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Humor Spirituality

The Evolution of a Worshipper

HT:  The Logic of Faith

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Humor

Epic Hebrew Tattoo Fail

Scot McKnight posts a query from a reader who wants to get a tattoo in Hebrew.  A teacher of Hebrew responded with this anecdote:

One of my students was in a coffee shop and noticed a woman with a Hebrew tattoo. My student asked the woman what it meant, and she something like “beautiful” (I don’t remember what she thought it meant). But my student looked up the word, and it was “sacred hefer.”

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Humor

Baseball in Heaven

Daniel Kirk on why there will be none.  I’m quite certain, however, that Daniel misses the NT’s reinterpretation of all this, which clearly renders Baseball acceptable.

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Humor

Marlin in a Blowout Preventer

Looking for some examples of evidence of custom to use in Torts class today, I thought of the use of blowout preventers on oil rigs, and found this unbelievable video.

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Humor Spirituality

Prophetic Lament

Here’s a promo video for a course I’m teaching this fall on Prophetic Lament. All the texts are from Lamentations.

Photo credits: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hadsie/3289716114/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/claudiotesta/3161550914/in/pool-984968@N22/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/demonbaby/2217147743/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/demonbaby/2088052813/

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Culture Humor

Sad But True

From The Onion:  Man Already Knows Everything He Needs to Know About Muslims

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Humor

Muslims in Space

Stewart, unfortunately, nails it.

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Epistemology Historical Theology Humor Law and Policy Photography and Music Spirituality

CLS v. Martinez: An Ugly Decision Arising from Ugly Circumstances

Today the Supreme Court released its opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.  If you have heard about this case from the press or from an advocacy group and are concerned about it, I’d encourage you to read the entire opinion as well as the concurrence and dissent.  The whole package is ugly, I think.  It seems that the principles of freedom of expression, association and religion have been mired in a Dickensian procedural swamp, which was either created by the majority or conveniently used by the majority to bypass the big issues presented by the case. I urge interested readers to peruse the entire 75 pages of all the opinions, so that you may experience for yourself how a question of important Constitutional moment can be drowned in the turgid waters of civil procedure.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Ginsberg, holds that U.C. Hastings’ “all comers” policy was content-neutral and reasonably related to the school’s policy of promoting a diverse forum for student activities.  The all comers policy stated that approved student organizations must admit any student to membership or eligibility for leadership, regardless of the student’s status or beliefs.  A pro-choice group, then, would have to admit pro-choice students, a Democrat club would have to admit Republicans, the Christian Legal Society would have to admit non-Christians or people who do not live according to the CLS’ views on sexual ethics, and so on.

Indeed, the all comers policy does seem content-neutral as Justice Ginsberg describes it.  On its face, the all comers policy itself seems silly and unworkable — it essentially would require that no student organization can stand for anything other than the principle that it is good to encourage diverse viewpoints — but not unconstitutional.

In contrast, the dissent, written by Justice Alito and joined by Justices Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, goes into great detail about the factual circumstances of Hastings’ adoption of the all comers policy.  In short, according to Justice Alito, the all comers policy was “adopted” as a litigation strategy late in the game.  The policy really at issue, Hastings’ “Nondiscrimination Policy,” only prohibited discrimination based on a select few protected categories — race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation.  Enforcement of the Nondiscrimination Policy against groups, such as CLS, that discriminate in one of these categories on the basis of religious beliefs raises a very difficult Constitutional question:  do the freedoms of religion, speech and association mean that the government must accommodate religious groups that discriminate based on categories such as sexual orientation?

In a previous post, I summarized the issues in the case, and expressed my view that the whole thing was an unfortunate manifestation of ongoing confusion by Christians about the relationship between American government and Christian faith.  In his dissent, Justice Alito expresses disappointment with the majority and suggests that the majority’s opinion is “a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”  He might be right, but maybe not for the reasons he expresses.  In one sense, I’m glad the majority found a way to avoid deciding the more difficult issues presented by the Nondiscrimination Policy.  There is a hard tension between citizenship in the Church and citizenship in a liberal (meaning classically liberal) pluralistic democracy.  I don’t think it’s a tension that we in the Church should want to press up against so hard.  Sometimes, the wiser course for the life and mission of the ekklesia is to maintain a faithful witness without suing for full government recognition of all our rights.

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Humor

My Son the Party Animal

This is an excerpt from my son’s school report about his 12th birthday party. Hmmm. Somehow dad got the bum deal here.

For the rest of the night we either played X-box or just talked. Soon we got tired and watched television. One by one people fell asleep and it was only me, Kyle and Adam left awake. Eventually the three of us got tired and we agreed to fall asleep at the same time.

In the middle of the night I got sick and threw up. My dad came down and cleaned it. In the morning I felt great and none of my friends even knew. It was a fun party.

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Humor Law and Policy

A New Church-State Decision on Teaching Global Warming

Well, not really, but this Onion News Network video clip satirizes the absurdity of many of the ongoing disputes about “balancing” public school curricula.


Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

This clip would be very funny if it weren’t so sad. It’s sad because, like all good satire, it’s based in truth. When the Texas School Board rewrites its curriculum to include country music as an important cultural movement, demonize the U.N., emphasize the state’s rights side of the arguments leading up to the Civil War, and so on — primarily at the urging of presumably good-hearted but seriously misguided religious people — humor seems a better response than despair. It’s also sad because it captures the cultural influence of the Left Behind phenomenon. As the Left Behind website asks:

“Are you ready for the moment of truth?
  • Political crisis
  • Economic crisis
  • Worldwide epidemics
  • Environmental catastrophe
  • Mass disappearances
  • Military apocalypse”

And this in turn is sad because it detracts from the authentic teaching in Christianity and other religions that there is a purpose to the ordering of life and society in this world — an ordering that implies final Divine judgment of evil. Many Biblical texts, such as 2 Peter 3, warn that the reality of final judgment is not a trifle. I would argue, in fact, that the reality of justice and final judgment is one of the basic reasons why “law” and “policy” truly matter.