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“It gets better”–Christian style
A group called (somewhat ham-fistedly IMO) the “Not All Like That (NALT) Christians Project” has started a campaign inspired by Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” video series. According to the group’s website, the purpose of the campaign is to “give LGBT-affirming Christians a means of proclaiming to the world—and especially to young gay people—their belief…
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“Leaning no” on Syria
I had been somewhat on the fence about a potential (likely?) U.S. military intervention in Syria, partly because I hadn’t been following it that closely. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing a bit of catch-up reading, and this post at Lawyers, Guns & Money helpfully summarizes my basic unease with what the…
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Lutherans, Methodists, and open communion
On paper I’m still an ELCA Lutheran, but I’ve been attending a United Methodist congregation for the last couple of years, so this news from the ELCA’s recent church-wide assembly is of interest to me. A resolution was passed during the assembly to initiate a process looking at the church’s practices of administering communion, particularly…
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Confessions of an old-school Doctor Who newbie
I’ve been watching the BBC reboot of Doctor Who that began in 2005 off and on for a few years (I’m currently catching up on the most recent season with Matt Smith as the Doctor). But apart from maybe catching some random episodes on PBS as a kid, until recently I had never watched any…
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Sallie McFague on the truth of theology
Sallie McFague, Models of God: I begin with the assumption that what we can say with any assurance about the character of Christian faith is very little and that even that will be highly contested. Christian faith is, it seems to me, most basically a claim that the universe is neither indifferent nor malevolent but…
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Presbyterians still believe in God’s wrath
Christianity Today reported that the Presbyterian Church (USA) rejected “In Christ Alone”–a popular contemporary hymn–from its new hymnal because it mentions the wrath of God. Here are the offending lines: In Christ alone! who took on flesh Fulness of God in helpless babe! This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones he came…
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The church’s introversion
The church as the real content of the gospel, its glory the boundless manifestation of the heavenly Lord, sharing in it being identical with sharing in Christ and his dominion, his qualities being communicable to it–we know that message. It has lasted for two thousand years, has fascinated Protestantism, too, and is today the main…
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Some Melvillian tidbits
Yesterday was the 194th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth, and to mark the occasion the Atlantic offered some excerpts from its archives–including two from W. Somerset Maugham–on what makes Moby-Dick great. The New York Daily News has some suggestions on how to celebrate Melville’s birthday, including an ode to Moby-Dick from experimental musician Laurie Anderson.…
A Thinking Reed 