Wednesday Link List

While speaking in South Korea, Skye Jethani couldn’t resist snapping a photo of this Canadian restaurant in Seoul and Tweeting it to Drew Dyck who hails from the frozen north. For that tweet, click the image.

Welcome back to another list of news stories and opinion pieces the other blogs and sites aren’t carrying. (With the possible exceptions of the ones we stole from them.) We didn’t even start this one until about 6:30 Tuesday night. Keep those weekly suggestions coming and watch for updates on my Twitter page.

Note: The third through sixth articles are in some respects related.

• Where do high profile U.S. churches stand on LBGTQI issues? Church Clarity is building a database.
• Quotation of the Week: “We no longer live in Christendom. We really have to accept that it’s a thing of the past.” A tells-half-the-story article about (mostly Mainline Protestant) church closings and mergers in Baltimore.
• Widely reported this week was a Pew Research study that says belief in God is not necessary to being a moral person…
• …While at the same time, there is an uptick in interest in astrology and witchcraft. (But I disagree with the idea that a devotion to such is “non-religious.”)…
• …And coming soon to a society near you: Polygamy, Polyamory and Open Marriage…
  
• …Meanwhile, Four Myths about Non-Believers Attending Your Church (and yes, they’re there; that’s the first myth to bust.)…
  
• Yikes! “This is a look at the Adam and Eve story in a way I’m sure you’ve never heard a pastor talk about before,” and with that, Daniel Pugh, the pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Cary, NC began his sermon. The article at Religion News Service notes, “Adam and Eve is as a coming-of-age allegory about a pair of carefree teens caught red-handed having sex…In this, alternative reading of The Fall, the ‘forbidden fruit’ offered to Eve in Chapter 3 may be a metaphor for sex, he said, and the ‘serpent’ may be a metaphor for a penis.”  Again, Yikes!
• Catholic Corner: In Madison, Wisconsin “A Catholic funeral may be denied to LGBT people to avoid ‘public scandal of the faithful.'” Others think that “such ‘unjust and mean-spirited pronouncements’ only serve to distance LGBT people, their families and many young people from the church…”
  
• Across the pond, a journalist constrasts a visit to atheist ‘church’ The Sunday Gathering with a visit to the iconic Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB; the birthplace of the Alpha Course) and finds they have more in common than you’d think. 
• An article on October 14th in the Atlanta Constitution calls fear and anxiety “the evil of the century.” (Link is to the author’s website where the article appeared a week later.)
• In a workplace consisting of both men and women, women are often lower on the corporate chain of command. Where can that lead? A comparison between Harvey Weinstein and Billy Graham.
• The Proverbs aren’t promises. “Correlation is my best attempt to express what’s at work here: there is a correlation between life and consequences. But it’s not simplistic and it’s not a promise.”
• Dr. David Jeremiah on POTUS 45: “I’ll be honest with you, I feel safer as a citizen because he’s my president.” Part of an interview with CBN-News.
• In absolute record time — 3½ minutes — Phil Vischer (sans Skye and Christian) gets right into his one-on-one interview with Christian author Miraslav Volf.
• This wasn’t new at all, but it was a nice find: The original teaching series for John Mark Comer’s book God Has a Name. This link is to the first sermon, the second one was even better.
  
• Church Leadership: Seven Murphy’s-Law-like unwritten rules. 
• Devotional Moment: In the middle of everything that was going on following the arrest of Jesus, one woman was convinced of his innocence and she happened to be the wife of the prefect of the province of Judea.
  
• Church Life: New areas of service bring new apprehensions on the part of church members who don’t feel they’ve got what it takes. So…are you nervous about being a small group leader?
  
• ♫ New Music: The band The Young Escape consists of four siblings. Right now on this website page is their latest, The Good Life.
• In Sudan, a shipment of Bibles has been held at the port for more than two years.
• […It’s okay, you wouldn’t have liked this one…]
  
• Finally this opening line from a Charisma News story: “Multiple reports claim a South African pastor uses alcohol throughout his services for everything from baptisms to exorcisms.” Then again maybe it’s topped by the third line, a quote from the pastor in charge: “People who drink beer are happy and peaceful. This means they are living in the shadow of God.”
  

Our closing graphic today is from the popular Coffee With Jesus; click the image to visit the website: