Thursday, October 26, 2006

Confession 2

Background:
Sometimes, crafty church gnomes place blatantly partisan literature in our church foyer. The latest brochure was a glossy little voting guide, but the local, jingoistic, "christian" "newspaper" makes regular appearances as well.

Confession:
When nobody's looking, I extract the newspapers from the foyer, and add them to a neat little stack in the utility closet.

Underhanded, I know, but I figure this causes fewer problems than demanding equal space for a stack of Planned Parenthood brochures.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Engaging the Text

A series of posts on what the biblical text might have to say about the morality of homoerotic behavior.

(Note: This post is a trailhead. None of these posts are new, but a trailhead post makes it easy to add a link to the series in my sidebar.)

Hm. Now that I look at it, I skipped the holiness codes in Leviticus. Ok, give me a minute ... ah, here we go:

Also, remember that you're not allowed to wear the devil's own fabric, polyester. Maybe because it's fire-retardant? I dunno.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Hope

"Odd," I thought. "I wasn't expecting this feeling."

But there it was anyhow, in the middle of an otherwise uninspiring paragraph about feminisim, atonement, and Jesus.

I had been meandering through a book my sister gave me for my birthday, trying to nudge the scattered bits of my feminism into something coherent, toting my theological briefcase, very businesslike, and then this old friend recognized me, leapt on me, overwhelmed me with an embrace that was more than half wrestling hold.

"Wow," I thought. "I remember this feeling."

It feels like hope, but it's not quiet, or rosy.

Instead, it's a firework that hits me in the eyes and the gut at the same time, occupying my mind's eye so fully that, for a long ecstatic moment, I'm blind to everything but that one unavoidable future, largely featuring the triumph of laughter, full of mountains, of warm days smelling like watermelon and feeling like river water, chilly days feeling like friends and smelling like warm coffee, everything limned in golden joy.

And although the feeling quickly fades, for the moment I am convinced. There really is hope for the world, and there really is power in the cross of Christ. It is a power we can trust and admire: not the power to live perfectly, or the power to appease a transcendent, merciless, bloodthirsty God, but the deep affection that seems to be the only way to transform hatred without fostering hatred, to eradicate violence without using force, and to grant joyful life despite the power of death.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Happy birthday to me!

In keeping with my longstanding tradition of throwing birthday parties for myself: today is my birthday! Happy birthday to me!


Here's a fun game: If you want to get me a gift, don't buy anything ... just copy the internet address from your browser and paste it into a comment. So, for example, you could put your favorite book from Amazon.com, or maybe your favorite video from YouTube. After you submit the comment, I'll put a picture of your gift at the bottom of this post.

Fun!

Happy birthday to me!

(from Crystal)


(from Colby)


(from Jeff)


(from The Cute One)


(from Connor)


(from Scoots)


(from Stu. NSFW!)


(from Sandy)


(from Jessica)


(from Casey)

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Great Britain held hostage by ... Harding?

OK, I feel bad about all this off-site linking - it makes me feel like a lazy blogger - but you ACU and Harding folks shouldn't miss this one. It seems that Harding's new missions globe has ... um ... misplaced Great Britain by a few thousand miles.


No wonder those Brits are post-Christian! We obviously can't find them so that they can be re-evangelized!

Click the image to visit the Lame-O Weblog of Mark Elrod, who teaches at Harding.

And speaking of Mark Elrod, does anybody know an ACU professor who has a blog, much less a blog as interesting as Elrod's?

Update:

Mark reports that Great Britain has been returned to its rightful place. Whew. That was fixed rather quickly, though. I wonder ... how easy is it to move those continents around?

Also, Colby suggests reading the blog of (ACU Associate Professor) Richard Beck.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Two wars

As I was walking down the hall this morning, I suddenly realized: During the first four years of the Bush presidency, the United States invaded not one, but two sovereign nations and initiated two wars.

Two wars in four years.

And instead of ousting the people responsible, we voted to give them another four years. More than 40,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq alone.


I think I'll go be sick now.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Church of Christ vs Episcopal Church

Connor has attended both, and provides you with this deep and meaningful analysis.

Praying:
CoC - Kneel if you want to be stared at.
EC - Kneel or die.

Go, read, now!

Update: It would help if I actually put the link in...