Bruce Epperly comments on the lectionary passages for next Sunday (Epiphany 3B), which are extraordinarily well suited for a process theologian. Well worth checking out!
Author: henry
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Blackout on Wikipedia Tomorrow
I’m not going to be blacked out here, but I thought I’d just mention that I also oppose the bills (PIPA, SOPA) that are going through congress. Our representatives simply have no idea whatever what a reasonable burden is. Their view is that if a multi-billion dollar corporation or a large government agency could handle it, it must be reasonable.
As usual, a good idea (piracy prevention) gets implemented in a way that will place an undue burden on many and will chill the conversation online.
You can find more information from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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Rachel Held Evans on Evangelical Celebrity
I think she has two excellent points, the first about the danger of thinking of oneself as a celebrity (evangelical or not!), and the second about the value of structured prayer. I’d add a note on the value of structured Bible study, which also forces one to leave one’s comfort zone and one’s own desires and to let God speak.
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Badly Written Laws Badly Applied
I sometimes watch Law and Order on TV (not faithfully), and I’ve often thought “how creative!” as one prosecutor or another invents a way to apply the law to something they’d like to “get” someone for. (Quite a sentence, but I’m going to leave it.) At the same time I’ve hoped real prosecutors in the real world don’t behave in that fashion, even though I know they do.
Here’s an example. According to The Economist, a marine biologist took advantage of the fact that some killer whales killed a gray whale calf. She moved quickly to photograph the feeding, including putting a rope through some of the blubber. She’s now charged with a federal felony for feeding the whales, as well as for lying to the police. Why lying? She provided them with her edited video when they asked for her video of the event.
We need better laws, better written, and we need better accountability for some of these prosecutors.
(HT: The Agitator)
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An Exemplary Post on Translating the Word Nefesh
I’m linking to this post by Joel Hoffman not just for its content, which is indeed excellent, but also because I think it shows how to discuss translating a word from one language to another.
A couple of notes: 1) He’s discussing how to translate the word in a specific instance, not some general “what did this word really mean?” kind of topic, 2) he gives solid usage references in all the languages concerned, and 3) he manages to keep the discussion straightforward and easy for the non-expert to follow.
In a paper for publication, of course, one would need to cover all the extras, i.e. survey everything. In this case, we get what we need for the immediate issue without distractors. In other words, an exemplary blog post! May there be many more! May I even learn to write such!
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Free New Testament Commentary Ebooks
The regular Kindle prices are great, but Baker is offering selected commentaries free for one day on Jan. 9 (past, alas!), Jan. 16, and Jan 23. Today’s is on James. More at Evangelical Textual Criticism.
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Book Note: The Well Tempered Clavicle
I am only a moderately intense follower of the Xanth novels, but this one looked like fun (I usually get around to them eventually), so I checked it out.
The humor is still there. There are too many puns for me, though I do enjoy many of them, and this one was on the topic of destroying puns even! My impression is that over time the humor has been toned down a bit and the social commentary has gotten just a bit stronger, a feeling I also got about another book I read recently.
If you’re a Xanth fan, you’ll want to read this one, of course. If you’re not, I’d generally recommend starting earlier in the series, though no matter where you start, Xanth takes a little bit of getting used to!
I rate it 4 stars.
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Jesus vs. Religion – Really?
There’s a video that’s been making the rounds of the Christian blogs, in which pits Jesus against religion. Here it is:
There have been a number of posts that are critical of it as well, including a good one by John Byron, and a longer, but still interesting one at The American Jesus.
Another blogger I follow regularly, T. Michael Holcomb, has also created a video response, which is worth watching, though he gets into some more serious theological terminology:
I think that both the original video and the responses have some important things to say. But we do have a problem here, and it’s one of equivocation. We’re not keeping a consistent definition of religion. One responder notes that Jesus objected to legalism, not religion, but to the speaker in the video, legalism is inherent in religion.
I have little to add to the posts and videos I have linked. There is good religion and not-so-good religion. We should remember that the religion Jesus objected to (and did so as a Jew speaking of his own religion), was one God instituted in Hebrew scriptures. He opposed corruptions of it, such as legalism, but never said it was bad by nature.
At the same time, those very corruptions of religion, including legalism and the elevation of earthly authorities above God, are diseases that are rampant in American Christianity.
The institutional church needs to hear this and take action. If they can …
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Even-Tempered Response to Mark Driscoll
Eddie Arthur provides an even-tempered response to a recent interview by Mark Driscoll.