Random

✽ Ray Stevens is helping feed the irrational fear and suspicion. Is an impoverish Mexican man sneaking across the border looking for a job as a bus boy the same as the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor? Do the USS Arizona survivors agree with this kind of association and logic? Whatever happened to Everything is Beautiful?

✽ Jay Phelan says it well:

The presence of Muslims or Hindus or any other religious tradition in a given area is no threat to the churches of Jesus Christ. These varied traditions can bring out the best in the church by forcing it to identify differences and challenges and pursue new ways of witness and welcome. I would suggest that the fact that most Muslim countries marginalize the Christian Church it or keep it out entirely is a sign that Muslims fear Christian witness and lack confidence in their own tradition and own people. Does the Christian Church in the United States really want to follow the same path? I think not. We have nothing to fear from the “competition” of Muslims. Rather than protesting the mosques, we should welcome them with open arms, with the compassion and generosity of Christ, and with genuine love. I find anti-Mulsim sentiments among Christians extraordinarily repugnant and terribly sad. ~ link

✽ Seth Godin on the impact of slow -- "Smoking killed far more people than terrorists ever did. It's just not as dramatic." ~ link

✽ "China accounts for 40% of the debris in orbit around the earth, followed by the U.S. and Russia, who contributed roughly a quarter each, according to the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos." ~ WSJ

✽ "The Cool Church"? -- Apparently, they didn't come up with the name themselves -- but ran with what people in the community were saying. I'm not sure that's something I'd run with but I don't know because no one has ever accused me of being cool. ~ link

✽ Some churches just don't get it. But some churches get it well.

✽ Glad to see Jim and Cathy Stanley-Erickson so warmly welcomed into their new community. ~ link