Some good reading out there this week. I particularly liked “Dembski and the Cause of Evil” at Siris, “The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons” at Mode for Caleb, and the discussion of The Gospel of Judas at Even the Devils Believe.

We just started watching the short-lived late 90s series Freaks and Geeks on DVD. Very funny and sweet. Especially if you were – ahem – not the most popular kid in high school. In the episode we watched last night, Lindsay, a smart girl who’s testing the waters of rebellion by hanging out with the…

There’s been a fair bit of discussion recently about presumed presidential aspirant (and current Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and how that might play with voters. Romney faces two distinct, but not unrelated problems. Evangelical Protestants who make up an influential portion of the GOP base tend to see Mormons, despite their their social conservatism,…

The Lutheran Zephyr has asked for reflections on What It Means to Be Lutheran. I’m going to split this into two parts: why did I become Lutheran and why do I stay Lutheran. Embarassing as it sounds, I literally picked the local Lutheran church out of the phone book. My then-fiancée and I were obliged…

Lutheran church holds “Worship with the Beatles.”Gag. At least U2 sings about Jesus sometimes. (link via Here We Stand)

Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff, whose popularity peaked in the mid-80s (Moscow on the Hudson, etc.) has reinvented himself as a philosopher-therapist who uses humor and positive thinking to cure folks of what ails them! He’s finishing up his master’s thesis at Penn on “love and laughter” under the tutelage of “positive psychology” guru Martin Seligman.

Thomas at Without Authority writes on the different meanings of “grace” in the Catholic and Lutheran traditions as well as the “Finnish” interpretation of Luther. Let’s make a deal (with Iran), via Unqualified Offerings. A “wager argument” for vegetarianism, via Siris. Caleb McDaniel draws an analogy between nuclear abolitionism and the abolition of slavery. Jonathan…

Nice article on John Stuart Mill (via Arts & Letters Daily) that argues that he was more complicated than people frequently think. He’s often reduced to a one-dimensional figure, depending on the preferences of the person discussing him (e.g. the libertarian Mill, the socialist Mill, the utilitarian Mill), but this piece shows him as a…

Lots of good comments in the post below. Prior to this discussion I’d been reading Gerald O’Collins’s The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity. He has some things to say on naming the Trinity that might be helpful: When the Trinity is named, God the Father functions validly if we align ourselves with the…

Today our congregation started incorporating elements from the new worship book produced by the ELCA and approved at this summer’s churchwide assembly. Though the book itself won’t be in use til this fall as I understand it. Now, I freely admit to being resistant to change; just when I get used to a particular liturgy…