Worth Reading
For our Friday edition, I’d like to provide links to some articles found online that you may have missed. In particular, the first one is particularly moving and instructive. The writer speaks eloquently about deep spiritual needs, but has no one to guide her. I would guess she is representative of people you know who are good at hiding their pain and keep up walls of protection around themselves. They don’t know who to trust and, for various reasons, mistrust Christianity in general. Yet the Lord Jesus has the answers they are desperately looking for! Perhaps as you read the article, you might think of some way to speak to someone you know in such a way as to gain a hearing for the gospel.
I still remember freshman orientation, when the Office of Student Life had us all bond with our entryways by sending us on a dorky scavenger hunt through Harvard’s plethora of campus resources, from the Bureau of Study Counsel to the Office of Career Services to Room 13. In the Women’s Center, my friends and I giggled awkwardly at the rainbow condoms and joked about a brochure entitled “Pregnant At Harvard?” I never dreamed that it would be relevant to my life. And yet two and a half years later, I walked sobbing out of a clinic in Boston after having an abortion.
And on other topics of interest…
Unfortunately, the answer is no. Studies show that if you watch a film — even one concerning historical events about which you are informed — your beliefs may be reshaped by “facts” that are not factual.
In January 1969, two quarterbacks played against each other in Super Bowl III. Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath were both superstars. They were both from Western Pennsylvania, but they came from different cultural universes. Unitas was reticent, workmanlike and deliberately unglamorous. Namath was flashy and a playboy. He turned himself into a marketing brand and wrote a memoir jokingly called, “I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow ’Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day.”
The contrast between these two men symbolizes a broader shift from a culture of self-effacement, which says, “I’m no better than anybody else and nobody is better than me,” to a culture of self-expression, which says, “Look at what I’ve accomplished. I’m special.”
Taboo, fear, and religious fundamentalists
Do religious fundamentalists react differently than non-fundamentalists to taboo images and words? Larry W. Bates and colleagues tried to find out.
I hope you find these of interest. Have a blessed weekend and a great Lord’s Day!
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.