Hey I just switched to the updated version of the WordPress theme I’ve been using for a while. Little things are different like the header images are a few pixels thinner (I like that change) and little frames are around every image (I’m still warming up to that one). If you see any other weird formatting things I’m missing, or something is messed up, please let me know.
Month: August 2012
A Note to All Philadelphians: you CAN beat the Parking Authority
There are few city institutions in this country more hated than the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Despite the name, they are the private organization on contract with the city to manage parking in the city. They make the laws, set the rates, set the penalties, enforce them, and have a financial incentive to making you fail at being a responsible parker in Philly. It’s understood that parking tickets will be a regular part of life in Philly. The PPA is the primary subject in A&E’s show Parking Wars, and their relentlessness and lack of empathy is so bad, that it’s had an effect on local tourism.
They call themselves the most efficient parking authority in the country, but had to be forced to follow-through on the requirement for them to give their profits to the public school system in Philly (they did this by claiming that they were suddenly “no longer profitable”, even as they kept more than a quarter of their profits in reserve bank accounts). Since then, they’ve been forced to reform a bit, but they continue to directly ignore recent court requirements that attempt increase their fairness, because, as is known, the appeals process is extremely problematic and confusing. So are the signs (just look at that one above)!
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Leonardo diCaprio & Kirk Cameron: BFFs (Laugh of the Day) [casual fri]
The other day, I wrote a pretty serious and in-depth post on the place of the darker things of this world in art, especially profanities. in the middle of the post, I put two rather intense videos as demonstrations of my point. They were both videos from films depicting serious husband/wife fighting. One was from Kirk Cameron’s “Christian” movie Fireproof, and the other was from the film Revolutionary Road, in which Leonardo diCaprio plays the husband. Adding to the irony, both of these movies came out in the same year.
It wasn’t until later that I was reminded by a friend that these two actually worked together early in their careers, on the TV Show Growing Pains. If you want some weird contrasts that can’t help but make you laugh pretty hard, feel free to re-watch the two clips below, as well as this clip of the two of these guys doing a scene from Growing Pains. In hindsight, it’s pretty hilarious.
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Christians & the Art of Profanities in Art
This post is not a defense of Christians cursing in their everyday lives (I wrote that post a few years ago, though I think at some point I may need to revisit some of what I said there).
This post, rather, is about the merits of Christians creating (or doing) art in which there are profanities (this also has implications on other “worldly” things in art like sex and violence, but they won’t be my main focus today). I’m writing this to prepare some people for the stories I plan on writing for this blog. I talked yesterday about how I’m participating in StoryADay September (Update: I’m done), and hope to post an original, completed fiction story every weekday in September. Concerning that, I wrote:
I will not be doing “Christian art” or “prophetic art” or “evangelistic art” as I write and post here. I will simply be trying to create Beauty in words and character and story in a way that is original, interesting, and stirring. My stories tend to be rooted in reality as much as possible, and so they will probably include “real” things like sadness, violence, sexuality, cursing, or other things that challenge many Christians’ sensibilities. Know this ahead of time.
September, Stories, & Writing (my brain needs a break!)
As anyone that even remotely follows this blog knows, my summer was mainly spent with me teaching a Bible Survey Class at my church (the fruits of which can be found here). I spent roughly 15 to 20 hours a week working on it. As I mentioned last week, I read and read and read to prepare each week for this class. I’d spend the week reading scholarly articles, books, journals, commentaries, etc, and then spend Friday and Saturday writing anywhere from 15 to 35 pages of material for the class. Nearly every week.
I’m exhausted. The analytical side of my brain needs rest. And so, I’m going to take September to spend some time with some stories and fiction. I’m doing this in three main ways:
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My annual beach business trip is here. So what’s changed?
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about how my job was paying me to accompany some clients to the beach at Ocean City, Maryland for the week to help them grow in socialization and relaxation skills. If you remember, I wrote about sex and insanity that week (and that post caused some interesting problems for me later). On the beach reading front, at the time, I posted this picture:
Well, we’re back there again right now, and just yesterday, I found myself taking this picture without much thought:
Haha. I’m ridiculous. But at least I have good taste in over-sized classic books, right?
Debates with Atheists (And Good News for Them)
Recently, a friend sent me a link inviting me to a debate between a prominent evangelical intellectual and a prominent atheist thinker. It made me remember how I used to eat those sorts of things up when I was in college, and I really appreciated this friend sending it, but at this point in my life, I genuinely had no interest whatsoever.
Eventually, you realize that every debate of this sort goes the exact same way. At some point–without fail– there’s comes a moment when the evangelical says something to which the atheist responds with “well, what proof [or “evidence” or “basis” or “reason”] do you have to make such a claim!”, to which the evangelical responds with something like “well, it’s faith” (or something like that).
And then the debate should end. The fool’s errand of these events has been exposed.
hardly my ideal of family life
At the Philadelphia Art Museum yesterday, I ran across this painting by William Winner, called Domestic Felicity, where the artist depicts a “romanticized group portrait of the artist with his family (here’s a clearer version of the picture).” Really? Definitely not my idea of felicitous domesticity. Happy weekend!
Here I am leading a Port Wine tasting with Fluffer-Nutter Sandwiches [VIDEO]
Last night, some of my best friends threw a wine-tasting and food pairing party. Some of the people closest to me presented wine and food pairings that blew my mind. I had no idea that wine could do all of that. It was the perfect way to end a very busy summer.
Above, you will find a video of me presenting my wine and pairing. I led a tasting of a Tawny Port wine and paired it with Fluffer-Nutter sandwiches (my new obsession). I hope you enjoy it and learn some things.
You can see the videos of the other wine-presenters, as well as other highlights of our evening here.
Thanks go to Paul and Natanya Ma for hosting us, and specifically to Paul for taking and posting these videos.
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The Best Bible Resource I’ve Ever Read [casual fri]
To do this Bible Class that has consumed the past few months of my life (and this blog–I swear I’ll stop talking about it soon), I had to read a lot of stuff, including these (as well as their New testament counterparts). I checked out stuff from the Philadelphia library, and watched a bunch of lectures from iTunesU (especially these). I looked through commentaries and websites and articles and handbooks and sermons.
In other words, I at least glanced over a lot.
But there was one resource that I found more helpful, clear, and amazing than any other Bible resource I’ve ever found. No exaggeration. No hyperbole. I’m serious.
It’s a pair of textbooks (one on the Old Testament, one on the New, one combined with both) written by a theologian I had never heard of before. his name is John Drane (here’s his painfully poor-designed website as well). Yes, textbooks. And I read most of the Old Testament one and all of the New Testament one.
Using the Bible to Meet with God
Last week, I asked a bunch of you how you go about using the Bible and the study of its contents to actually nourish your soul and meet with God. I got some great responses both here and on Facebook. This week, I wanted to put up how I ended up approaching this during the class I taught at my church. It’s super short, not very deep, and much more can/should/will be said. For what it is, I hope it’s genuinely helpful and speaks to how we might meet God through the Scriptures.
How do we move from the Facts of the Bible to the God of the Bible? From knowing the Bible, to knowing the Person? From Scripture being informational to formational?
The Meeting Place of God
As I said in the first class I taught, the Bible is not the passive “Revelation of God”. It is the place through which the Holy Spirit actively “reveals God” to us. When it comes to the Bible, we should start thinking more in verbs, not nouns. The Bible is “simply” a meeting place for God and his people, where he might meet them as he desires, by His Spirit.
When we meet God in Scripture, its the convergence of four things: Us and our faith, God and His Spirit.
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The New Old New Atheism of Simon Critchley & Others
I have noticed, recently, especially with the waning influence (or at least presence) of the “New Atheists” in the public square, that there has been a shift in the tack that Atheists have taken against Christianity in the past year or so.
Philosophical movements generally begin in academia, then find themselves trickling down to the masses as those twenty-something college students that were influenced by these academic discussions now move on into the wider world. Both Atheism and Evangelical Christianity generally find themselves one generation behind in these philosophical developments of the world.
So, for example, when the world was just beginning to move on into “post-modernity” (notwithstanding the functional meaninglessness of such terms at this point), it was the heyday of Atheistic and Evangelical evidentiary apologetics, representing firm pre-modernist, Enlightenment thought (on both sides). Arguments centered around the very existence of Jesus, fidelity in translation and transmission, Intelligent Design, and the general historical reliability of the Bible.
Join Us for a Tour of Biblical History at the Penn Museum this Saturday!
As a fitting conclusion to the six-week Bible Survey Class I’ve been teaching at my church, I’ll be leading a tour of The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology of Anthropology, focusing on much of the Biblical History we covered in the class. The museum has a very rich collection of items from the regions and eras in which most all of Biblical History unfolds. We will be following the unfolding storyline of the Bible as we travel to each section, learning the context and the history that set the stage for the faith many of us now call our own.
If you’re interested, meet us at 10am this Saturday, August 25th in the courtyard in front of the main entrance (pictured above). Note: There’s a smaller entrance at street level some may confuse as the main entrance. We will be up the steps where the main fountain is.
The cost is $12 for adults and $8 for students (and well worth the price). The museum is located at 33rd and Spruce (map), right across the South St bridge. (Parking advice: park on the east side of the South St bridge in the Graduate Hospital area and then walk over the bridge). See you there!
Class 6: NT Letters, Revelation, & The Bible in Worship (WE’RE DONE!)
This week was the last week in the six-week Bible Survey class I’m been doing at my church.
It’s been an honor to do this class, and I feel like this last one went especially well. Others seemed to find it genuinely helpful.
We ended our time in this class by talking for a little bit about how we can use the Bible–and all the information we just gleaned these past weeks–in our own, personal, spiritual lives.
To conclude the class, this Saturday we will be going to University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. You really won’t want to miss this. I’ll be putting a post up on this tomorrow.
For those that have followed in class and online, thank you so much for doing so. It was such an honor to be able to do this class, and I can’t believe I was given the time and grace to do it.
I hope that these resources are found to be helpful to those that invest their time into them; and that they draw each of you into a greater knowledge, love, and desire for our God as He meets us in our Scriptures.
And lastly, over the next months, I will be compiling all of these notes, as well as other essays I’ve written on the Bible in the past and self-publishing a book in both print and electronic forms. If you think about it, please pray for me. I’m starting to see that self-publishing is a lot more costly and complicated than I had originally thought.
This Lecture Covers:
- A chronological survey of the contents and background of Paul’s letters
- Discussion of the contents and background of the other letters of the New Testament
- A talk about that crowd-favorite, Revelation. We talked about how it fits into the greater story of Scripture, how it’s often misread, how to properly read it, and it’s contents and background
- How one should approach the Bible to build up their spiritual life
- Practical methods people can employ to know God through the Scriptures
**Side Note: twice in the audio of this lecture, I refer to Galatians and James as books that may each have been the “first book of the Bible written”. I meant to say “New Testament”, not “Bible”. Sorry.**
Download: [Audio] [Notes] Continue reading
according to Klout, everyone’s mom needs to look out for me [casual fri]
As you can see in the screenshot below, according to my profile on Klout, the website that monitors your “influence” online, I am by far more influential about moms than I am any other topic. A while ago, when “crazy home sex” was the main search term leading people to this site, I had a theory. This time, I’m absolutely stumped. Anyone else have any ideas?
the long way home 
