I haven’t seen the film Jesus Revolution. Not only has Paul Wilkinson seen it, he previewed a special advanced screening in order to write about it. He also remembers living it the first time. I have not linked to anything of Paul’s in a while – I was not actively posting anything other than Happy Monday and the Satur-deja Vu there for a while – but let me recommend two posts at Thinking Out Loud if you haven’t seen them yet.
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Billy Ray Cyrus had other singles besides Achy Breaky Heart in the early 90’s. Paul Reubens has appeared in movies playing characters other than Pee Wee Herman, just like Jim Varney was not always Earnest. James Best was a television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. But you probably only know him as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Sometimes a person becomes so well known for one thing that people are unaware of anything else.
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The Christian Index, our Georgia Baptist newspaper, has an article today about Heritage Baptist Church. The reconstruction at Notre Dame is being followed around the world; Heritage is local to my home town of Calhoun, GA. Heritage Baptist is an active partner in the Gordon Memorial Baptist Association. I may have not mentioned it on this blog but friends IRL and on Facebook know that the sudden and expected death of Brent Davis rattled me a bit. Continue reading
Paul Wilkinson blogs at Thinking Out Loud and Christianity 201. We have been blog friends for several years, having met up in the Christian blogosphere but never in real life. Jimmy Humphrey is a new blog friend, the author/podcaster at Jimmy’s Table. Paul lives in Canada, Jimmy just up the map a little ways in North Carolina. Tuvia Pollack is a blog friend from way back that we haven’t mentioned in a while; so I am going to mention him now. Continue reading
I know I haven’t been posting daily like I was for a while there. The goal used to be two or three posts per week. Life comes at you fast and sometimes (for weeks at a time) Happy Monday was all that got published. He is still blogging but Paul Wilkinson has not posted a Wednesday Connect in a while either. This is a busy week and I know it but I don’t want to completely fall off the wagon.
Enter Jimmy Humphrey. He doesn’t know it yet but I’m about to introduce my audience to his website and podcast. Start here: Why The Church Should NOT Focus On The Family. The title may sound more sensational than the actual post. Read the intro, listen to the podcast, we can discuss. Check out other articles and podcast episodes, find Jimmy’s Table on Facebook etc. while I help my mother move this week and get into the new school year routine. I have updated the blogroll to remove some that no longer exist or have not been updated in a while. It’s time for a fresh face. Let’s all welcome Jimmy to the table.
It has been a long time since I tried to put together a link list but I want to share just a couple. The first is about pastoral candidates. When Bobby Braswell is asked “Could this candidate be your pastor?” he may be willing to consider candidates you would not. His pastor doesn’t have to be young and good looking, for example. Churches often hire pastors that look like the church members they hope to attract. Then the mostly older folks that make up the church will not let him do the things the church needs to do to bring in and/or retain those 20 or 30 somethings with kids. That’s just one example. Check out Could This Candidate be Your Pastor at The Christian Index.
This one is a lot of fun, I thought about saving it for Saturday. Rhyne Putman was invited to preach at a KJV only church as a seminary student 15 years ago. He read from the wrong translation but that’s only one facet of this “bed time story” he shares. It’s a long thread of Tweets but worth your time. Click the tweet below.
A full length trailer has just been released for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the biopic of Fred Rogers due out in November. It’s uncanny how much a good makeup artist and a cardigan sweater can make Tom Hanks look like Mr. Rogers. While Hanks is practically a national treasure in his own right the real Fred Rogers was almost too good to be true. Below is a reprint of a post I published back in 2010. (I apologize for the double space after each period. That’s how we were taught to type back in the day.)
A couple of weeks ago, I had a discussion with a student about Fred Rogers. His claim was that Mr. Rogers wore long sleeve sweaters to cover multiple tattoos on both arms. I already knew that Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and it turns out this student knew that as well. He contended that before seminary and his career in television, Mr. Rogers had a violent and sordid past. So on a whim, I did some Internet fact checking. Wow. Continue reading
Two items have caught my attention in the past couple of days:
1. The State of California has rewritten some language in an education bill that threatened to greatly infringe on religious liberty in that state. Had the bill passed unchanged, the only students that could receive any type of religious education would have been those training for a career in ministry. It would have effectively outlawed Christian colleges and universities, reserving religious studies to seminary students only. More here.
2. Target is about to spend $2 million on individual use bathroom stalls in all of their stores. Many stores already have such facilities, in addition to men’s and women’s restrooms, and soon all loctions will. Target denies the changes have anything to do with the boycotts and petitions generated by their bathroom policy announcement. I saw this headline in the Washington Post of all places.
After the 9/11 attacks on New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spoke at a live taping of Saturday Night Live. The show has always been distinctly New York and he spoke very frankly with the cast, audience and show creator Lorne Michaels. He wanted the show the go on and encouraged them to do it. Michaels asked “Can we be funny?” And with a straight face Giuliani wryly replied “Why start now?” Continue reading
Earlier this week, The Christian Index hosted a discussion of sorts about America being a “Christian nation.” Christians who responded were split over whether America used to be a Christian nation and no longer is vs. those who felt America never was a Christian nation to begin with. Very few argued that it still is today.
Meanwhile, California is about to become the first state to do away with religious/ faith-based education at the college level. If passed as is, SB 1146 would limit religious education to seminaries. Church affiliated schools, or colleges and universities that apply Christian principles to all areas of life, would be restricted from doing so with all students except those preparing for vocational ministry.
Please read this article by Ed Stetzer and Marty Duren via Christianity Today. This is one of those issues that could drag on through the court system for years to come, but we currently have an aging Supreme Court that’s already short one member and a presidential election coming up that could dramatically alter its balance of power. Who knows what the long term implications of this state legislation could be?
The Master's Table 