JESUS AND HIS DEATHScot McKnight has a new blog to go with his new book, Jesus and His Death. I haven't seen the book, yet, but as one who thinks that penal substitutionary atonement theory has been way over-emphasized in evangelicalism, I suspect that I will find it of interest. However, this nearly 600 page tome lists for $60 (Amazon comes in at $33). And I'll have to lift weights for a few weeks before trying to pick it up. So it might be awhile before I can get around to it. Scot, what were you thinking? :-)
AFRICAN WATERING HOLE
National Geographic has a webcam of a Botswana watering hole called Pete's Pond. Last evening I saw a black-backed jackal, an ostrich, a bushbuck, and probably a thousand different birds. Even when you can't see any animals or birds, the audiofeed is fascinating.
As Cheryl says, "pretty cool for a generation brought up on filmstrips." I can tell that this is going to become one of my favorite webcams. And I can envision a time when people will have webcams from great places fed to flatscreens on their walls. It will be like looking out the window to see Africa. All it needs is bandwidth.
IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD OVER THERE
The regional legislature in southern Siberia's Kurgan has approved amendments to the imputed tax law that will introduce taxation for religious rituals such as funerals and baptisms...
IM VIRUSES
I spent several hours on Thursday night attempting to purge a virus that had somehow gotten past the protection and implanted itself onto the family computer. It came in through AIM and started sending messages to Betsy's contact list -- multiple times.
This type of virus attack has become a big problem. And the best rule of thumb is never open an attachment or click on a link until you have confirmation that the person who sent it intended to send it. Double check. Don't assume that the message is actually from the person it says it is from.
Likewise, with a lot of text messaging going on through cellphones. The link between IM and your cellphone is tight. Develop a healthy crap detector and be slow to click.
WAL-MART SUPER CENTER
Whether Wal-Mart should be allowed to build one of their superstores in Turlock is a matter of much debate around town (and litigation!). The Turlock Journal has been running an online survey and it seems that currently 59% of the respondents say that Wal-Mart should be allowed to build their mega store.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SWEDES GONE?
A week ago they auctioned off the remnants of Skandi-fest, which ran for 12 years as a celebration of Scandinavian culture. (Scandinavian immigrants played a major role in establishing Turlock and several surrounding communities.) There just were not enough volunteers to keep the Scandinavian ethos alive in Turlock.
Yesterday afternoon I was surveying the craft items that will be for sale at the Covenant Village Craft Faire (today at Cornerstone). And I was struck by the fact that there were not all that many Swedish style crafts for sale this year.
When I first dropped-in on the craft faire nine or ten years ago (or "bazaarr" as they called it back then) they had all kinds of Dala horses and candleholders painted in the distinctive Swedish red. They had Swedish breads and even a Santa Lucia crown, if memory serves me correctly. That's all but gone this year.
Covenant Village is a retirement community owned by the Evangelical Covenant Church. The church has roots in a Swedish awakening that immigrants brought with them to the US. But just as the church has transitioned from being an enclave of Swedish culture, so has the retirement community. Sure there are still a few people who wear their Swedish heritage on their sleeves (and bumper stickers and neck ties) -- but they are now the minority (as evidenced in the craft faire offerings).
And we haven't seen anything yet! Over the past 20 years the denomination has been busy reinventing itself into a broad and diverse group where over 20% of the congregations are non-Caucasiann "ethnic" or "multi-ethnic" in composition. IOW, we can expect that as many of these new people enter retirement, and as the non-Swedes from the local community join them, the Covenant Village Craft Faires of the future will have an even broader feel. I'm thinkin' that there will even be a mariachi band or two playing in the background.
2 comments:
Well, Brad, you've provoked me into writing. Actually, you are doing a nice sales job we call exaggeration. The book sells retail at 49.95 and not 60 bucks, so the sale at Amazon at 33 dollars looks even better.
It was originally at 60 dollars, though, and then the publisher found a way to reduce the font size so the book would not be 600 pages and just 500!
Now, what was I thinking? That is very hard to persuade historical Jesus scholars that Jesus thought his death was atoning, and that the rest of the NT does, but that the rest of the NT raises atonement issues all over the place and how -- this is what I was thinking -- could I say anything about this without involving myself in hundreds of debates.
What you will be even more interested in is that this winter I'll be writing a more popular level book on the atonement for Abingdon.
The Baylor University Press is trying to sell it at $59.95 and they still think it's 590 pages. I suppose everything gets smaller when it leaves Texas anyway.
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