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Taking It to the Streets

From First Thoughts

Mark Chaves , professor of sociology at Duke University and director of the National Congregations Study, has this interesting chart detailing how broadly defined Christian groups engage politically. (Full disclosure: Mark and I went to high school together. In fact, I was briefly a really bad . . . . Continue Reading »

Hitler and the Shroud

From First Thoughts

So fearing that Adolf Hitler would steal the Shroud of Turin, the purported burial cloth of Jesus, both “the Vatican and the Italian royal family, the Savoys, who were the guardians and owners of the shroud,” had it secretly transported south, to Campania, lest the little Fuhrer add it to . . . . Continue Reading »

He Alone Died

From First Thoughts

On Palm Sunday, Pastor Brian Hamer delivered as theology-rich a sermon as I have ever heard, so much so that I requested a written copy—while he was still delivering it. (Apologies to the other congregants.) Among the many interesting points made in his homily, a couple particularly stood out . . . . Continue Reading »

Catch The Last Station

From First Thoughts

There was a time that the death of a great artist was a time of national mourning, when even those inhabiting the lowest social stratum shed tears for one who had given voice to their nation’s hopes, aspirations, and perceived nobility. When Giuseppe Verdi kicked, a concourse of hoi polloi . . . . Continue Reading »

You Can’t Handle the Truth

From First Thoughts

No, that’s not one of my all-time favorite movie lines. Those are listed below. But it is one of the Top 100 movie quotes of all time as determined by—well, I’ll let them tell it: AFI distributed a ballot with 400 nominated movie quotes to a jury of over 1,500 leaders from the . . . . Continue Reading »

Once More, With Feeling

From First Thoughts

So Philip Pullman, he of The Golden Compass , is preparing to disgorge The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ into an Amazon shopping cart near you. It seems that Pullman’s contribution to something called the “Myth Series” is the earth-rending idea that there was a historical . . . . Continue Reading »

We Are Michael Spencer

From First Thoughts

So, like many in the Christian blogosphere, I’ve been a regular reader of Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk and Boar’s Head Tavern blogs for years, my clicking those links with an obsessive-compulsive fury. And although BHT is a group blog, it was inevitably Michael’s . . . . Continue Reading »

We Are Michael Spencer

From First Thoughts

[Note: Cross-posted from First Thoughts.]So, like many in the Christian blogosphere, I’ve been a regular reader of Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk and Boar’s Head Tavern blogs for years, my clicking those links with an obsessive-compulsive fury. And although BHT is a group blog, it . . . . Continue Reading »