contains “references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely…
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Regaining Pastors as Theologians
The First Things article I referred to in my last post continues to challenge me. I may not have the role of a “wider theologian”, but I feel I must be the best theologian possible for my congregation. I don’t want to live in the realm of pragmatics or just practics. Yet, pastoral theology has a “practical” side to it.…
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watch night
From my new prayer book, Common Prayer, I learn this from today’s reading: The “watch night” (when in my church tradition the church “prays in” in the New Year) actually began in the African American communities on December 31, 1862. They gathered to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation which would become law on January 1, 1863. Booker T. Washington wrote, As…
Category: Culture
