Took me longer to finish this than I had hoped, but here it is:
Apr 01 2013
What I did this weekend
Some of you may be wondering what I’m doing with all that free time now that I’m not slaving away over laboriously hand-typed blog posts. Well, here’s a partial answer.
Life After Jesus (Teaser) from Deacon Duncan on Vimeo.
Mar 03 2013
The dreaded burnout
I guess I can’t deny it: I’ve hit the wall again. I’ve come to dread the thought of writing another blog article, even if it’s only once per week. It’s time for a hiatus.
I’ve had this sort of experience before, and it generally resolves on its own after a while. Basically, what I’m going to do at this point is blog only when I feel like blogging. Given the current state of my feelings, that’s likely to be fairly rare, at least in the near term. But an explicit lack of commitment is part of what gives me room to regenerate. So with apologies to my readers and the FtB blog network, I’m hitting the “on hold” button, at least for now.
Feb 17 2013
Wielding your sword by the blade
For this week’s installment of Pastor Feinstein’s presuppositional apologetics, I actually find a point the Pastor got right. Only one, though—the rest of the time his reasoning is more like a man trying to do battle using a sword with no hilt.
Feb 12 2013
Top 5
Feb 10 2013
Shells and switches
One of the most important reasons why creationism does not belong in the classroom is because creationism promotes superstitious thinking, which is the antithesis of scientific thinking. Trying to think superstitiously about science really screws things up, and in today’s excerpt from Pastor Stephen Feinstein’s reply to Russell Glasser, we find an almost prototypical example.
Feb 03 2013
The Gypsy Curse
Over at Evangelical Realism, we’re continuing our look at Pastor Stephen Feinstein’s debate with Russell Glasser, and I I can’t help but think of a post I did a few years ago about Jesus and the Gypsy Curse.
It’s like a scene from an old B-grade black-and white horror flick: Jesus is walking down some dank alleyway in Jerusalem and carelessly bumps into an old gypsy woman, knocking her in the mud and muck, and then thoughtlessly laughing at her misfortune. Her deepset eyes blaze, and she scowls at him. “A curse upon you,” she mutters. “From now on, your followers and supporters will be unable to accuse their critics of any fault or fallacy without being guilty of the same thing themselves.” He, like all B-grade movie heroes, doesn’t take her seriously until her curse starts coming true. Only then does he realize, to his horror, that the curse is inexorable, inescapable, and infallible.
Yeah, cheap entertainment, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, come on over, we’ve got lots.
Feb 02 2013
Mayberry Machiavellis
While I’m currently snowed under (literally and figuratively), here’s some interesting reading, from Religion Dispatches, on George W. Bush’s first “faith czar,” and his praise for Obama’s faith-based initiatives.
John J. DiIulio, the first director of George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has taken to the Washington Post to laud President Obama’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In it, he cutely claims to like Obama’s director of the faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, better than “Bush’s first ‘faith czar.’”
Less than a year into his own tenure, DiIulio resigned in disgust, and complained about Bush staffers who sought to dole out favors to religious conservatives rather than serve “compassionate conservativism.” He notoriously coined the term “Mayberry Machiavellis” to describe Bush insiders, who, in relation to faith-based legislation, “winked at the most far-right House Republicans” in attempting to pass legislation for the faith-based office. That bill, which went nowhere, was drafted because Bush staffers thought it “satisfied certain fundamentalist leaders and Beltway libertarians.”
It’s an interesting read, especially in light of frequent accusations that Obama is somehow anti-religion (whilst simultaneously being Muslim, Nazi, Socialist, and Communist, hmmm).
Feb 02 2013
Format change
Just a quick note: I’m switching to a more-or-less weekends only format, due to my day-job requirements. Much as I love blogging, I have to have weekdays clear to focus on my profession and still leave some time for myself and my family. I might be able to squeeze in a weekday post now and then if time permits, but for now I’ll probably end up writing here on Saturdays, and at Evangelical Realism on Sundays, and that will be pretty much it.
Jan 29 2013
A surprising enemy
Over at latimes.com, they’re reporting that the dishonestly-named “Defense of Marriage” Act has an enemy that may surprise you.
One of the nation’s leading gay-rights advocacy groups, the Human Rights Campaign, has formed a coalition of major companies calling for the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
It’s no surprise, of course, that the HRC in Washington would use its considerable clout to organize big businesses to fight DOMA, the law that excludes recognition of same-sex marriages.
What will be a surprise to many is that one of the first companies to join the effort was Marriott International Inc., which was founded by a devout Mormon, John Willard Marriott.
Granted, they may be more motivated by the potential for an increased consumer base—more marriages mean more honeymoons, and those honeymooners need a place to stay—but still, this is a great sign.
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