Wednesday Connect

So here’s a question for you: Why do the authors so intent on helping me solve my financial problems only publish their books in hardcover?

Just a reminder that this blog uses cookies to keep the writer awake after 11:00 PM. Here’s your week’s worth of items culled from a variety of sources.

♦ An old format meets today’s technology in a Bible commentary in pictures: “The Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) [is] a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curator of each exhibition selects artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address.”

✎ Essay of the Week: What ‘values’ are we trying to hold on to? “Conservatives, by their very nature want to conserve the values of the past. But the past wasn’t entirely Christian, you know? The past wasn’t a good time to be a woman or an Aboriginal or an immigrant or LGBTIQ. It wasn’t a good time to be an old-growth forest or a river. In fact, for very different reasons, it wasn’t even all that good to be a white male either.”

James MacDonald’s decision to shut down the broadcast component of Walk in the Word is our Story of the Week.

📻 After months of personal controversy, James MacDonald surprises his staff with the decision to shutter the broadcast sector of Walk in the Word. Julie Roys was anonymously sent a recording of the staff meeting.

In a surprise announcement to staff on Wednesday, MacDonald said he had decided to remove Walk in the Word from all “traditional” broadcast mediums and exclusively focus on digital delivery, like podcasts. MacDonald said the reason for the change was primarily pragmatic. “Traditional broadcast is a dying thing,” MacDonald said in a live announcement to staff…

📻 …Dee Parsons believes the ‘radio is a dying medium’ argument by MacDonald takes the focus away from the controversial lawsuit and the issues which sparked it…

♦ …Breaking — Harvest drops the lawsuit; text of message to the congregation…

♦ … Response from the defendants.

♦ Also from Julie Roys: Is it just about terminology? Or is there more? Beth Moore’s assertion that “reading the Bible isn’t the same as spending time with God‘ has sparked a firestorm, not dissimilar from Andy Stanley’s late last year… 

♦…Speaking of Andy, this week he asked the musical question, ‘Why do we worry about posting The Ten Commandments in public buildings and not want to post excerpts from The Sermon on the Mount?

📊 Survey says: A Barna study shows that half of all pastors had — and responded to — another calling before getting the call to a vocational ministry career.

♦ Coming to a comic book store near you: “Marvel and DC Comics… tend to shy away from actually depicting real religious figures like God and Satan. Usually, they’ll create a loose analogy … to steer clear of controversy, but evidently DC is throwing caution to the wind with their newest superhero, someone you might already be familiar with… That’s right: Jesus Christ is coming to the rescue in an upcoming series called The Second Coming, from DC imprint Vertigo.” …

♦ …Another article describes it: “Second Coming… sees the son of God return to modern-day Earth (because God hopes Jesus will learn a lesson in godliness from the almighty superhero Sun-Man), only for Christ to discover that the message of his gospel has become horrifically twisted in the years since his crucifixion.” (Possibly no argument there.)

♦ Devotional of the Week: By no less than Rez Band (Resurrection Band) guitarist Glenn Kaiser “riffing” (his word) on Paul’s words in Philippians 3.

♦ What’s your sign? “The names we call our churches have long provided a window into our souls, to borrow an irresistible cliché.”

Flippin, Ark., is home, somewhat irreverently, to Flippin Christian Church, Flippin Baptist Church, Flippin Church of God, and is not far from a Bar None Cowboy Church. Versions of the last also exist in Oklahoma, Texas, and Iowa. If Internet lore is to be believed, the South has played host not only to Hell Hole Swamp Baptist Church (South Caro­lina) and Waterproof Baptist Church (Louisiana) but to the First Church of the Last Chance World on Fire Revival and Military Academy (Florida) as well.  …continue reading at National Review…

♦ In the Twitterverse: January is a time for “best books” lists, but this short Twitter thread gives a very short “best Bibles” list with reasons for each of the three choice. (Maybe not the three you’re expecting, but if you’re open to change in a new year, this might help.)

♦ Parenting / Student Ministry: The article’s title is “Stop Telling Girls to ‘Save Themselves.'” Sample: “The body that never had sex is better than the body that didn’t – at least according to purity culture. The problem? Virginity is not same as purity. Virginity is physical; purity is spiritual. God has commanded us to save sex for marriage because His design is for our protection and honor. So in a sense, virginity – not having sex prior to marriage – can be a form of purity, but only in the physical sense. Virginity is simply a biological status – not a status of the heart… When we focus on virginity as the only manifestation of purity, we also negate the value of Christ’s redemption.”

♀ Women’s Workshop: From Laurie Pawlik author of the book, Going Forward When You Can’t Go Back (releasing next week from Bethany House) this article about Six female Bible characters who, in different ways, said ‘yes’ to God. Sample: “… I noticed that these 6 female heroes of the Bible—our Biblical sisters—didn’t waste time wrestling with ‘Why me?’ Instead, they threw themselves into ‘Yes, Lord.'”

♦ Life and Leadership: 10 Questions to ask yourself, the answers to which will make for a fruitful 2019. 

♦ Bonus article for website visitors: Eight simple ways each of us can be missional in our everyday living.

🇨🇦 Canada Corner: The controversial “attestation” in the federal government’s summer job grant program has been removed for 2019. (Having to agree to the statement prevented many churches and Christian organizations from receiving the grant last year.) The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada reports on the changes in this 6-page .pdf article.

♦ Quotation of the Week: “We do not need ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools. Let kids be kids.” — Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, criticizing a program in his country that could see children dressing up in opposite-sex clothing in order to explore gender fluidity…

♦ … Meanwhile in the UK, an event we reported previously, The Drag Queen Story Time is going ahead despite the report that “65 per cent of over 2,600 respondents find the event ‘inappropriate’.”

♦ The subject of the book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, Alex Malarkey has refiled charges against the publisher, Tyndale House, for “for appropriation, publicity given to private life, and financial exploitation of a person with a disability.”

♦ Unexpected: Gospel themes in the reboot of Mary Poppins.

The children often can’t believe what Mary Poppins proposes. But she says with a grin, “Everything is possible, even the impossible.” Did not Jesus say something similar? … But, just as Narnia doesn’t give a full exposition of faith or every attribute of Christ, enough is in Mary Poppins Returns to pique curiosity, to whet the appetite, to possibly plant a seed that Christians can water… there are echoes that can be tied to the gospel for those who seek to help people understand how longings in culture are connected to ultimate realities… There are many other allusions to the gospel and biblical truths in Mary Poppins Returns, not least of which is the fact that with the coming of this savior from heaven (as with Christ in His first coming) light emerges, miracles are performed, realms are opened, broken hearts are restored, a family is healed, faith is kindled, “childlikeness” is sparked, love grows, a thief and a liar is judged, and hope awakens.

♦ Changing standards? Are we allowed to use term ‘badass’ in a Christian book title? Eerdman’s did. Burying White Privilege: Resurrecting a Badass Christianity.

♫ The title song from the new Passion album, Follow You Anywhere. There’s a one month gap between the release of the album online (available now) and the physical CD (early February).

♦ This link is only available to premium subscribers.

♦ For all you Church History buffs, The Theological Comedy Awards. “Example #1: St. Sebastian. If you’ve ever been to a renaissance or medieval art museum, you’ve probably seen a statue or painting of Sebastian pin-cushioned with arrows. He was a Christian Roman soldier in the third century who was caught converting other soldiers to the faith, and sentenced to death by arrows. Today, no joke, he is the patron of, among other things, archery.”

♦ Okay, I was kidding about the premium subscription thing.

♦ Finally, I really wanted to end today with a thing that Brant Hansen posted to his Facebook page on January 4th, but after trying to follow the instructions for embedding FB videos, I don’t think my version of WordPress supports it. So I decided instead to end with something by James Cary, whose book The Sacred Art of Joking releases this March.