Missing two leaflets… When you imagine the expansion of Christianity, where is the geographical center in AD400? …600? …800? Most of us imagine a straight line – from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean to Europe. But Christianity from its earliest days blossomed like a three-leaf clover, expanding first into Asia and Africa before Europe. The Asian…
Flanking strategy… Darwin might be 2009’s debate du jour. This year is the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of the Species and there will be plenty of Christians attacking Darwin. What if we instead adopted a flanking strategy, just as Darwin did after he published Origin? He explained familiar experiences, but I bet we…
Occupational hazard One way to learn if you have halitosis is to get hitched. I was blissfully unaware of my morning mouth until I got married. Scientists say we don’t smell our own breath odor due to a biological process called habituation – we become comfy with our bad breath but can’t bear bad breath…
Slithering and sinister The stories of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Jesus’ birth originally featured slithering princes. Snow White’s prince slipped in and locked himself away with her dead body. The prince in Sleeping Beauty slithered in while she slept and got her pregnant. The prince in the Christmas story, however, was a darker, more…
Waiting in the wings… Lee Iacocca guessed that Ford would sell 100,000 Mustangs in the first year of production. They sold over 100,000 in the first four months. Yet the 1965 Mustang wouldn’t have changed the auto industry without two improvements that were waiting in the wings. This is a story of what faith communities…
Fanciful thinking… When Tom Clancy’s fictional character Jack Ryan became President of the US, he learned how little he could change. If Barack Obama pushes for a college football playoff, he’ll learn that talk of changing the BCS is closer to BS. The Bowl Championship Series is a story about the power of culture –…
Fanciful thinking… When Tom Clancy’s fictional character Jack Ryan became President of the US, he learned how little he could change. If Barack Obama pushes for a college football playoff, he’ll learn that talk of changing the BCS is closer to BS. The Bowl Championship Series is a story about the power of culture –…
Streetwise people… Faith communities aiming to change the world ought to pay attention to how streetwise people are doing it. For instance, look at three reasons the Democrats did so well in the recent 2008 elections. Then consider how they apply to us.
Treated Like Tofu “You cut the toikey without me?!?” This scene in Avalon should spark a question: why was turkey being served at all? The first Thanksgiving feast probably didn’t include it. What changed between 1621 and today? The tale of how turkey became a Thanksgiving tradition is a story of how cultures change –…
Sniggering… The oysters in the Chesapeake Bay could once filter the entire Bay (about 19 trillion gallons of water) in a week. Today, it would take the remaining oysters more than a year. Replacing oysters alleviates some of the harm, but it ultimately won’t renew the Bay. The solution is upstream – as it is…