All posts by Phil

Non-fiction, Religion

Standing with the Oppressed

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There is beauty in this land, but I don't always feel it.

The growing pains in the Evangelical church today are in America’s race problem and the issues of social justice. I heard a pastor this year say Jesus’ message was largely one of social justice, and if I hear that term with political ears, I reject it. If I hear “social justice” and think “social gospel” and all the bad theology that has been woven into that, then I can’t help but reject it, but if I understand “social justice” to mean loving one’s neighbor, then I can accept it, maybe not as my primary choice of words, but as an understandable choice.

Believers today need to come to grips with the particulars of loving our neighbors, rejecting the political hostility and individualism that may feel natural to us. How much has personal comfort (ignoring real sacrifice) become our standard for judging God’s will for our lives?

A few days ago, a pastor in my denomination and his daughter were arrested for demonstrating in the St. Louis metro area on the anniversary of the shooting of Mike Brown. I believe he was trying get a petition heard by a federal marshall. They were arrested for obstructing entrances that were already obstructed by official barricades. They talk about it with Jamar Tisby here. This is moving. I encourage you to listen to this.

Fiction

Trash Planet Vacation, a WALL-E Draft

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Early drafts of Pixar’s wonderful movie WALL-E were very different from the final film. The key robot wasn’t playing Hello, Dolly everywhere, but “leading a Spartacus-like robot revolution.”  There was a Planet of the Apes vibe to the storyline, and the writers hoped to make the entire film dialogue free. For a time, they threw around alternative titles, like Trash Planet, but eventually they worked a fix for their original title and along with it, a better story.

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Bookselling, Publishing, Reading

I See a Future for You in Audiobooks

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Loren Eaton offers three reasons for new and established authors to have their work recorded into audiobooks.

“Most audiobook listeners are affluent professionals with plenty of time available during their commutes, and such availability is reflected in the sales numbers. A recent report from the American Association of Publishers shows that downloadable audiobooks are the industry’s fastest-growing segment.”

earphone fish

Commuters are a growing demographic for audiobooks.

 

Non-fiction, Religion

Undercurrents of Conflict in Nigeria

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A hundred years ago, it seemed obvious that the whole region was naturally destined to be Muslim, and little attention needed to be paid to the uncivilized and illiterate animists of the south and east. History was clearly moving in an Islamic direction. By the end of the 20th century, though, growth, progress, and wealth were badges of the emerging Christian Nigeria, and aggressive evangelism even threatened to make inroads into the Islamic heartland. Muslims still dominated the government and especially the armed forces—another legacy of the British colonial preference for that faith. But how long could that political dominance continue?

Philip Jenkins reviews the book Boko Haram: Nigeria’s Islamist Insurgency by Virginia Comolli.

“In her introduction,” he writes, “Comolli makes the telling point that the social contract on which government is based is thoroughly broken in Nigeria. People give up certain rights to governments in exchange for protection and security, gifts that have been so obviously lacking for decades.”

While there are religious undercurrents throughout the country, Boko Haram is gaining both religious and civil ground in some ways, losing it in others. Nigeria hasn’t yet seen a civil war grounded in religious conflict, but much of the conflict it has seen has been helped along by spiritual hopes and fears.

On the Road to Abuja

Religion

Handling Ministry Failure

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Pastor Joshua Wilson writes about losing a church plant. “I believe the Spirit prepared me for the church’s demise, and gave great comfort as this season in our lives came to an end. However, I was already plagued by a thought that would not be easy to erase: I had failed.”

What do you do when, despite your best efforts, your ministry fails? “What happens when you put your hand to the plow,” he asks, “but the visible outcome of what you do is meager or nonexistent?”

Empty Pews

Authors, Fiction, Non-fiction

Flannery O’Connor’s Prayer

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Flannery O'Connor and peacock
What did Flannery O’Connor pray for? To be guided toward the right people.

The Georgia Center for the Book has O’Connor’s prayer journal on the list of books all Georgians should read. The list for adults started in 2002. The Center’s coordinators started with a list of 25 books. They now add ten new books to the list each year. See all of their selections here.

Regarding the prayer journal, Betsy Childs describes it, saying, “O’Connor wasn’t a writer sitting at her typewriter crafting prayers; she was a girl pouring out her heart in longhand.”

As a small example, the young Georgia woman, while in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1946, prayed, “I dread, Oh Lord, losing my faith. My mind is not strong. It is a prey to all sorts of intellectual quackery.”

If only all Georgians would follow her Lord and heed this warning.

Non-fiction

Life in Finland, Russian Neighbor

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Last year, writer Sofi Oksanen opened her talk at the PEN World Voices Festival with “I bring greetings from the bordering countries to Russia.” Her topic was the ever-present threat Russia poses to her country.

Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland. To a casual visitor, it seems like yet another Western European country, a placid paradise with its abundance of bicycles, its obsession with its own mid-twentieth-century design, and stores that close punctually at six in the evening. The Finns feel otherwise. When they go to neighboring Sweden, they say they are “going to Europe.” As it happens, neither country is a member of NATO, but only Finland has a long land border with Russia—and a living memory of having been invaded by the Soviet Union.

(via Prufrock)

Blogs, Socials

Don’t Interrupt Me

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Who first said, “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it”? Is it an old Chinese proverb or more recent American maxim?

The Quote Investigator works it over and decides he doesn’t know, but there’s this:

One instance appeared on March 7, 1903 in a periodical called “The Public” based in Chicago, Illinois. An acknowledgment to the humor magazine “Puck” was appended.

Things move along so rapidly nowadays that people saying: “It can’t be done,” are always being interrupted by somebody doing it.—Puck.

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Are K-Cups Old Hat Now?

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Day 161: The Chai Latte K-Cup.Quarterly earnings for Keurig Green Mountain are “disastrously bad,” according to this week’s reports, and with consumer complaints about the price of a Keurig 2.0 and its rejection of off-brand coffee pods, analysts are wondering if the single-serve coffee craze is over.

If you haven’t heard, the latest Keurig coffee machine, released last summer, was designed with a scanner in order to detect whether you were using Keurig-brand coffee pods or off-brand pods. If you were trying to save money by using cheaper, off-brand pods, the machine would say, “Oops! This pod was made in North Korea and will probably kill you, or worse, insult your palate. Throw it out, fool! Use only Keurig Brand coffee pods with coffee as fresh as if Moses, standing on Mt. Sinai, ground it himself.” Not only did the new machine of coffee magic reject off-brand pods, it also rejected K-cups that didn’t have the special Incan runes on the label.

Coffee drinkers found this design feature unhelpful and began to complain. Some joined a resistant movement to take back their freedom of brewing.

But these may not be the only reasons for the company’s earnings report slump. In a partnership with Coca-Cola, Keurig will soon release a single serve soda-pop machine that will cost way more than even a single can from an amusement park vending machine (if that’s possible). I’ve heard New York City has already taken steps to ban it. In a world that is decreasingly buying cokes (that’s what we call them in the South), who will want a custom coke machine in their man cave when they can have a fridge-full of craft beer for less.

Or water, which is what I’d ask for.