Wednesday Link List

Twist Cap Advent Calendar

If you find a previous link installment where everything goes to Christianity Today, which is now pay-walled; let us know the date and we’ll update that particular list with all the right links.

• Responding to the New York Daily News cover: One time, when God ‘fixed’ something he ‘fixed’ it “by dying an unimaginably horrible death.” More responses at Get Religion.
• As part of Pope Francis’ commitment to transparency, an external audit of Vatican assets begins immediately.
• A devastating illness kept her from two years of high school, but today you can’t help but hearing singer Lauren Daigle. 
• Essay of the Week: Q: Why study history? A: “Civilizational amnesia” In church life: “Every decade or so a revolutionary new “model” of church growth and vitality—the Willow Creek model, the Purpose-Driven Church, the Simple Church— sweeps away existing patterns of congregational life.”
• The Mark Driscoll comeback begins in earnest.
  
• Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette co-pastors a PCUSA church when she’s not writing songs about social justice and gun violence.
  
• The Air Force Academy football team is again the center of controversy regarding a public display of Christian faith.
• Strange Fruit for Christmas: “…forget the Mandarin Oranges in season, we have our basket full of bitter fruit.” A look at the Planned Parenthood shooting.  
• Publish or Parish (…yeah, cheesy pun…): A look at women in academia from a publisher at Zondervan — “[I]f you think there is a dearth of women in biblical studies, look at theology—where the situation is far worse. Few women go into theological studies to begin with, and even fewer continue in constructive work in straight-up dogmatic theology rather than shifting—or being pressed—into ‘gender studies’ or whatever.”
  
• Racial Reconciliation and Multi-Ethnic Churches: I didn’t listen or view this podcast, but I did watch this guy preach at Saddleback on Sunday; in fact I watched the sermon twice. He gets my full recommendation. Transformation Church’s Derwin Gray is interviewed at Unseminary.
  
• John’s prologue is the assigned reading for December 25 mass, but “Many priests routinely avail themselves of the permission to use other readings in place of the readings proper to the Mass of Christmas day. ‘People want to hear about shepherds and angels,’ a pastor I once worked for told me, ‘and that’s what we give them.'” 
• Jerry Falwell Jr.’s remarks on concealed carry permits at Friday’s Liberty University Convocation get picked up by local media along with a full video of what he actually said…
• …Brian McLaren responds to Falwell. (Does he ever!)…
• …As does Shane Claiborne. “I cannot sit idly by when a fellow Christian makes open threats to Muslims – especially when he does so in the name of the Prince of Peace…” 
• …While Zach Hunt just shakes his head and says, “So this is how Christianity dies…with thunderous applause…” 
• Helping the homeless in Washington State: “40 tiny houses for 50 homeless people this winter at a church next to Garrison Square shopping center. Forty 8-by-10-foot insulated garden sheds with windows and locking doors will be erected on a fenced, 1.5-acre empty field just north of Safe Harbor Church of the Nazarene.”
  
• For a single clergywoman, miles from home and working as a chaplain in a hospital that never closes, Christmas celebrating has to be reconfigured.
  
• Helping Healing: If you know someone who is grieving at Christmas, here are some things you can do, including bringing alcohol. (It’s in Proverbs 31.)
  
• Worship Workshop: How to copyright the songs that are original to your local church. (Podcast) 
• In Sunday School news, David C. Cook, fresh off the acquisition of Gospel Light curriculum, acquires selected resources of Standard Publishing.
  
• Joel Osteen explains why he’s always smiling, and justifies his big house because he doesn’t have an office at the church. 
• “Silent Night, Solstice Night…” — A Carol Controversy in Connecticut.
  
• 19 Things people with anxiety want you to know.
  
• Rebecca St. James’ brothers Luke and Joel will both act in and produce a new movie about human trafficking. 
• Pictures Worth a Thousand Words: The Big Picture website at The Boston Globe has a photo essay on giving.
  
• Video of the Week: Bus Ministry — A former bus kid tells (sort of) her story.
• Because of a song Graham Kendrick linked to on Twitter, I learned a new word this season. Hands up all of you who know the meaning of Christingle. 
• This is it: The epic-length Rob Bell interview containing all the questions you wanted to ask.
  
• To Today’s 14 Year Old Girls (from a 19-year old girl).
  
• Speaking out against authors who review their own books on Amazon gets one writer condemned as still adhering to “the prehistoric, unenlightened notion that they [reviews] were best done by people who were not actually the author.” But the trend continues. 
• Attention all sommeliers: A winery in Israel is working to reproduce the wines King David and Jesus would have used. But then, this news story turns into a devotional.
  
• After the theft of about $8,000 worth of equipment is stolen, thieves respond to an appeal to return it. 
• A woman I consider one of Canada’s top Christian journalists is watching Justin Bieber’s faith journey.
  
• Provocative Title of the Week: Oh, How He Smells Us.
  

Zach Hunt is looking for an ugly sweater party so he can wear this one. I think ugly is just one of many adjectives:

Finally, this adventure: