5 Lessons Learned from the Apocalypse Fail, Or, It’s Not the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel So-So

[via Religion Dispatches]

Father Matthew on Pat Robertson, Demonization and Christ

[via A New Anglican's Journey]

After Sending A "Christ" Mas(s) Letter:

To the religious right Christmas culture warriors{read more than the title...}

[via Bene Diction Blogs On]

Christmas Gift Guide for the Homeless

[via JordonCooper.com]

Farrah, Michael, and the Day the 70's Died

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating
by Chip Berlet

[via PublicEye.org]

Pentecost Sunday: Different Christian Groups Emphasize Different Aspects

[via Levellers]

Unclean but Touchable

Earlier this month we witnessed the Shoes Heard 'Round the World, when Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi chucked both of his shoes at President George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference.

This prompted a slew of articles helpfully explaining that al-Zeidi was expressing anger at Bush -- as though his gesture had somehow been open to any other interpretation. When this quaintly exotic foreign man called the president a "dog," these articles further explained, this was also meant to express contempt. In the Arab world, the articles all said, shoes and dogs are regarded as unclean....

So here's an invitation or a challenge for the New Year: Sign up for the scavenger hunt. Take the Big List of the unclean and the untouchable and turn it upside down and inside out. Seek out those people instead of avoiding them. Touch them and let them touch you. {full post}

[via slacktivist]

Thank-you God, for sneaking ever so quietly into this world. Keep being patient with us. {full post}

[via Tim Sean Youmans]

Looking For A Kinder Way

I'm a day late. Yesterday, my friend Adele (Existential Punk) posted an e-mail she sent to Parag Mehta, Barack Obama's Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) liaison, regarding the president-elect's recent announcement of inviting Rick Warren to give the prayer invocation at his inauguration....

On one hand, I think Obama's pick was politically daring and even savvy. Perhaps he can prove himself to some of the naysayers calling him a "Secret Muslim." But do those paranoid folks deserve to be placated?

I also think Obama's pick is an important reflection of his own character: Obama doesn't see the world in black-and-white, and he is tirelessly committed to building bridges and finding common ground. I can always get behind that!

But I do understand why my friend Adele is hurt by this move. And so I am wounded with her. Warren's political stance on homosexuality (apart from his theological stance, which could be manifested much differently) is inappropriate for a so-called progressive, 21st Century evangelical who claims to care about human rights.

Let James Dobson and Pat Robertson fight their culture wars. I wish Warren had emerged as a clear alternative for conservative-leaning Christians, looking for a kinder way.

Instead, this is becoming the wrong kind of political fodder, at a time when American needs hope, unity and grace the most.{full post}

[via Emerging Christian]

Being Warm in the Cold

(also on Twitter: salvationarmysk)

Salvation Army Community Centre: It's cold outside

How we handle the extreme cold at the Centre

[via Weblog: News from the Salvation Army Community Centre, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Related:

Since we are now thigh deep in the giving season, I feel it is pertinent to share my complete and total disgust with the fact that shoppers trampled a man to death on Black Friday. If you're not familiar with the story, and don't mind having your faith in humanity tested, read more here. A few onlookers even stopped shopping long enough to make jokes about how overweight the person was that they had just killed in their haste to save five bucks on a panini maker....

In order to maintain my giving spirit in the face of such a dreadful story, I've decided to give you five good reasons to do your shopping at your local Deseret Industries, Salvation Army or other community thrift store: {full post}

[via East Coast Frost]

Oh, Those Things We Should Have Done

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

Fishing For Substance

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day….
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

On an international scale, this poignant proverb has moved hearts, opened wallets and enjoyed widespread popularity in relief and development literature. It correctly identifies the temporal quality of much aid work and demonstrates the need for development beyond the limits of most projects in relief situations.

However, this little proverb carries with it inherent assumptions that need to be examined more closely: {continue...}

[via Ministry To The Homeless, HT: The Link Between]

Desperate Housewives Go To Church?

[via Abandon Image]

Religious Order Continues to Blend In, Make No Real Difference in Community

[via catholicnews.org]

The Greatest Offense

A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews. For centuries the most painful element in the Roman Catholic liturgy came from the Good Friday litany in the Latin Rite, which began: "Let us pray for the perfidious Jews: That Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord..." There was also reference to "Jewish faithlessness" and "blindness." In 1960 an offended and thoughtful Pope John XXIII deleted "faithless" (perfidis); in 1970 the prayer was radically altered. So far, so good.

Last summer Pope Benedict XVI allowed for reversion to the world and words of pre-1970, to a 1962 Missal version of the liturgy. This act was received ambiguously by American Jewish leadership. The American Jewish Committee expressed "appreciation" for some of the papal steps forward, but the Anti-Defamation League called the pope's action "a theological setback" and a "body blow" to Catholic-Jewish relations. On February 6 the Vatican announced an emendation of the 1962 Missal. Tradition-hungry Catholics will now pray this revision: "Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men…grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved…"

Recently I conversed with a Jewish professor of New Testament at a largely Christian theological school, and expected her to speak of "setback" and "body blow." To my surprise, she said that while all such prayers make Jews uncomfortable, given the painful history we inherit, she thought that the notion of one faith-community praying for the spread of its faith to others was not the highest offense. "Many do it." OK. {continue...}

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

The Original Jesus Rocker Goes to Jesus

[via The Wittenburg Door]

Giving Out

Larry David Norman
April 8, 1947 – February 24, 2008

As we all do in life, he made many bad decisions and made some enemies. (I think research would validate that the most brilliant artists are more inclined to do so.) He was driven and self-indulgent, passionate and focused.

Apparently he died a pauper and in relative obscurity; his death caused by heart problems. It figures it’s his heart that gave out. He used the heck out of it.{the rest}

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

Related:

only visiting this planet

[via The View From Her]

Saving the Day...A Righteous Victory?

The Rambo franchise is a fantasy of total war whose very power derives from its nonspecificity. The only consistent message from film to film is "Rambo kills meanies with extreme prejudice";....

I don't doubt that Sylvester Stallone feels for the people of Burma. Still, setting his film there is a convenient way of allowing us the satisfaction of a righteous victory without finding a way for John Rambo to intervene in Iraq, where (at least for American audiences) the moral math is far harder to do. Saving blond missionaries and innocent Christian villagers from oily, swaggering rapists is a mission anyone can get behind. Figuring out how to bring peace in the Middle East through the application of overwhelming force?

[via Slate; HT: Streak's Blog]

Pretend heroes can be powerful desensitizers.

[via Bene Diction Blogs On]