So: more anon.
September 2008 Archives
Tuesday September 30, 2008
Categories: blogging
Now and Later
To the 11 of you who have discovered this blog so far: My launch timing could hardly have been worse. Posting has been and will continue to be light until October 9 because Beliefnet behind-the-scenes work is booming--with results you'll begin to see shortly--and because I'm leaving the country tomorrow for a long-planned and pined-for trip that you'll be hearing more about in this space upon my return.
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Add to StumbleUponMonday September 22, 2008
Collect: Prayer for the Week
Sometimes the timing of these things is uncanny. I spent part of the weekend with my stomach in knots and my head in fits over the news about the economy. The macro-level questions about the near future of our national and global markets are just staggering to consider (I've found Jim Manzi particularly helpful in sorting all this out), and all of that is a diversion away from the balance sheet in our own homes. Tough, mysterious, confusing, and not a little bit scary.
So here's the prayer for the week from the Book of Common Prayer. I find it at once comforting, honest, and challenging---it offers comfort through the act of trust, honesty through its admission that we exist in a context of temporality and materiality, and a challenge to choose deep within ourselves to hold fast only to what lasts:
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sunday September 21, 2008
Killing the Buddha All Over Again
Killing the Buddha was one of my favorite web discoveries in the years just after college--a site packed with essays on religion that combined pained skepticism with genuine desire for human renewal. There was often a real humility to the project in the best Job-like fashion--bold honesty + "things too wonderful for me to understand." KtB helped launch the careers of co-founders Peter Manseau, author of the just-released and John Sargent First Novel Prize-nominated Songs for the Butcher's Daughter, plus the memoir Vows, and Jeff Sharlet, now a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Harper's, and the author of The Family (soon to be discussed in this space). And it featured work by some of the best writers working today, including Stephen Prothero, Francine Prose, Laurel Snyder, and Rob Walker.
Killing the Buddha is back online, with new editors, new contributors, and a forthcoming anthology of older KtB stuff, entitled Believer, Beware. (I have an essay in the anthology, I'm told, so this probably isn't the last you'll hear about this book!)
The site looks like it's already up to its old ways, in the best sense. This gorgeous, groping essay about Barak Obama's stolen Wall of Jerusalem prayer by Religious Literacy author Stephen Prothero is precisely what makes KtB unique. Check it out.
Sunday September 21, 2008
We Forgot that Borrowers Have to Be Able to Repay
Barry Ritholtz observes that one way to look at the current economics crisis is as a five-year hiccup in our approach to lending.
Over the entire history of human finance, the underlying premise of all credit transactions -- loans, mortgages, and all debt instrument -- has been the borrower's ability to repay. From 1 million B.C. up until the present, repayment ability was the dominant factor. This goes as far back as when Og lent the guy in the next cave a few dozen clamshells in order to go and purchase that newfangled wheel. If Og didn't think his neighbor would be able to repay him those clamshells, he never would've entered into what we can describe as the first commercial loan.
Friday September 19, 2008
Dick Staub - "The Islam I Know"
I admire 
Dick Staub a lot, and a few years ago had the pleasure of signing books in his company when we both had titles out from the same publisher and were joined in a conference booth. He's hilarious and smart. He writes regularly for the Religion News Service, and this week's column is a touching admonishment to his fellow Christians to tread carefully when they consider Islam. The more American Christians deal with the reality of pluralism, the more important it'll be for us to reflect on the complicated realities Staub points to in this essay.
Dick Staub a lot, and a few years ago had the pleasure of signing books in his company when we both had titles out from the same publisher and were joined in a conference booth. He's hilarious and smart. He writes regularly for the Religion News Service, and this week's column is a touching admonishment to his fellow Christians to tread carefully when they consider Islam. The more American Christians deal with the reality of pluralism, the more important it'll be for us to reflect on the complicated realities Staub points to in this essay. I'll post it all below the jump. Money lines:
- "It is foolish to base our perception of reality solely on our personal experience."
- "No religion should be judged based on its worse adherents or by extreme irrational distortions of its holy texts."
Thursday September 18, 2008
Mad Men - Joan's glass ceiling and the early days of television advertising
i should begin by writing lofty posts, but instead I'll go with what's most on my mind: "Mad Men." I watched Sunday's episode last night, and wanted to think about Rod Dreher's question--Who is your favorite Mad Men character?--with a...
Thursday September 18, 2008
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Church, Culture, Family, Jesus, TV, Text Messages, blogging, books, movies, music, social media
Soft Pre-Launch
The sidebar over yonder tells you all you need to know about the readiness of this here blog. I have not had time this week to get things up and running as they should be (and just think of all...
Filed Under: Beliefnet, Bible, blogging, butt-head, Moby Dick, Patton Dodd, popular culture, Text Messages
Tuesday September 16, 2008
So You Think Christians Can't Dance? (still testing 123)
One reason I love my church: We hardly ever do offertory hymns like this....
Monday September 15, 2008
Should Christians Be Concerned about McCain? (testing 123)
This is what it'd be like to use the "Post to MT" toolbar widget. Hmm.http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/09/is-the-ninth-commandment-a-les.html...
Monday September 15, 2008
Categories: Christianity, social media
This is only a test. Do not adjust your browswer.
Stay tuned for a series of tests. If, in your lonely middle of the night Internet Wave Riding, you should happen across this blog, nota bene that it is only a test. A sidebar is coming, complete with neato widgets....
Filed Under: blogging, Patton Dodd
Monday September 15, 2008
Categories: Culture
David Foster Wallace, R.I.P. (testing 123)
The news that David Foster Wallace hung himself this weekend came as such a shock not only because it was the news of great loss for literary and academic culture--which it is--but also because it seemed like such a...
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Patton Dodd is a senior editor for Beliefnet and the author of My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion (Jossey-Bass).Search This Blog
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