Today is my 300th post. Thanks for reading and commenting over these last 15 months!
Peter Enns wrote a two part series this week on recurring mistakes made in the debate over evolution and the historicity of Adam. I especially loved his first point in this post regarding arguments over the authority of the Bible.
Throwing grasshoppers into the webs of black and yellow garden spiders (yes, that is their actual name) was a favorite passtime of my childhood summers, and it wasn’t because I was sadistic or had a vendetta against grasshoppers. There was nothing more amazing to me that the symmetry, efficiency and audacity of these beautiful, patient predators. When I see one now it still elicits a prayer of wonder. Mark Sprinkle at BioLogos wrote about them this week.
Justin at Crumbs from the Communion Table writes about flip-flops people make during religious discussions. We can all be guilty of this.
Great list from GeekDad Matt Blum of 10 bad messages from good movies. And in a related but slightly less SFW post, Cracked gave 5 prejudices that still show up in movies.
Nish Weiseth guest posted at Mason Slater’s place this week and wrote a powerful post about the marginalizing of women in evangelicalism.
I’m not always a huge Brian McLaren fan, but I thought this post about how to act when you feel like an alien at your church was spot on. Someone linked to it from my post on the same topic over at Rachel Held Evans’ blog this week.
The Bloggess. Because, damn.
The post closest to my heart this week was Alise Wright’s piece on cross-gender friendship. The way friendships between men and women are looked at in most conservative church circles breaks my heart (this post from a year ago by Tamara Lunardo has great things to say on this also). Churches, listen: men and women, even married ones, can be intimate friends without jumping each other’s bones. I promise. Take a deep breath.
And finally, I had the privilege of guest posting for two of my favorite bloggers this week. At the blog of Rachel Held Evans I talked about leaving our church home and searching for a new one, and Mason Slater invited me to talk about my time as a Calvinist. If you haven’t already, you need to subscribe to both of these fantastic blogs.
Thanks David! (Again!)
I’m seeing if I can talk my husband into writing a post from the perspective of the spouse who deals with the opposite-sex friendship. Certainly those of us in them can stand to be more vocal, but I think if our husbands & wives can say, “Really, it’s okay,” that would probably be beneficial. I will say that I was happy with the overwhelmingly positive response. I don’t think I’ve been as nervous about a post since coming out as affirming. Which feels all kinds of messed up.
Hi David. Congratulations on your three-hundredth post! I read your post on Rachel Held Evans’ site, then I came here and read your series on your church quest, and the one on how to teach the Bible to kids. Excellent series!
“Churches, listen: men and women, even married ones, can be intimate friends without jumping each other’s bones. I promise. Take a deep breath.”
My wife and I busted out in a near-pentecostal moment of rejoicing and laughter at your summary of the Alise’s fantastic post! I came across a series of posts a few weeks ago championing the opposite opinion and it’s good to see some folks out there who actually think friendship≠adultery.
Thanks for the little nod. Can’t wait to go check out some of these– especially looking forward to Nish’s and both your guest posts!
I loved the article about spiders! And the blogess post cracked me right up.