All Blog Posts for March, 2011

In the World

I wonder if Ed Begley knows the price of organic milk?

Mar 31, 2011 by Steve Thorngate

Tuesday on the CBC interview show Q, Jian Ghomeshi talked to actor Ed Begley Jr., Hollywood's leading environmental activist and green-lifestyle enthusiast. Discussing Living With Ed, the reality TV show in which Begley and wife Rachelle Carson clash over his carbon-footprint obsession, Begley observed that Carson is the sort of person who cares about the earth but doesn't go to extremes.

In the World

The budget battle's narrow terms

Mar 31, 2011 by Steve Thorngate

It's great to see David Beckmann convince Mark Bittman to join the fast against attempts to cut federal programs that help the poor and the hungry. Bittman's dismissal of the religious element of the effort by Bread for the World and others--"I doubt God will intervene here"--betrays his unfamiliarity with Christian thought. (I'm tempted to send him one of my ELCA "God's work, our hands" fridge magnets.) But thanks to Bittman's involvement, now even the Nation is giving the progressive evangelical effort positive coverage.

Century Blogs

Varieties of revolution

Mar 30, 2011 by Amy Frykholm

When Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth studied revolutions that had occurred over a period of more than 100 years and across the globe, they found that nonviolent revolutions are twice as likely as violent ones to succeed. Chenoweth explains that nonviolent revolutions attract a greater range of the population and create a higher likelihood of defection among supporters of a particular regime.

Century Blogs

More on fasting and self-help

Mar 29, 2011 by Amy Frykholm

I cringed when I read Jeffrey MacDonald's accusation, quoted here by Steve Thorngate, that Americans have turned Lent into a spiritual self-help event "whose effectiveness is measured by how well it entertains us and affirms what we already believe."

From the CCblogs Network

The recent conditions of my parents

Mar 29, 2011 by Dora Dueck

Today, for the last time, I turned the lock of the small suite my parents moved into nearly nine years ago. It’s empty – everything of theirs given away, sold, or piled into a spare bedroom at our house!

From the CCblogs Network

The sacred will be with you, always

Mar 28, 2011 by James F. McGrath

I was really struck by a phrase in Chet Raymo's blog post "A Saturday Reprise." He begins by quoting Bilhah in The Red Tent who responds to Zilpah's expression of fear at leaving a place where customs and gods are known and moving to the unknown by saying "Every place has its holy names, its trees and high places. There will be gods where we go."

Blogging Toward Sunday

Now I see

John 9:1–41

Mar 28, 2011 by Matthew Myer Boulton

It's a truism that Christianity lives and breathes as much (or more) through music as through preaching or teaching, to say nothing of dense theological texts--so Christian preachers and teachers should be on the lookout for ways to incorporate the great hymns of the tradition into our sermons, lessons and other theological work.

From the CCblogs Network

Lent: Asking for our daily bread

Mar 25, 2011 by Allan R. Bevere

Many years ago on a mission trip in Haiti, our group was ministering in the isolated mountains in the west near the Dominican Republic. The village where we stayed was where the road ended. To say it was a “road” was an exaggeration.

From the CCblogs Network

Denominations

Mar 25, 2011 by David Lewicki

Maybe you consider yourself a "branded" Christian--Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic.  Maybe you don't hold your brand loyalty close.

Either way, you've wondered about denominations.  Do they matter for religious life today?

Century Blogs

Reading the Bible, sex and all

Mar 24, 2011 by Julie Clawson

Since starting seminary I've had the opportunity to read through the Old Testament with a thoroughness I haven't used since my evangelical youth group days. While building biblical literacy is something evangelicals do very well, reading the Old Testament now reminds me how my context shaped how I read the Bible. And it all had to do with sex.

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