Friday, April 10, 2015
Preventing Christian Murders
Like many I was shocked, numbed, and dumbfounded when I heard of the murder of 147 Christians by Muslim extremists in Kenya last week. Some Christian leaders responded, mostly with calls to prayer
. There is no better place to start responding to something so horrific.
But genuine prayer is usually accompanied by or encourages concrete
action. The action needed to save lives in the future ranges from
diplomatic conversations to military intervention. But it also must
include honest talk by government leaders as to what exactly is
happening. As one pundit put it,
In his statement, President Obama said that "innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred." True enough, but he couldn't bring himself to say who had been shot by whom. He vowed to stand with the Kenyan government and people "in their efforts to bring communities together," the closest he dared step to the unmistakable religious dimension of the murders. | |
The Other 'Resurrections'
Jesus's resurrection from the dead isn't the only one we know of in
history. To begin with, Jesus brought people back from the dead in his
own ministry. But credible stories can also be found outside the Bible.
What are we to make of them? And what's so special about Jesus
resurrection? Ted Olsen explains in the latest issue of The Behemoth.
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Demolishing Child-Centered Communities
The causes of social collapse are many, varied, and complex. But the
consequences of social collapse—extreme poverty, drug addiction,
homelessness, sexual trafficking, and so forth—make the effort to
understand both urgent and worthwhile. And sometimes, studies of social
collapse in other countries can help us understand better the dynamics
of our own. As this week's long read explains, in 1940s and 1950s England, in dozens of cities
working-class districts—some horrendous slums but many others vibrant, intricate communities—were demolished wholesale in a process that would engulf over 10.5 million people. The child-centered kinship networks and neighborly connections that had enriched and stabilized their lives were ripped apart. Owing to the complex, bureaucratic mechanisms and ruthless procedures inherent in so vast a national effort, their households were scattered piecemeal, without regard for their long-established associations, into outlying, isolated housing estates, where they were increasingly stacked into forbidding, often egregiously built, crime-ridden tower blocks. | |
Life is like a Knuckleball
Another baseball season has dawned, and for many it's like the beginning
of a new day, full of promise and hope. For those so inclined, here's
some light reading on the history of the knuckleball,
a pitch that comes at a batter with no predictable pattern or
direction. What life feels like some days, no? Then again, both still
have an ultimate purpose and destination.
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Grace and peace,
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