Steve Thorngate

I know a guy, a committed church member, who missed his own grandchild's baptism. It was far away, on a Sunday that was a busy one for his own church. So he felt compelled to skip the trip and go to church. This impressed me. It's hard to imagine such a thing at the church where I work.

Vincent Harding died yesterday. If all the civil rights leader had done was draft King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech, that would have been quite a contribution. ("I watched this [antipoverty] program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything on a society gone mad on war.") But in the 60s Harding founded Atlanta's Mennonite House (with his wife Rosemarie Freeney Harding), traveled around the South with the movement, and got his doctorate in history (here in Chicago, with Century contributing editor Martin Marty). Since then he led a career of teaching (mostly at Iliff), writing, and activism.

When Nadia and I got married, we really went all out on the worship planning. She spread out multiple worship books, adapting her favorite parts and writing collects and petitions from scratch. I recruited not one or two but ten friends to lead the music and then got to work writing original service music, reharmonizing hymns, and notating all of it to match in the bulletin. About that bulletin: it was epically thick.

In a culture of personalized weddings, is a very liturgical ceremony simply the church nerd's niche? Or might it function as a corrective?

If you haven't read Justice Kagan's dissent to the Supreme Court's pro-governmental-prayer decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, you should.

When I posted about evangelicals and the death penalty the other day, I didn't note Samuel Rodriguez's piece at Time. Not because he's a controversial figure, but because the piece doesn't go very far: while evangelicals should be outraged by "the details" of how Clayton Lockett died, it's clear Stephanie Neiman's killer "needed to be permanently removed from" society (an artfully ambiguous phrase). They should be outraged by these details "regardless of how you feel about the death penalty." And how does Rodriguez himself feel about it? He's studiously noncommittal, that's how. I'm noting it now because yesterday, Morgan Lee posted an article in which Rodriguez elaborates on his own piece.

Late last week, President Obama ordered a review of the specifics as to how the death penalty is administered at the state level. This came in response to the sad episode in which Clayton Lockett, convicted for the horrific murder of Stephanie Neiman, died of an apparent heart attack shortly after a botched lethal injection. The administration’s step is a good one, but it’s hardly bold or brave.

Yesterday, California Rep. Janice Hahn got mad at a James Dobson speech and walked out. Depending what media report you consult, this was “the National Day of Prayer event” or “the National Day of Prayer observance” or “the National Day of Prayer gathering” or even “the annual non-partisan National Day of Prayer gathering.” Such language isn’t exactly counterfactual, but it is misleading.

"The guillotine is barbaric. But to me, that's a point in its favor."

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So, Sarah Palin said this thing the other day about waterboarding and baptism. I wouldn’t bother bringing it up just to say that I, like so many others, find this disgusting.  What’s more interesting to me is the diversity of people who are similarly appalled.

John 3:16 or Matthew 25? Both. Neither.

This week I’ve spent some time with my five-month-old daughter in the lounge outside a hospital’s intensive care unit. It looks like the person we’re here to see will make a full recovery. But hanging out here means rubbing shoulders with other people whose loved ones are not so fortunate. The default position is to respect other people’s privacy, but some people want to talk.

Looks like Jesus the Homeless is coming to Chicago. Erica Demarest reports that the local Catholic Charities office plans to put up one of Timothy Schmalz's sculptures—which depict an unkempt Jesus, with stigmata, sleeping on a park bench—this spring. Weekend Edition did a segment Sunday on the sculpture at St. Alban's Episcopal in Davidson, North Carolina. Apparently some locals aren't fans.

"Kathleen Sebelius is resigning because Obamacare has won."

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