Wednesday Link List

LINK LIST 001 — This isn’t the whole thing, but it was decidedly shorter than what would follow. The name “Wednesday Link List” wasn’t applied consistently, but the first one appeared in January, 2010. Also, to save you asking, the superhero site still works.

There are rumors that after today, the lynx is being retired to another zoo.

This is it! We made it to #400! As you can see from our retrospective screenshots, the road to the first one was paved with many different titles, not all of which are represented here.

• Only Lasted One Day: “The Country Music Association Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the CMA, appointed former Arkansas governor and former Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee on the board of its foundation; an entity dedicated to growing and supporting music education programs across the country. Huckabee was a great choice for the position because of his love for country music and his vital contributions to music education.” 24 Hours later, powerful influencers in the CMA who happen to be pro-LGBT forced him to step down.
• ⛪ As George Michael put it, “Ya gotta have faith.” That’s certainly true if you want to fit inside the nominally Christian United States of America. However, “[T]here can be real problems when a nation circumscribes who belongs and who doesn’t by whether they are people of faith. That type of social duress can be culturally and personally unhealthy. In fact, according to a recent study in the journal, Society and Mental Health, individuals who consider leaving a faith, but do not, tend to experience more depression than those who decide to leave.” (Also, I think Jesus said something about hypocrites.)
• The biggest Post-Parkland Jerk Award goes to a former Utah congressman who said the survivors of the school shooting there need a belief in Jesus Christ. Okay. Except that Parkland, Florida is a dominantly Jewish community. Plus Jason Chaffetz should know better: “Chaffetz, you’re thinking … boy, that name sounds … Yup. Chaffetz’s father was Jewish. The elder Chaffetz’s first wife was Kitty Dukakis, who later married Gov. Michael Dukakis. Chaffetz’s mother had been a Christian Scientist, but became a Mormon. In college, Chaffetz himself became a Mormon.” Which is followed by this: “Chaffetz’s screed reminds us that throughout Jewish history, some of the Jews’ worst enemies have come from the ranks of apostates.“
• Best Headline: Why You Can’t Have Your Porn and #MeToo. (Sample: “The printed pornography of twenty years ago… seems very mild in comparison to mainstream porn today. The pornography industry itself has been quite forthright in explaining the way that “extreme” porn has become mainstream. And there are, for example, a variety of directors and performers on record raising concerns about the physically and psychologically punishing nature of U.S.-produced pornography.”)
• Coincidence? Anne Graham Lotz on the date of Billy Graham’s (i.e. her father’s) death. “Feb. 21, 2018, is the day Jews focus on the Scripture reading that deals with the death of Moses.” She says, “Moses was the great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage, slavery, got them to the edge of the promised land, and God took him to heaven… My father was also a great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage to sin, and gets us to the edge of heaven, the edge of the promised land, and God has called him home.” …
• …And thousands are petitioning for a national holiday to honor Billy Graham as is done with Martin Luther King, Jr.
• ⚔️ Podcast of the Week: Jesus tells his disciples, “[T]he one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” A look at different interpretations of this passage with David Burnett on The Naked Bible podcast. 76 minutes.
• 🎬 At the Movies: Mary Magdalene is releasing March 16th worldwide, but not in North America. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix who I knew was brother to the late River Phoenix, but IMDb.com filled this in: “His parents, from the continental United States, were [when he was born] serving as Children of God missionaries.” Why no release here? According to Wikipedia: “It was originally scheduled to be released in the United States and Canada on November 24, 2017.In August 2017, the release was pushed back to March 30, 2018. In January 2018, it was pulled from the schedule.” Deadline.com reveals that decision was made by Harvey Weinstein’s company partly for corporate reasons and possibly to accommodate the release of another film. Here’s the most recent trailer. (For Christian moviegoers, it clears the slate for I Can Only Imagine on Mar. 16.)…
• …In other film news, Christian Daily reports “Evangelist Billy Graham’s grandson, Will Graham, is going to play his grandfather on the big screen in the sequel to Unbroken. The follow-up movie, which is titled Unbroken: Path to Redemption, will pick up from where war hero Louis Zamperini discovered God.” The report adds that “Apparently, viewers became disappointed that the first movie did not highlight the impact of Graham’s evangelism in Zamperini’s life.”
• 📺 Scandal on the Small Screen: Viewers of Coronation Street have voiced their disgust at a scene showing the resident vicar [i.e. Anglican priest] taking heroin in church.The character, Billy Mayhew, has been battling an addiction to painkillers. However, he fell to new lows after his drug dealer brother Lee sold him heroin.The pair ‘shot up’ in church, and as they were slumped against the pews Lee said: ‘This must be what heaven feels like.‘” (And to think some North Americans were upset about Living Biblically.)
• ✝️ Dialing for Doctrine: When Jesus come back will he walk the streets as he did the first time? Five well-known Christian leaders share their views.
• Leadership Lessons: Presbyterian (PCUSA) churches in Rochester, New York combine together on various initiatives and share leadership in order to stay strong in the face of overall declining numbers and church closings. The resulting church network is called Riverside Neighbors. 
• Translation Troubles: You say teaching, I say tradition. The same word, paradosis, gets treated differently in different passages. 
• 🇨🇦 Canada Corner: The waiting game continues in the Trinity Western University Law School case before the Supreme Court.
  
• Women’s Workshop: “Many of the women in question have been interpreted based on the terminology used to describe them in our English translations. Oftentimes, terms like ‘prostitute’ or ‘adulteress’ conjure contemporary images that fail to capture the circumstances of biblical times.”
  
• 🚸 KidMin: One of Canada’s largest churches is developing an original children’s curriculum, and making it available to other churches for free.
• 📡 Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) continues its worldwide expansion and recently added “TBN Mzansi, a new African Christian channel that is available on Africa’s latest and second largest satellite service called Kwesé TV on channel 810.” TBN Africa also offers The Hillsong Channel. (For African viewers interested in religious/faith-based channels, the service already offers all these.)
• 🎹 New Music: This is one of many I’ve discovered on Fresh Life Radio, a church-operated radio station from Fresh Life, where Levi Lusko is pastor. The artist is Rachel Jane and the song is The Mountain.
• 🎹 New-to-Me Music: This is from the church where Perry Noble was the pastor. NewSpring; the song Love Me Like That.
• 📖 New Books: This isn’t my normal reading, but I’m tempted. “How could this have happened? How could this sixteen-year-old, who less than a week earlier had left home on a typical Friday morning for school, now be flirting with death by overdose?” On Pins and Needles by Rick Van Warner released a few days ago from Baker Books. 
• 🦋 New Books: A great gift for anyone who ever watched Touched by an Angel; Roma Downey, who along with her husband gave us the The Bible Series A.D. on television, has released a book about a creature she sees as a reminder of God’s presence. The book is titled Box of Butterflies.
  
• Parenting Place: Eric Metaxas interviews Kirk Cameron on the occasion of Cameron’s new film, Connect, “helping parents better communicate with their children about social media and its relation to anxiety, depression and suicide.“
• 🚘 The Price is Right: Five lucky (blessed?) people at Destiny Church in Columbia, Maryland left worship services with the keys to a new car. “It was part marketing ploy — but also theology, [Pastor Stephen] Chandler said. Randomly giving away cars to people who show up to worship demonstrates God’s unbelievable, no-strings-attached goodness…”
  
• Because we’re not running any graphics this week, we’ll give you this.
  
• Finally, finally, finally…We end with a Matthew Pierce, but not a current one like you think we’re going to do but this one about Christian School Mascots from 2015. Or from the same year, this Brief History of Legalism. (Actually just read his whole blog.)
  

In the words of Ford Prefect, so long and thanks for all the fish.