Five Favorites

I thought I would change up how I link to other blogs and articles at the end of the week - I read so many that to link to all that I found interesting would just be too many. Instead, I have decided to give you my five favorite of the week.

As always, just because I link to a blog (or retweet) does not mean I necessarily agree with it - just that I found it interesting. So, in no particular order -

1. "Who Are You Sleeping With? (Sex at Evangelical Colleges)" from the Save OBU (Oklahoma Baptist University) blog. Jacob Lupfer writes about the sexual pressures of being a Christian, young adult - including a aspect of that topic that I am very interested in, when Evangelicals get married very young in order to have church approved sexual relationships.

2. Rachel Held Evans wrote "Why Progressive Christians Should Care About Abortion." For so many on both sides of the debate it is a black and white issue. Held Evans does a good job, as usual, of combing her personal experience and well-sourced arguments to encourage the reader to fully consider what their position means.

3. One of the main problems I have with Evangelical Christianity is that believers of this brand of faith often believe things with little to no understanding of why they believe them. Often, either a sermon or teaching has a certain emotional appeal that they buy into, or enough repetition and the teaching is implanted. This is not unique to Evangelicalism, but certainly one of its pitfalls. Since most people do not have the vocabulary to have a "theological" discussion in the academic sense, a post like, "You Don't Have a One-Track Mind; Why Would God?" by blogger "MMCKINNISS," does a good job of challenging a belief of how God perceives time. By foregoing the bulky language of academic theology in favor of an analogy, "MMCKINNIS" makes his ideas accessible to all.

4. It is no surprise that I really like Zack Hunt's "The American Jesus" blog. One post this week addresses how to treat people who don't profess a Christian faith, but has all of the characteristics of what a Christian person is expected to have. "What Do We Do With Non-Christians Who Act Like Christians?" is a little longer but worth the read.

5. I'll end this week's Five Favorites with a lighter post from Tony Jones at Theoblogy. He posted a picture of a fourth grade science exam from a Christian school in South Carolina and used it to start a discussion about how to talk to children about science and faith. Plus, if you saw last week, I have an affinity for pictures of Jesus with dinosaurs and he ends his post with one.

Did I miss a blog or article that you found particularly interesting? Leave it in the comments.

Call Me Spider-Man Because I'm Swinging on the Interwebs

Here's the stuff I've been reading this week:

Cruising around Patheos I found this blog about Christianity and Pop Culture. As a fan of metal music, this post hooked me - follow author Matthew Linder on Twitter.

Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus killed it this week:

• An Angry God vs. A God Who Gets Angry, (and this HuffPost Religion piece about the correlation between the belief in an angry God and emotional problems)
• This quote by Thomas Jefferson about John Calvin, and
• This picture of Jesus bringing his A-game which could only be better if it was a GIF.

Rachel Held Evans wrote about making humor work.

SUNDAY UPDATE: This post by Christian Piatt about about religion and race really struck me - especially this quote:

"Put another way: while we’re busy navel-gazing and discussing the meaning of Nietzsche’s 'death of God,' non-Anglo religious leaders were busy dealing with real-world problems, right in front of them."

Also, this CNN Belief Blog piece about when religion becomes evil was an interesting read.

Finally, Jen Hatmaker wrote about when it's time to cut people who are toxic to your life loose.

Upcoming this week, I am working on a longer piece and won't be posting every day. Thanks for checking in.

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