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The transfiguration of Larissa

This dad, who came to Wee Worship with three young sons, was one of the most miserable people I’ve encountered at church. Wee Worship is a service that embraces the needs and gifts of very young children. In addition to looking glum and avoiding eye contact, the dad appeared to be overwhelmed and stressed to the max by the three boys. Conversation was forced and difficult.

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trans
transfiguration

The skin of Christ

Iam more than a little obsessed with bodies and their limits and possibilities. Maybe it’s because my own body gives me so much trouble. (I have complex Crohn’s disease and live with the aftereffects of extensive bowel surgery.) Maybe it’s because I think Ludwig Wittgenstein was onto something when he said, “The human body is the best picture of the human soul.”

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body of Christ
skin
body

The scandal of the anti intellectual mind

Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Anti-intellectualism in American Life was published 60 years ago this month. In it, the historian suggests that American culture has recast the role of the intellect as a vice instead of a virtue, diminishing expertise while glorifying the plain sense of the common person. Anti-intellectualism, he writes, is “a resentment . . .

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Richard Hofstadter
intellect
anti-intellectual
evangelicalism
mark noll

February 12 Ep6A 1 Corinthians 3 1 9

Iwas born a Baptist. I mean, you can’t really be born a Baptist, but I was born to Baptist parents. I grew up in a charismatic evangelical church, became a Lutheran as a young adult, worked among Methodists for a while, and now worship with the Episcopalians. I can report at least one thing all these American Protestants seem to have in common: we are rather quick to point out divides within our own specific traditions, to distance ourselves from those with whom we share a name but often not much more.