Quality interweb mischief from Jared Bridges
Civility is important — even necessary — in a society that seeks to be known as civilized. But, there are times when civility can go the wrong way. Walker Percy provides an excellent example in his novel The Thanatos Syndrome, where the protagonist (psychiatrist Tom More) encounters an old janitor with whom he’d had familiar … Read more
It’s ironic that within the evangelical church — a people who by and large claim their ultimate authority to be Scripture alone — it is tradition that is often the most difficult thing to change. Voddie T. Baucham Jr.’s book, Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with … Read more
The news of protest and calls for boycotts (of various flavors) of the 2008 Olympic games raises the perennial question of whether or not politics should have any bearing upon sport. It’s really not a new issue at all. Think of the 1936 Nazi Olympics where Jesse Owens embarrassingly upset what was supposed to be … Read more
Let’s pretend that you’re planting a new church. If you’re a typical evangelical church plant in the United States, you’ve probably gathered together a few families and individuals in a community, and are meeting in homes, rented office buildings, or more commonly, a school building. Hopefully, you’ve decided (and founded your church upon) sound doctrinal … Read more
University of California geography professor Jared Diamond — of Guns, Germs and Steel fame — opines in today’s New York Times about world consumption factors. These are measures of “the average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases.” Diamond observes the great chasm in … Read more
Continuing the tradition this blog from 2004, 2005, and 2006, I give you my best from the seventh year of this millennium: Best Novel (read in 2007): Walker Percy’s The Second Coming. As I’ve described him before, Percy is like Dostoevsky with wit. The Second Coming is a novel about a rich, middle-aged man (who … Read more
This observation by Eugene H. Peterson is noteworthy: We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in … Read more
I’ve always been uneasy with the concept of the “living will,” known in technical terms as an advance health care directive. Part of my uneasiness stems from the fact that I do not know at this moment, in this situation, what I would want to be done in a potential situation where my life circumstances … Read more
Last week’s Washington Post Magazine had a great story about Tom Murphy, a more or less homeless guy who spends his time in D.C.’s Dupont Circle hustling chess games and giving lessons.
If you’re at all interested in the world’s greatest thinking game, it’s a must read. Below is a video clip teaser for the article:
This weekend, I watched a re-run 2005 episode of Nova on PBS which chronicled the conservation of the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The painstaking restoration of our nation’s founding documents was a worthy subject of documentary, and I’m glad I watched it. As with most documentaries these days, the narrator gave the … Read more