We just came back from a week in California, where we visited the peerless Monterey Bay Aquarium. Conservation is a frequent theme of the aquarium: every exhibit makes some plea to consider how one's personal choices affect the health of the oceans. It's a persuasive appeal in the presence of so many beauties. Why not give up a reliance on ugly plastic bags and bottles if they are hazards to majestic sea turtles and sunfish? The Aquarium's stance isn't merely political. It participates in rehabilitation and care for injured wildlife as well as research. Part of its facilities inhabit an old canning factory and is situated on Cannery Row: a reminder that once upon a time, fishing defined its existence. Conservation became a necessity when overfishing took down an industry. The aquarium doesn't demonize seafood lovers: it passes out fliers listing the seafood choices of Good, Better, Best, and Avoid. (Many of which overlap with the recommendations for pregnant and...
The royal wedding (or sort-of sub-royal) is old news but I want to add my little 2 cents to the non-gushing side of things. Bishop Michael Curry made quite a stir with his sermon. The Americans have been raving about it. I noticed a line featured on the cover the People special wedding edition. It seems that most of the "love" is simply patriotic fervor because Curry is American. There are plenty of churches in America where similar sermons are given -- perhaps with less flair -- with little publicity. Hillsong, for example. I'm pretty sure that exact sermon gets trotted out every so often. Maybe Bieber finds it inspiring. It should be noted that Bishop Curry smooshed together all the various kinds of love into one amorphous mass. He spun the Song of Songs as puppy love; it had as much depth as a Beatles song but four times as long. It had little in common with the mighty unquenchable love that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of. He did happen to mention Jesus. There...
We've just marked Easter -- or rather, we've just entered Easter season which culminates in Ascension Day on May 10th. Apologetics on the necessity of Christ's gruesome death and the certainty and reasonableness of His Resurrection are a regular this time of year. And so I would like to remark on the elegance and vigor of Christian apologetics. Randy Newman spoke about evangelism and apologetics to our church a little while ago and my husband speedily bought his book, "Questioning Evangelism." Newman makes the case for a more Socratic approach to evangelism rather than the traditional Grab Them by the Collar and Give Them Hell, Buy Now! sales pitch. I'm very adverse to the latter. For one thing, it's generally too wrote. For another, it would require a personality change and I think those are harder to come by than sex changes, even in this age of redefinition. One hears over and over of atheists growing up in religious households where asking Why? ...
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