Pass-The_ Ball...

Saturday, October 18, 2014

A Difficult Conversation About Hatred and Race -Danielle Pennel

We were at a local swimming pool and saw a Caucasian man with a tattoo that read, “Love My Race” across his chest and another down his spine that read, “Hittler” (yes, this is how it was spelled). My sister-in-law and I were talking about how disgusting we thought that man was, when my son overheard us. A few minutes later he asked why those tattoos made me so upset. -

http://www.adoptivefamiliescircle.com/blogs/post/difficult-conversation-about-racism-and-hatred/

Yes, We Do Adopt

Talking with Black women about adoption became a routine part of motherhood for me, alongside diapers, homework, and the warmth I feel every time I look at my son. -

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=2520

We Need Hope and Fear in Equal Measure

An Interview With Naomi Klein

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/we-need-hope-and-fear-in-equal-measure-an-interview-with-naomi-klein-2014092

Frontiers Portraits of Permanence

http://www.americancowboy.com/frontier/portraits-permanence-25356

Thursday, October 16, 2014

How Clowns Became Terrifying American Horror Story: Freak Show caps off centuries of suspicion towards Bozo & co.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/how-clowns-became-terrifying/381306/

Will Your Child Grow Up to Be Victim or Torturer?

While 90 percent of teens break the law, only some enter a violent system.

Patricia J. Williams

http://www.thenation.com/article/182193/will-your-child-grow-be-victim-or-torturer

Are Humans Good or Evil

A brief philosophical debate.

By Clancy Martin, Alan Strudler

http://harpers.org/blog/2014/10/are-humans-good-or-evil/

Crossing the River Styx

http://www.themysteryplace.com/ahmm/excerpts/excerpt1.aspx

History Extra explains... Why did Ancient Rome fall?

http://www.historyextra.com/feature/romans/history-extra-explains-why-did-ancient-rome-fall

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Romans 7:23-25

Romans 7: 23-25
But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Times - Rev. M.D. Rogers

We live in interesting times, do we not? Morally and spiritually, as well as economically and politically, it seems that everything has been turned on its head. And in the middle of these tumultuous times, the church seems to have been caught, as we would say where I grew up, ‘standing flatfooted.’ In other words, it appears that the church has been surprised by the sinfulness of sin, the increasing secularization of society, and the continual de-Christianizing of the Christian West in particular.

Such changes have morphed into heated discussions on the redefinition of marriage, the viability of alternative lifestyles and orientations, and the legitimacy of the church itself…and the list could go on. People outside the church respond, ‘What’s the big deal? Religion is out-of-date, we’re more scientific in orientation and less focused on fables and myths.’ People inside the church, when they crawl out from under the rock where they often live, are absolutely shocked at the exponential explosion of anti-Christian, non-Christian, and secular developments.

But should we be surprised at these events? And should we not view the times in which we live as a God-ordained judgment on sin as well as a God-wrought opportunity for the power of the gospel? I, for one, think that the gospel shines best when it seems darkest. No place was more secular than the Athens of Acts 17. Yet, the Apostle Paul preached the gospel with blazing boldness. And what was the response? Some believed, some made fun of Paul and the gospel, and others said they would give further consideration to the gospel (Acts 17:32-34). Should we expect any less?

More importantly, Paul didn’t analyze culture through geo-political lens or through an economic window. He wasn’t discouraged by the sinfulness of sin and/or the secularization of culture. Paul viewed all things through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The results were amazing. Paul had more confidence in the gospel than he had in any potential discouragement he experienced from the sinfulness of sin and/or the secularization of culture. Further, the gospel burned a path across the Middle East and Western Europe, a flame that leaped across the Atlantic and for more than 200 years burned a path across a new nation called America. In essence, the spiritual fire produced by the gospel boldly preached was fueled by and burned up the dry, parched ground of sinful secularism.

What’s the point? We live in days of great peril as well as tremendous opportunity, depending on one’s perspective. The difference between the two is how one perceives either the efficacy or the impotency of the gospel. Those first century believers lived in perilous times, yet without the amenities we know from modernity they conquered the world because they radically believed the power of gospel of Jesus Christ to transform lives that in turn transformed cultures.