Steve Thorngate

Jurgen Hauerwas is back

2009-10-20T14:09:00.002-05:00

My semi-hiatus from this blog is likely to continue until after I get married this winter. But I had to come out of hibernation to note that my favorite speculative-theology parody blog (and likely yours), ΨΕΥΔΟΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΑ, is back after an even longer time away. I'm sure the whole town of Tübingen, NC is proud.

The evolving evolution conversation

2009-10-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

Encouraging news on the faith-and-evolution front from James McGrath, recently one of my favorite bloggers: Campus Crusade at Butler, where he teaches, has decided to uninvite the faux-credentialed creationist Willie Dye to campus, noting that they'd still like to host conversations on the subject but would prefer to do so with academically serious, qualified participants. Good for them.And, via

Sullivan's "Dear President Bush" letter

2009-09-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the most prominent media critic of President Bush's who was originally an enthusiastic supporter, is calling on Bush to take responsibility for the U.S. torture regime as a means of moving forward. He's doing it by way of a lengthy "epistle" addressed to the former president and published in the new Atlantic. Worth a read if you've got the time.

Mmm, starch and salt and oil and air

2009-09-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

Karen Olsson, in the incomparable Texas Monthly, asks the question I've spent much of my life pondering.Via.

Behind "You Lie!"

2009-09-26T15:56:00.000-05:00

Like most people, I tend to think Saturday Night Live was funniest when I was ~18 years old. I haven't watched it on TV in years--but I have admired a lot of its political humor when I've seen clips on the internets.This one's particularly good, for at least two reasons:It's really silly.It's a funny premise about a political story--but it isn't itself particularly political.Enjoy:

Good and bad news from the places-I-live-or-have-lived food front

2009-09-25T16:26:00.003-05:00

Good: double food stamps at my neighborhood farmers market.Good: more good-food PR from the feds.Bad: apparently mega dairy farming is destroying my home state's water supply. Mmm, destructive status quo no one supports but not enough people will stand up to...

Long time no blog

2009-09-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

Moving! Work! School! Wedding planning! One million out-of-town houseguests! Ahh!See you on the other side. Meanwhile, link blogging continues unabated.

A post on the ELCA churchwide assembly, but not much of one

2009-08-26T11:12:00.005-05:00

In response to those who have asked: Yes, naturally I have some thoughts about the ELCA churchwide assembly and decisions re: gays and lesbians. What I don't have is the time to write a post of any length--it's moving week. For now, here's Nadia Bolz-Weber's sermon from last Sunday. I think she gets it more or less right, and she tells a very moving story from the debate on the floor.Also, it's

Franky Schaeffer overshoots again

2009-08-20T07:03:00.000-05:00

I wholeheartedly support health-insurance reform, and I've already noted that I find the disruption of town halls--for the purpose of ending, not changing, the conversation--despicable.Still, I think this clip is just further evidence that Frank Schaeffer has jumped the shark:I don't doubt that there are seriously dangerous people on the right-wing fringe-of-the-fringe. (And sure, perhaps there's

Evidence that the church is un(der)successful at character formation, part 2: Why don't Christian college graduates take distinct career paths?

2009-08-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

Interesting observations from Michael Westmoreland-White.(Part 1: Support for torture)

Really, you and I can understand this

2009-08-17T19:41:00.003-05:00

Health-insurance reform is complicated! You'll never be able to understand it, so you should probably just be opposed to it.Even if the above made sense on its own terms, which it doesn't, it still rings false because it isn't actually that hard to understand the broad outline of what's being proposed. To that end, here's a cheat sheet by Alec MacGillis. And here's a flow chart by Nicholas

ImprovingKilling health care reform

2009-08-13T18:52:00.005-05:00

The most disturbing thing about this video--in which activists opposed to Democratic-proposed health care reform harrass Rep. Lloyd Doggett in Austin--isn't the evidence that conservative activists have organized their people so well that it actually looks like a majority of Americans are opposed to reform. (They aren't.) It isn't people's rudeness and intensity--you see that in political rallies

How does it feel to be gay?

2009-08-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

This 10-minutes exercise is pretty powerful:Via Frank Dunn.

Wesley vs. me

2009-08-05T13:23:00.003-05:00

This one's been making the rounds on the innertubes:Raising a deeply personal question for me. In short, is this guy a cooler little kid than I was? In my favor:I played and sang by myself when I was a good deal younger than five.I played actual chords.I sang in tune.In his:Instead of churchy songs about Jesus, he's playing a Johnny Cash song about murder. His guitar doesn't have a picture of

Individual-carbon-footprint-colored glasses

2009-08-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

Good food column from Ezra Klein last week--on the unpopular but irrefutable point that very few of the consumer choices frequently touted as cutting our Carbon Footprints® have anything like the impact of eating less meat and other animal products.Still, as Ezra and others often do, he irritates with his myopic global-warming perspective, with the implication that carbon dioxide emissions are

The well-sent-up Palin speech

2009-08-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

Weeks after Governor Palin's resignation speech, the question remains: what's the silliest parody of the speech?Is it this markup of the transcript, prepared by Vanity Fair's research and copy desks?Is it this copycat speech, by someone who should have even better access to good writers than Palin does?Or is it this version of the original, by William Shatner:

The Explainer on disorderly conduct, etc.

2009-07-31T19:01:00.004-05:00

Yesterday's beer summit came and went, with no surprises (unless you count the vice president's participation, NA beer in hand, as a surprise).The only reason I'm posting about it again is to highlight this Slate piece from last week. I've always been uneasy about any incident hinging on a disorderly conduct charge--aka POPO--but I'm hardly an expert in either police work or any kind of law. A

Lies, damn lies, and obvious mistakes major newspapers don't bother to correct

2009-07-31T07:06:00.000-05:00

It's become a pretty common thing for conservatives to get simple facts wrong--a very different thing from presenting different opinions, or even highlighting DIFFERENT facts--related to health care and health care reform. Jonathan Chait rounds up a few examples here, attributing the problem to conservatives' general lack of interest in health care policy.Here's what I'd call the most egregious

Three bottles of much-scrutinized beer

2009-07-30T17:35:00.005-05:00

Tom Philpott offers a self-consciously inconsequential critique of this afternoon's just-three-guys-talking-it-out-over-a-beer event at the executive picnic table: while Dr. Gates is drinking a marginally respectable Red Stripe, why are James Crowley (I still can't believe that's his name!) and the president drinking, respectably, fake Belgian beer made by an American swill monolith and formerly

U.S. fruit growers learn from an Iranian scientist

2009-07-28T06:24:00.000-05:00

I love fresh fruit. I know, so do you, but understand: I geek out over fresh fruit. I've been lusting after a $75, heavy-duty cherry pitter, which would immensely speed up one of my favorite summertime hobbies, second only to complaining about the heat: pitting a huge amount of cherries in front of a baseball game (helps to be a fan of such a slow-moving sport), after which either Nadia or I

Disqualified for belief alone

2009-07-24T08:46:00.000-05:00

This is pretty crappy: a pediatrician in the U.K. was removed from an adoption panel based on her opposition to adoptions by same-sex couples.As far as I can tell from this story in the Daily Mail, she wasn't covertly sabotaging individual adoptions or strategically hiding her opinions on the subject, which she attributes to her Christian faith. Instead, she was up front about her beliefs and

The fight over whether or not we have common ground

2009-07-23T17:22:00.006-05:00

The Ryan-DeLauro abortion reduction bill was introduced in the House today. The bill is being pushed hard by White House Priest Corps members Joel Hunter and Jim Wallis, among others, and it looks likely that the administration will support the bill's approach, despite objections related to contraception and sex education.Tony Perkins is less than impressed. Kristin Williams takes the attacks on

OMG I luv א!!!

2009-07-20T08:50:00.000-05:00

This is pretty cool: the Codex Sinaiticus is online. Good writeup by Paul Vallely.

Bishop Wright on what the Bible actually has to say about women's leadership

2009-07-17T08:43:00.000-05:00

Via Allan R. Bevere: N.T. Wright, nobody's liberal, makes the biblical case for women's ordination:

Sen. Sanders: Anyone want to get rid of the VA? I didn't think so.

2009-07-16T08:40:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed this bit from Bernie Sanders. Complete w/ a nonsensical interjection from Sen. McCain....