guest post

At the invitation of my friend and fellow blogger Mac Ice, I submitted a post for his “First Reads” series dealing with non-institutional Churches of Christ.  You can read and comment on the results here.

Enjoy!

thursday afternoon, waiting to go home

I have read some truly awful media coverage of and pundit reaction to the public meltdown of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford over the past couple of days.  And then I came across this.  Grace appears from the least expected quarters.

An excerpt:

The minute Sanford started speaking, the reviews poured in via e-mail and Twitter. He was rambling, confused. He didn’t tear up enough when talking about his wife. He favored his mistress. He answered the questions too thoroughly. All these judgments seemed absurd. A man standing in front of a bank of cameras in the middle of a complete collapse is going to say a lot of things poorly.

The snap judgments failed to acknowledge a grain of the fundamental human carnage we were witnessing. You can laugh at Sanford, as you can laugh at a video of a wrecked Amy Winehouse falling all over her house. But at some point, even though they did it to themselves, you have to feel sorry for them as human beings. You can do that, I think, and not be a fan of adultery or drug use.

Feel free to discuss in the comment thread, but this is probably all I’m going to say on the situation.

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In other news, I just read (last night) John Mark Hicks’ new essay, “The Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ (1897-1907): Hoosiers, Volunteers and Longhorns,” which he blogs about today.  (The essay was included in the Gedenkschrift for Michael Casey.  You can find a link to the whole thing here.)  I hope to have a brief review posted in the next couple of days.

update

The sweltering heat makes doing much of anything a chore these days, blogging included.  I am still reading: I just completed James Summerville’s well told account of the November 1908 shooting of Tennessee Senator Edward Ward Carmack and began Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory, the most succinct account of the topic available.

I’ll be back in coming days with more links and reflections thereupon.

buffaloes

The streetscaping project along Dickerson Pike — the western boundary of our neighborhood — is nearing completion.  The Tennessean had a nice piece about the project today.  There are lots of pictures of the buffalo statues (to be unveiled tomorrow morning, by the way) here.

today’s book haul

Well, I’m out sick again today.  I woke up last night with an earache.  After a visit to a clinic, it was determined that I have a sinus infection and an ear infection.  Antibiotics, here we come!

But I will not be deterred.  I paid a visit today to one of my all-time favorite bookstores, Elder’s here in Nashville, with squirreled away Christmas cash and a gift certificate in hand.  The last time I was in several months ago, a copy of Moses Lard’s 1857 review of Jeremiah Jeter’s Campbellism Examined, was calling to me from the shelf.  I didn’t buy it then, and it wasn’t there this time.  Even so, I was not disappointed.  Here’s what I came away with:

1) A copy of the 1837 debate between Alexander Campbell and John B. Purcell, Roman Catholic Bishop of Cincinnati.  Campbell’s debates are next to impossible to find, so I jumped at this one.  The edition I purchased today is a 1914 McQuiddy Printing Company reprint that is in excellent shape.

2) Two volumes from the College Press “Restoration Reprint Library”:

-one volume containing Robert Milligan’s 1863 Brief Treatise on Prayer and Robert Richardson’s Communings in the Sanctuary.  I already have a copy of New Leaf’s reprint of Richardson, but after reading Milligan on prayer some months ago (especially on prayer posture) I wanted to add this to my library.

-another volume containing J.B. Rotherham’s Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1906) and Ashley S. Johnson’s Thirteen Expository Sermons on the Book of Hebrews (1896).  Rotherham was one of the brightest minds of the British Churches of Christ.  His book on the Lord’s Supper, Let Us Keep the Feast, is one of the best to come out of the Stone-Campbell Movement.  Johnson was the president of the School of the Evangelists from 1893-1925 (now Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, affiliated with the independent Christian Churches).

3) Lastly, on a totally different note, Peter Taylor’s A Summons to Memphis, which won the Pulitzer Prize for 1987.

off topic

I don’t normally deal with these sorts of issues on this blog, but here it is.  You may recall that there was some controversy recently over President Obama’s decision to send a wreath to the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.  Huffington Post a couple of days ago carried the address made at the wreath-laying ceremony by Ron Maxwell, director of Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, among others.  It is a moving tribute to, among others, Moses Ezekiel, sculptor of the monument.  It’s also a really nice reminder that there is no virtue, to paraphrase Eugene Genovese, in spitting on the graves of one’s ancestors.  Go read the whole thing.

miscellaneous linkage for monday morning

I’m out sick today with a pretty bad sinus headache.  The girls are sick too.

Nevertheless, I thought I would send you over to a few items of interest from the past few days.

Slate.com has a discussion about lard.  I always suspected that natural fat was better for you than artificial fat.  It seems as though others are coming to this conclusion.

A couple of excerpts:

Lard has clearly won the health debate. Shortening, the synthetic substitute foisted on this country over the last century, has proven to be a much bigger health hazard because it contains trans fats, the bugaboo du jour…

What matters more, though, is that lard has become the right ingredient at the right time. It fits perfectly into the Michael Pollan crusade to promote foods that have been processed as minimally as possible: Your great-grandmother surely cooked with it, so you should, too.

A piece on the “hook-up” from NPR this morning.   For those of you who teach teenagers, college students and 20 somethings, this is probably worth your time.  Also included is a chart that points out that the marrying age in this country is on the rise.  I would be interested to know how this compares to marrying age among Christians.  Should we be advocating a delay in marrying age in the current sexual climate?

Finally, “Spengler” (First Things associate editor Daniel Goldman) on Dan Brown’s ecclesiastical pornography.  And, no, I haven’t seen Angels and Demons and, frankly, have no intention of doing so.

My class on 1 Timothy 2.8-15 is coming up on Wednesday night.  Remember me in your prayers.

unbelievable

Have you heard about the new American Patriot’s Bible?  According to the ad campaign, “Never has a version of the Bible targeted the spiritual needs of those who love our country more than The American Patriot’s Bible. This extremely unique Bible shows how the history of the United States connects the people and events of the Bible to our lives in a modern world.”  Does anyone know what that means?

Anyway, here’s a link to a promo video put out by the publishers.  You’ll laugh!  You’ll cry! You’ll wince!

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On a happier note, if you haven’t in a while, go check out Shane Scott’s new blog (format, that is).  Shane is the minister for the Woodland Hills Church here in Nashville.

after america

This month’s Foreign Policy carries an excerpt from a new book titled After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age.  Looks like an interesting read.

a query

Well, I’m back to work this week and back to preparation for teaching a class on 1 Timothy 2.8-15.  With that in mind, here’s a question for all of you:

Who do you think does a good job with this passage (commentaries, articles, books, sermons)?  I’m trying to read as broadly as possible before putting together my presentation.  Also, what are your own thoughts?  Let me know in the comment thread.