Monday, May 5, 2014

What You Can Do When You Believe in Yourself and the Best Things You'll Read All Week

by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust

Reads of the Week

1) The Day I Knew I, Too, Could Murder by Bronwyn Lea

"It was the day I knew I could murder. The day I knew I, even I, was capable of the most terrible depravity. After years of theological lip service to the fact, it was the day I knew I was a sinner. Horrified and humbled, I sat in a cold sweat on those sun-baked steps and wondered how it was that I could call myself a Christian while longing for the death of the three men who had snaked off into the night and left my most beloved in shreds."

2) The Charism of the Charismatics: Part 6, The Heart Has a Way of Knowing by Richard Beck

"Emotions make our world. And if emotions make our world then attending to the emotions is a critical, perhaps even the central, task of Christian discipleship. Discipleship is more a matter of training our emotions than of changing our minds."

3) The Ministry of Watching Sparrows Fall to the Ground by D.L. Mayfield

"Is this witnessing? Is this being a witness? I don’t get to use a whit of my degree in Theology. Instead, I am burrowing deeper and deeper into the forgotten parts of our world and I am trying to keep my spirit and my eyes open. Really, when it comes down to it, I am not the famous missionary or preacher or theologian I always yearned to be. Instead, my ministry is about watching the birds. His eye is on the sparrow. I know this because he has asked me to be the witness to it, to be his eyes and ears and hands on the earth. And I am here to tell you, they are falling to the ground in droves."

4) The Best Faith Film You'll See All Year by Rachel Held Evans

"While the debates rage on about whether Noah is biblical enough, Heaven is For Real true enough, and God is Not Dead profitable enough, Philomena delivers a quiet, understated, and powerful portrayal of the actual human experience,  where clear-cut lines between good and evil, heroes and villains, right and wrong might be good 'story-wise' but don’t reflect the reality most people of faith actually live in."

5) Why Sarah Palin is Right About Baptism by Waterboarding - #AmericanBaptism by David Henson

"But, in truth, Palin is right. Waterboarding — along with other torture and human rights abuses like drone warfare and indefinite detention — was how the United States baptized the world into its new creation — the war on terror. It was simply an American baptism instead of a Christian one. We baptized 'combatants' with waterboarding. They became new creations that raised to life through outrage and injustice new enemies and violence."

Honorable Mention

Classical Music Makes Me Sick and Joyful by Mary DeMuth


Crossed Paths by Jamie Wright


If I've Survived to Achieve It All by Kenny Pierce

Tweets of the Week

"sorcerers are usually not named Dan" - @jon_bois


"I have mixed feelings about the sun. I like that it makes my belly warm, but I do not like that it can make my belly too warm. I am a bear." - @A_single_bear


"Son, we don't play Hungry Hungry Hippos for "fun." We play it to learn how friends turn on each other in moments of desperation and scarcity" - @longwall26


Song of the Week

"Algiers" by The Afghan Wigs



Peace,
Ben

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