Random

> HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY. My valentine and I will be having lunch together at our favorite Indian restaurant to celebrate.

> "THE GENESIS of World Islamic Christianity" -- Duane Miller of Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary, explores why a record number of Muslims are becoming followers of Christ. ~ link

> SOME PEOPLE are asking me how to grow pineapples using the crowns from store-bought fruit. This website does a good job of stepping people through the process. It's not hard. (Our pineapple losses this year were related to the unusually hard frost a couple of weeks ago. Since our pineapples are in the ground we could not move them inside.)

> MARTIN MARTY, interpreting the revolution in Egypt, nuances the word "secular":

Critics ask: What’s so good about “secular,” whether in Egypt and the Muslim world or in America and the Western-influenced Christian or “Judeo-Christian” world? Not everything by any means is “good.” The “secular” can turn ideological, as in “secularism.” It can represent a beliefless, soulless spiritual landscape that leaves whole publics in the shallows. The downsides are obvious, but . . . 

If Europe and North America are turning ever more secular, it is not just because governments are not legally privileging religion. The zones of voluntary expression in life within these spheres are enormous, and the freedom to make use of religious symbols and arguments is almost limitless in those zones. “Secular” in the legal sphere can be liberating. The downgrading of the “religious” in the secular-turning orbits, be it noted, results chiefly from indifference, distraction, spiritual laziness, or godless free choice by citizens. Fearful as we are that Egypt in its post-revolution might turn officially “religious,” one hopes that it can become “secular,” in ways we were intended to be. ~ link

Might it be that we need two different words? There is the kind of secularism that aims to be neutral of sectarian endorsement. And then there is the kind of secularism that aims to be indifferent to religion at its best and anti-sectarian at its worst.