Bias or Merely Ignorance?

Either way, a Dallas judge who ordered a Sikh man to remove his turban was wrong, and guilty of violation the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. The ACLU is suing.

John Allen on Catholicism

John Allen writes about Evangelical Catholicism and Liberal Catholicism.

Texas Monthly on Mike Tucker

Marty links to a review of the Arlington, TX, Seventh-day Adventist Church and its pastor, Mike Tucker, that was in Texas Monthly; written by Rice University professor Bill Martin.

Pictures of War

A picture is worth 1000 words, they say.
That’s true of pictures of war.
Matthew Brady started it in the Civil War, but because of the slowness of the cameras he was only able to capture the aftermath–sad faces of soldiers, bloated corpses of men and horses, smoke rising from destruction.
Photography helped us see the reality of [...]

Body Worlds

Aaron Ginsburg sent me a link to his Stop Body Worlds page. He’s got lots of useful links on facts and criticism of this macabre exhibit by Gunther von Hagens that has traveled throughout the world.
Earlier this year in Pittsburgh, Eileen Catz, an employee of the museum that was to host it, resigned in [...]

School Bans Playing Tag

A Colorado school has decided to protect children from playing tag.

A Hero Dies

Richard Jewell, the hero who saved many lives when Eric Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Olympics, has died. But that’s not how he’s remembered by the meda. AP says, “Former security guard Jewell dies.” CNN says, “One-time Olympic Park Bombing Suspect Dies.” Atlanta newspaper says, “Richard Jewell found dead in home: Olympic security guard suspected but [...]

Camp Meeting 2.0–The New Earth

Monte Sahlin on The New Earth.

Messing About in Boats …

Pastors and Congregations

From Naked Religion, some points based on an exit interview the author had with the Pastoral Relations Committee of the church he was leaving. “What a Pastor Needs in a Congregation”:

Pastors need their congregations to be honest and transparent in their relationship with the pastor and one another. Lack of honesty often results in misplaced [...]

Things That Will Get You Arrested …

Which of these things will get you arrested?

Sprinkling flour in a parking lot
Lying to Congress and various other accusations of abuse of power
Improving your home
Arranging for a hitman to kill your family
Getting sick

The Boy Scouts

Over at Catholic World News, Diogenes has an interesting article showing how the Boy Scouts has dealt with sexual abuse of boys (and potential threats) over the years. He contrasts it with how his church dealt with the problem in the same period.

Canoeing

Speaking of canoeing, here’s an impressive video of some interesting techniques known as “Canadian style” paddling.

Hypocrisy in Science

It seems lots of big name folks are up in arms over a display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science over a new display.
HMNS is exhibiting “Lucy,” the supposed early human ancestor found in Ethiopia. The critics accuse the museum of sensationalism and of “prostituting” the fossils. A decade old UN policy says it [...]

Back in the Saddle Again

Just back from a youth/young adult retreat that we did at Pine Cove up in Tyler. I’m exhausted, but we had a good time. My son and I got in quite a few hours of canoeing and an hour of horseback riding in between everything else. Tomorrow: first day of school for both the kids [...]

Religion and College Students

Religious Engagement Among American Undergraduates.
Recent studies of college students’ attitudes toward religion suggest that the academy is no longer the bastion of secularism it was once assumed to be. And these studies further reveal that the spiritual landscape on today’s college campuses is virtually unrecognizable from what we’ve seen in the past. Evangelicalism–often in the [...]

The ELCA and Sexual Abuse

It would be a good thing if other churches were to learn from the Catholic experience of the past several years about dealing with sexual abuse by clergy.
The ELCA apparently has not learned, in the case of a pastor who died in 1997. Both the South Dakota Synod and the ELCA national office refuse to [...]

Time: “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith”

Time magazine looks at a new book on Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, “consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years.”
Come Be My Light is that rare thing, a posthumous autobiography that could cause a wholesale reconsideration of a major public figure — one way [...]

Seniors and Sex

There’s a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the sex lives of senior citizens. Abstract. News report summarizing the research.

The Perils of Apologetics

I find much of contemporary apologetics embarrassing. It too often quickly goes from proof-texting to name-calling. I know Steve Ray to be a nice guy, but here and here something happened. Read his comments (and the lengthy comment he posted each time he deleted someone’s comments) and this lengthier response. Steve’s normally a genial apologist; [...]

The Class of 2011

Beloit College has released its latest annual “Mindset List,” profiling entering college freshman. Here’s a selection …
BELOIT COLLEGE’S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2011
Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, [...]

Church and State in Louisiana

Democrats, in an effort to unseat Gov. Bobby Jindal, are accusing the Catholic convert of having written some politically incorrect articles on religion. Kos. Commonweal.
Update: Rod Dreher on Jindal response.

The EU and Texas

The EU has sought to engage itself in Texas affairs. Gov. Rick Perry’s office responds:
230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible [...]

“A Key Encounter”–Named after an Old Friend

A Key Encounter–Family Nature Theater and Jungle Walk, at the George M. Kretschmar, Jr., Memorial Planetarium in Key West, FL. Cover story in the latest Adventist Review talks about the founders, retired Adventist Pastor Merlin Kretchmar and his wife, Juanita. I knew their son, George, at Atlantic Union College–George was also an Adventist pastor, but [...]

Old Advice to Soldiers re: Iraq Still Relevant

Lt. Col. John Nagl, USA, found an old treasure full of practical advice that could have saved the US some headaches if heeded: Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II, a handbook first published in 1943. I found it at the bookstore today. One statement that jumped out for LTC Nagl (and [...]

Asking Questions

NH voter asks a simple question of Rudy Giuliani, and gets slapped down by him and by the pundits. WBZ/Boston thinks it a fair question.
Keller: You’re not a plant by some other campaign?
Katherine: No, this is a plant (pointing to a nearby plant), I’m not a plant.
In fact, Katherine wonders why she had to be [...]

QOD

Looks like I’ll be taking a trip in October to attend the Questions on Doctrine conference at Andrews University. Among other things, it will be a chance to see some old friends and professors and to meet some fellow bloggers.

Heaven as a Texas Barbecue

Rod Dreher links to an article in his newspaper about a Dallas barbecue joint that offers something special …
Think of it as the Tuesday combination special at Smokey John’s BBQ – brisket and Bible study, prayer and potato salad, sweet tea and sympathy.
“It’s real here,” said one woman who has attended the fellowship for five [...]

Hurricane Dean

I feel sorry for folks in Jamaica and Mexico, of course, but I am nonetheless very relieved that we are now completely out of the projected path of any of the computer models.
From Sunday’s Houston Chronicle, Lessons Unlearned after Rita. E.g., Who should evacuate? We’re far to the west side of Houston, not in any [...]

“Religious ‘Infantilization’”

R. Scott Appleby reviews book by Paul Lakeland, Catholicism at the Crossroads.
…. [This is] the best educated and most sophisticated generational cohort of Catholics in the history of the United States, the apathetic majority of whom continue to accept religious “infantilization” within an ecclesial structure that privileges hierarchy at the expense of community, fosters clerical [...]