Thanks for your suggestions this week. Don’t forget to share today’s link list URL on your blog and social media. Take a deep breath… here we go!
- Essay of the Week: The Church of Me, Myself and I.
- Persistent Teaching: I hadn’t heard this, but apparently it’s making the rounds for decades if not longer that the Antichrist will be gay.
- Gavin Ashenden, chaplain to the Queen has resigned — eight years early — over a decision allowing a Muslim to read the Koran during an Epiphany service at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow. (The larger issue: Secularism in the UK.)
- Leadership Lessons: The Church needs to stop enabling abusive men. (A must-read.)
- Nearly all 30 buildings at a Mississippi Christian university have been affected by a weekend tornado. The school could be shut down for up to a year.
- For your consideration: “We live in a day when pastors who have ravaged congregations, have lied and cheated publicly, who offer no sign of repentance and engage no real season of contrition, are simply allowed to move on to a new congregation or are given a new ministry platform. This happens repeatedly because we have accepted the lie of the anointed.“
- Great insights from an unlikely source: Cracked Magazine’s informed and detailed investigation of the religious life of President Donald Trump.
- Continuing Coverage: Compassion International is scheduled to shut down offices in India on March 15th; 145,000 kids to lose sponsorship. (Strangely, the Compassion Blog is silent on this developing story.)
- ‘God loves you. Zhe really does!’ Faculty at two divinity schools have been told to avoid using male pronouns for God. (Not sure what that does to The Lord’s Prayer…)
- …Further Pronoun Problems: When a Bible passage refers to God or Jesus, deciding whether that should that be lower case “he” or capitalized “He” is often complicated. “Scripture sometimes includes prophecies that have double fulfillment, the choice to capitalize a pronoun can have the unintended outcome of erasing the additional, non-divine meaning.” Differences between the HCSB and the new CSB…
- …Somewhat related: This gets covered often but this simple straightforward 4-minute video looks at the question, “What is the best Bible translation?”
- Grilled Cheese Sandwich Generation: Caring for your aging parents in eight difficult steps.
- Keeping Score: What if instead of counting heads and church revenue, we let joy be the barometer of success.
- Testimony: A woman continues to wrestle with the after-effects of growing up in the cult of patriarchy.
- New in Books: Ben Witherington looks at the November release, When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul…
- …Also at Bible and Culture: Late night sermon prep, perhaps.
- At Q: Christine Caine teaches on our obsession with what’s next…
- …also at Q: Russell Moore on what it means to be a Prophetic Minority.
- In our family creative projects multiply like rabbits. On his first blog post for a new project, my son looks at Celtic Hymns.
- Moving On Department: Piper looks at living under an unqualified President. “Let us not exhaust ourselves bemoaning a Trump presidency. There are peoples whose privileges of prosperity and possibility are vastly inferior to ours.”
- Practical: Four ways to remember to pray for people you’ve promised to pray for.
- Canada Corner: The creator of a classy Christian coloring book shares his frustration at trying to get it to market.
- 55 weeks later, we’re correcting an error on a previous link list. Yes, we do get around to things eventually. From January, 2016, Jory Micha’s piece on Dismantling the Falsity that Complementarianism is Clearly Biblical.
- Author Jo Sexton grew up in London, has African heritage; now lives in Minnesota; and co-pastors a church in a coffee shop. Speaking about the value of female leadership in the world and in the church, Jo guests this week on Phil Vischer’s podcast. (This episode’s a keeper!)
- Greg Laurie explains his participation in the Inauguration Prayer Service.
- Devotional of the Week: Living according to the rules…
- …also in the devotional genre, Willow Creek teaching pastor Steve Carter is on Day 25 of a 40 day series based on his book This Invitational Life.
- Great Graphics: From BibleInPhotos.com some social-media-worthy images from the author of the devotional book Open in Case of Emergency, available as a free download.
- The prophet Isaiah on Alternative Facts: “Ah, those who call evil good, and good evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness; who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter! Ah, those who are so wise—in their own opinion; so clever—in their own judgment!” – A Jewish perspective on the new administration.
- It takes a lot of nerve to correct someone while they’re praying for the food. (The article is about praying the Psalms, but this intro story astounded me.)
- Funny: The case for making reading a certified winter sport.
- Sometimes pastors get asked to do some unusual things…
- …But sadly, sometimes pastors do unusual things entirely on their own. (This version has a glaring spelling thing, but was the most detailed; provided you want to read details on a thing like this.)
- Tweet of the Week: You need to see it.
- Music Video of the Week: Okay, I don’t have one, but you can enjoy my son’s latest musical masterpiece: What Do Bunnies Do All Day? (You will be blessed.)
- First World Problems: Megachurch parking lot road rage.
I know you thought we were quite done with Christmas, but now we know why these guys (below) took so long to find the baby:
Thinking Out Loud 
“Man” is now viewed as what we call an “exclusive” use of language; that is, it is seen as excluding women. Therefore, we recommend that you find other ways to refer to humankind in general and use terms that are inclusive.”
This I can understand. I make something of an effort already to do this or at least something similar. But using “Godself” is probably not going to happen in my church, in the pulpit or anywhere else.
We are in the middle of a gender revolution. The notion that there are only two genders was fairly commonplace just a decade or two again but that is no longer socially acceptable. I’m not sure if the last stop will be an infinite number of gender possibilities or a complete lack of any gender identification whatsoever. The rate of change is faster than ever before. The culture describes vocabulary and beliefs as “antiquated” that were the societal norms just a few years ago. Bill and Hillary Clinton were both opposed to gay marriage in the early 90’s. He could not have been elected president otherwise. But today they are in favor of “marriage equality” because the culture has changed that much in just 25 years.
Comment by Clark Bunch — January 25, 2017 @ 11:15 am
I suppose rather than posting articles that bring ridicule down on a nation’s leader, it would be helpful to hope and pray for a man in a difficult position. I pray for leaders of all nations, as Romans 13 states, that they see the wisdom of His ways and adopt His notions rather than depending on themselves for guidance. I don’t know if Donald Trump has repented and given his life to Christ. I’m aware of the things Monsignor Piper mentioned in his post, and those things President Trump said are cringeworthy, but those are in the past. And the president’s behavior as the church leaders walk down the aisle? Yeah, not cool, but if he is a Christian, he’s still more politician than saint. After 20 years, I’m still a work in progress. Any human needs time to change and I think any human under the microscope as he is deserves a little more grace than most. We are either working FOR The Lord or working AGAINST The Lord.
Speaking of microscopes, even the first family isn’t allowed to escape its focus. It’s obvious from this link that a regular church goer thought it their right to film them, though it shows a soft side of the First Lady.
Comment by The Purging Lutheran — January 25, 2017 @ 5:09 pm
Actually, the situation in India has been communicated widely to Compassion Sponsors over the last number of months and has been the subject of considerable prayer! You’ll find an article on the Compassion Blog at https://blog.compassion.com/how-you-can-advocate-for-compassion-international-s-program-in-india/ that talks about it from last November.
Comment by Murray Lahn — January 26, 2017 @ 9:01 am
Our link was to a Christianity Today story, but generally I try to seek out primary sources. I just would have expected this to have broader visibility on their website. The link you sent, as you noted, is to something from November and I’m assuming the CT story was generated by more recent developments and that’s why I noted the absence of details on Compassion’s US and Canadian sites. Perhaps they choose not to broadcast the situation in that platform.
It’s an incredibly sad situation for both the kids and their sponsors.
Comment by paulthinkingoutloud — January 26, 2017 @ 12:57 pm