Some excerpts from blog posts you should check out:
“But at the big church, there is art everywhere. A painter in the front. A sculptor in the back. Scraps of paper and the smell of vinegar and video clips strung together like the most delicate collage work.”
“It is tangible and different and it moves through me in a different way, finds the soft places in my hard heart. Makes it all the way in.”
“And what I want to say to my pastor, to all pastors, is this: Ask your artists.”
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“But here’s what my mom told me about fear – You go after it with whatever tools you have, and you don’t let it best you. For me, the trick is to acknowledge the fear and then call on the tools I have to cover me while I write – the kind words people have said about my writing, the publications in my name, the strong sense of peace that comes over me when I put down words.”
* * * * *
“I forget that sometimes. Or I try to forget it, at least. Frankly, I like to be in control. I like to think I’m managing this tenuous writing career; I like to pretend that I’m making this all happen on my own. I like to imagine that if I work hard enough and push long enough, I can make a book deal happen.”
* * * * *
“I used to hear that “Happy All the Time” song constantly. It was on a children’s music CD we played for Elli. I must have been too exhausted or distracted before, because I don’t remember being appalled before.”
“Jesus makes me happy all the time? Who wrote this? In what alternate universe did they live? How insidious and disgusting to fashion this lie into a catchy action-packed children’s song?”
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The fact that the Bible lends itself to competing interpretations should be cause for celebration rather than dismay, for these competing interpretations among people of faith who love and value Scripture help bring us into relationship with one another and with God. They bring us into conversation. They remind us that faith isn’t simply about believing something in isolation, but about being part of a community.
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Burke is particularly irked by the inclusion of Rachel Held Evans in Christianity Today’s list. Well, at first he just seems irked, but then when you read through his own comments in the long thread for his post it’s clear he’s not so much angry as afraid.