Disturbingly brilliant

Tell me what you think.

For fear of being phobic

This is a top post from a good friend about assumptions on how Christians and progressive social groups must relate in the public sphere.

It's been sparked by the recent controversy and counter-controversy of Adshel's decision to take down posters from the Rip & Roll campaign, and its subsequent decision to reinstate the posters. The decisions were made in response to public outcry and then to the public outcry to the public outcry.

Very helpful.

As for the poster itself, I have to say it's not particularly racy compared to most heterosexual stuff on billboards. That said, those protesting against the Rip & Roll ads are also campaigning against the heterosexual racy stuff so some of the charges of hypocrisy are poorly aimed. It's just that they've been less 'successful' in those campaigns. Probably due to the dollars behind them, I suspect.

Parental units

Thought this article discussing the responsibility of parents in resisting the sexualisation of pre-teen fashion for girls was tops.

Are you serious?

I just can't believe this. Sure, corporal punishment by anyone other than a family member isn't on, but this?

Under the draft version of the Educational and Care Services National Act, you can no longer separate a child from the body of the group.

Supervisors must "ensure that a child being educated and cared for by the service is not separated from other children for any reason other than illness or an accident", the regulations state.

Wow. Are we so evil that we are unable to conceive of power ever being used for the good of children but only to abuse them?

Guess so.

From John 9

Sin didn't cause the man to be born blind. But sin does cause blindness.

It's like putting on glasses with someone else's prescription and paint stains on them. The information coming in via photons of light is correct, but it gets distorted on its way in. 'The Jews' didn't reject Jesus because of poor education or lack of information. Their sinful heart distorted how they saw things. In their sin they decided they were good.

No thanks Jesus, I can see quite fine without you. I don't need your light. I don't need anyone to teach me.

Yet the man born blind...

Do you believe in the Son of Man?

I don't know Jesus. No idea. But you've opened my eyes. You tell me what to believe, and I'll believe it. What should I believe? Who do I believe in?

I want the faith of a man born blind.

Snippets from Rob Bell's interview

In response to the question "Is heaven a real place?", Rob Bell says that it is. He does on to discuss the peace that a dying man had in his final moments as his body is about to give out, and describes his experience of being with that man as 'rubbing up against' the reality of heaven.

He essentially says (about as close as he ever seems to go to actually saying anything concretely) that heaven is a reality that is experienced by humans in the here and now. That man's peace as his body was about to give out, was him being in heaven.

Of Jesus, he says:

As opposed to 'how do we get there?', his interest is more about 'how do we get 'there' to be here?'.

A bold typeface

Thought various members of the Campbell and Richardson families would like this:

Story magazine nearly foundered for a lack of Ws. The publishers, Whit Burnett and Martha Foley, lived on Majorca, and their Spanish printer’s character set could not accommodate their English prose.

They bought some supplementary Ws from a Madrid foundry, but the new type was distractingly sharp on the page. So the printer advised them to “make those new letters old.”

“We sandpapered those Ws,” wrote Foley, “we stamped on them, we hammered them and hurled them around to give them in an hour all the wear and tear the printer’s other type had endured for many years. We finally subdued them so that they lost most of their prominence. But I have been W-conscious ever since.”

Courtesy of the futility closet.