South Park on Religion

Posted on August 9, 2012 by PaulVK

Got a tip from a church member. I had never watched South Park before (take away my Cultural Literacy card…). HuffPo has a list. 

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Inspiration and Reading the Bible from Daniel Kirk

Posted on August 9, 2012 by PaulVK

Daniel Kirk takes another swing on the subject. It’s the kind of thing we keep working on, like most life-long projects. The comments were good too.

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Paul, Conflict and Boredom

Posted on August 9, 2012 by PaulVK

As members of my congregation know I’ve been working through Acts. Partially for that reason this animated motion picture caught my eye. I really hadn’t thought of the Paul story and the Jerusalem collection from this perspective before. I was suspicious, partly because of how the story is “tarted up” with comments like “never before told” as well as cameo appearances by some scholars who like to be Biblical Shock-Jocks. So I turned to someone conveniently unavailable to take part in the project, FF Bruce and his book on Paul.   Continue reading →

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On Direct and In-Direct

Posted on August 8, 2012 by PaulVK

A nice parable from “The Messy Middle” on how this expat learned indirectness, a common cultural trait of some Asian cultures.

The dance of direct vs. indirect is such a funny one. I see it played out in churches all the time. Some are offended by the direct, others offended by the indirect.

When the nice church lady says “we’ve missed you at church” some feel controlled. If the acknowledgment of not being in church is missed others feel abandoned or uncared for. It’s an amazingly complicated dance of which there is often no sure solution.

Culture is complex and fascinating.

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A Polite Bribe

Posted on August 8, 2012 by PaulVK

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From A Polite Bribe

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On Dreams, Expectations and Identity

Posted on August 8, 2012 by PaulVK

Again, another nice post from Her-meneutics. This one on dreams and identity. Reminds me of the dream talk that Phil Vischer does on his podcast.

I must also admit that the Ann Curry clip leading off the Her-meneutics piece is a bit surreal in terms of entertainment/news/reality/culture.

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Lolo Jones talks about her virginity

Posted on August 8, 2012 by PaulVK

Her-meneutics is one of the finest Christian blogs on the net. Here’s another terrific piece.

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More past life conversations

Posted on August 8, 2012 by PaulVK

Lists of posts of “conversations with previous selves” . Fun one on “past self”

Should credit Kristin Tennant with the link.

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Vocation, Skye and Willi

Posted on August 4, 2012 by PaulVK

In the same podcast on the end of Christian retail Phil, Skye and Christian discuss vocation. After listening to the podcast I read Eugene Peterson’s memoir chapter on Willi Ossa.

Willi was the church janitor where Peterson was working as a pastor just getting started and Willi was an artist. Peterson learned a lot about vocation from the artists. They made a living, but their living wasn’t their vocation. Their vocation was art. Willi also hated the church. He had grown up in Germany and he saw the part the church played (or rather didn’t play) in the Nazi regime. He liked Peterson and in the strongest way he could he tried to warn Peterson from becoming a pastor. Continue reading →

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The End of Christian Retail

Posted on August 3, 2012 by PaulVK

This week on my new favorite podcast, the Phil Vischer Podcast, they had an interesting discussion on the end of Christian retail. The part in question is the first 12 minutes of podcast #10.

Skye Jethani made the point via Barna (it’s an arguable point) that the largest differentiator between Christians and non-Christians behaviorally was a market preference for items branded as Christian. He goes on to point to the fact that fear is often a main motivation for market branding of Christian stores, Christian merchandise and Christian radio (“safe for the whole family…”). Continue reading →

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