1) Deciphering Missions by Jamie Wright
"While I was virtually paralyzed by depression and anxiety, I used Missionary Code to turn every innocuous coffee date with a friend into 'discipleship time'. Hours spent circling Facebook were important to 'support development', and everyday interactions with grocery store clerks and bank tellers suddenly became meaningful when referred to as 'intentional relationships'."
2) Everybody's a Little Bit Racist: Why Being Called Racist is Not the Issue by Dianna Anderson
"This understanding of one's own privilege is the baseline for communicating about race, sexuality, gender, and everything surrounding marginalization. Your privilege will give you blind spots. And you don’t get to determine the lengths of that privilege."
3) A Letter to Abercrombie by Micah Murray
"For the sake of everyone that has ever felt marginalized, excluded, or uncool, I wish I could make you eat your words. I wish I could denounce you with righteous indignation. For being so insensitive, so discriminatory, so crassly materialistic. But I can’t. Because if I’m willing to look in the mirror you’re holding up, I’m forced to admit to myself that I’m not as different from you as I’d like to think."
4) Psalm 55 - Betrayed by Registered Runaway
"But a part of us dies too. A part of us remembers that even in the arms of our brothers and sisters in Christ we are not guaranteed goodness. We are not guaranteed love. Protection. Comfort. Christ doesn’t always speak from the pulpit."
5) Is God's Presence Limited to Scripture by Rachel Held Evans
"When we become more committed to the testimony than to the Person to whom it testifies, we are likely to miss the presence of Jesus even when it’s right in front of us. Probably because it took some form we weren’t expecting. Probably because it showed up outside of our boundaries."
Honorable Mention
"We Have A Better Version of the Gospel" [Diversity Repellent] by Christena Cleveland
You Don't Have to Be Good by Addie Zierman
The Problem of Evil is Hanging in Your Closet by Zack Hunt
Line of the Week
"Maybe Mark Driscoll was playing a game of truth or dare ten years ago, and he chose "dare." And, boy, was it a good one." - Jason Boyett (@jasonboyett)
On Pop Theology Week in Review
On Missing the Point: Gatsby, Zero Dark Thirty and Obsession by Ben Howard
"These lessons, the ones that are most difficult to hear, the ones that rock us to our core, are the most important."
Screaming Obscenities: How Derek Fisher is Like Substitutionary Atonement by Ben Howard
"I spent most of last evening screaming obscenities at a middle-aged man for doing an unimportant thing poorly."
Derek Fisher and Atonement Theory: Part Deux by Ben Howard
"It's not that the theory isn't useful, it's that it's being asked to do too much."
Anselm Gets in the Game: Atonement Theory, Part Three by John Thornton Jr.
"We would do well, however, to continually question the games we play, and how we seek to wrangle Christ into them, as well as what rules we use Jesus to validate and what plays we draw up."
Let's All Talk About What We're Tired Of (A Response to Tony Jones) by Lyndsey Graves
"My race, gender, socioeconomic class, regional background, and religion are all aspects of my identity others have used to dismiss me – to disempower me."
Song of the Week
"Comes and Goes (In Waves)" by Greg Laswell
Peace,
Ben
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