Germany’s Bernhard Lang took to aerial photography to capture this image of the slums of Manila. Up close the image of the church would look pristine and serene, but pull back and the surrounding neighborhood paints a different picture. Click the image to read the tragic story of what happened on February 7th.
Miss it here? You can always catch it at Internet Monk’s Saturday Brunch on the weekend. (It’s okay…it works both ways! Hi, Mike and Daniel.)
- Two really great interviews with The Shack author Paul Young:
- Dave Peck’s Face to Face marks a third time interview.
- The type of interview only Brant Hansen can offer!
- What “courage of your convictions” looks like: Shane Claiborne’s case goes to trial on June 28th, but already, he says he would do it again.
- Completed: Documentary on Bill Gothard founder of Institutes in Basic Life Principles and (homeschooling group) Advanced Training Institutes. “The Cult Next Door” is 32 minutes detailing a very controlling organization.
- Human rights and religious freedom:
- A teacher in France is suspended for reading scripture portions to primary students. Was he trying to convert them?
- A pastor and his wife in Cuba were arrested for homeschooling. This in a country that provides sanctions for leading a minor to “…be absent from school, refuse educational work that is inherent to the national system of education.” Choosing your child’s education is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Things to think about: If it’s true that “Recent polls reveal the majority of Christians don’t read the Bible” then when we sing songs in church how do we know that theologically we’re verbalizing truth? This article begins with a quote from Tozer, “Christians don’t tell lies – they go to church and sing them.”
- A Study in Contrasts: The day before he was part of a march with 50,000 people. The next day he’s a hired musician at a church that would be on the other side of the politics of that event. Knowing his ideological differences, should the guy take the gig?
- A medical missionary working as a dentist in Rwanda is constantly reminded that everything they are building in the clinic can be gone in a moment.
- Essay of the Week: – see lower image to link.
- At the northern edge of Scotland is the Isle of Lewis, where it’s now learned a prominent pastor hanged himself after his 54-year-old wife Anne accused him of having up to seven affairs with churchgoers at the same time.
- Uncensored: An NPR report says church leaders turn to podcasts to say the things they can’t say in church. (And apparently you can curse, too.)
- Most Provocative Opening Paragraph: “The German bishops have done something that altogether exceeds their authority: They have undermined the sacramental discipline of the Catholic Church.” At issue is people involved in “irregular sexual relations.“
- Even when the research is well done, reporting on churches who teach against medical intervention with children is complicated journalism.
- In Memoriam: Four stages (not five) after your church plant has failed.
- Quotation of the Week: “…It struck me that many of the people attending the Oscars and many of the universities represented on the track would fully applaud the transgender agenda. And yet, here they are with their antiquated categories of Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress and their old-fashioned ideas of men and women running the mile in totally separate races…” (Kevin DeYoung)
- Some positive takes on the Syrian refugees:
- By this time last week, the Andy Stanley sermon that had been shrouded in an internet blackout was edited and released by North Point.
- Meanwhile, from the UK, this article reports of Muslim asylum seekers converting to Christ.
- Breaking Up is (Not) Hard to Do: Three ways not to leave your church.
- Boys abused in Hampshire, England: Eight boys said “they had each been hit about 14,000 times over a period of years.” John Smyth, now 75, “stands at the center of a widening scandal of sadistic abuse of dozens of boys over three decades that has ensnared the leader of the Anglican Church, the Most Rev. Justin Welby…”
- Dissecting Christianese: A closer look at the phrase, “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.”
- The difference between “essentially Christian” and “fully Christian.”
- Crossroads, Canada’s leading producer of Christian television is going web-only with a program for women á la The View with the new See, Hear, Love.
- Though it didn’t focus a whole lot on her faith, if you’ve got kids who are into gymnastics, they will enjoy Willow Creek’s weekend interview with Simone Biles.
- A Video ICYMI Moment: This song was played as part of the countdown to one of the nights at Franklin Graham’s Vancouver thing last week. Crowder’s Run Devil Run (I Got Somethin’ Make the Devil Gonna Run)…
- …Speaking of the Vancouver Festival of Hope; MC for the three nights was Philadelphia’s Jasmine Tate. Check out her music at YouTube…
- …For an entirely different YouTube experience, Lenny Smith of Great Comfort Records offers a unique (and labor-intensive) approach to the classic worship song, Our God Reigns…
- …Meanwhile, my friend Diane is always light years ahead of me at finding great worship songs. (Except this is such a great listening experience, I’d be afraid to try it congregationally.)
- While there have certainly been hints before, Disney is offering their first overtly gay story line in a forthcoming film remake…
- …causing one Alabama theater to opt out.
- Finally, March Madness, Theology Edition. Who will win?
“…At the most basic level, this is a classic example of a false equivalence, which itself is the basis for so many internet memes that try to equate two unrelated issues based on a shared trait. Despite being a logical fallacy, the seemingly straightforward checkmate power of the false equivalence has made it the crack cocaine of many a political debate – especially on the internet… Had even the slightest bit of effort been put into this pseudo-exegesis, its proponents would have noticed a rather inconvenient truth: according to the book of Revelation itself, the gates of heaven are never closed…” Click the image to read at source.
Thinking Out Loud 
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