Mad Men takes us from the 60s to the 70s

The Daily Beast

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WORLD Mobile | Blindsided | June 26, 2015

https://www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.php?id=34406

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Welcome to the Next Iteration of American Civil Religion

wordpress gets into the act

In the 20th century religion, morality, politics and commerce aligned in America first to win WWII and then the Cold War. Growing up on the CRC left I always heard Civil Religion as a dirty word.

Both SCOTUS and POTUS gave significant and fundamentally religious speeches today, and appropriated religions terms and religious narratives.

The element that caught me by surprise was the enthusiasm of business community. (The demographics here have undoubtedly not escaped them. Did AARP go rainbow?) Franklin Graham had better find a new strategy unless he wants to follow Gandhi in home spinning a loin cloth. Everyone wanted in on the big celebration. I was thinking this when Jason shared the David French piece.

This is the latest iteration of American Civil religion. Church and God are optional this time around. They really were too last time but “Godless Communism” kept the church as a key ally. Not this time.

It has its theology that is again very close to Christian theology. Many will not be able to distinguish the two.

In this round, however, the institutional church will not fare as well.

The last time the religious and political right were put to the test. This time the left.

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Gabe Lyons and Andrew Sullivan Discuss Religious Freedom

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Obama Eulogy at Service for Rev. Pickney

Begins at 1:22

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My Blog Platform Thinks It has a Social Conscience

wordpress gets into the act

Hmmm. What does it mean that my blog host wishes to express its social conscience views.

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Ideology and Income in churches

RNS

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Supreme Court Sets Aside State Bans on Same Sex Marriage

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Why I Think the Union of CRHM and CRWM Means the End of the “Home Missions” Era

In Like A Lamb

While the big spat over “All One Body” got all the drama at #crcsynod 2015 the big news was really the consolidation of Home Missions and World Missions (“don’t say the m-word”) and then the consolidation of almost everything else with it.

During the Home Missions/World Missions “debate” the most important thing to notice was that lots of people wanted to give speeches and they were all in favor of the motion.

Love is Love

Part of the reason for the lack of dissent for merging-oops-um-consolidating the two agencies was that both board directors and both agency directors spoke in favor of the decision. Saying “no, you two can’t work together” didn’t really make any sense. Most of the speech making promised in glowing terms how this new union would unleash great new energy by now disregarding lines on the map but few concrete examples of exactly how this would happen were offered.

“Is there a Bill Hybels Disciple in the House?”  Continue reading →

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Confessions of a Synodical Big Mouth

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