In this week’s episode of the Word Matters podcast, Brandon Smith and I discuss the question “Did Jesus Come to Bring Peace or a Sword?” from Matthew 10 and Luke 12. You can subscribe to the podcast here: iTunes | Android |RSS
Kindle Deal: The Preacher as Storyteller: The Power of Narrative in the Pulpit by Austin Tucker. $0.99.
Seven of the best articles I came across this week:
1. Richard Samuelson – Who’s Afraid of Religious Liberty? Lengthy but worthwhile read about religious freedom from a Jewish perspective. “Traditional Judaism depends entirely on discriminating in the original sense of distinguishing: between holy and profane, Sabbath and weekday, man and woman, Jews and others. Such discriminations cannot be reworked without transforming classical Judaism into something unrecognizable to many Jews”
2. ‘Respect the Culture’ of family of Terence Crutcher. But what culture? In all the racial unrest this week, Get Religion points out the media’s overlooking of religious significance in the family’s appeal for peace.
3. James K. A. Smith and Yuval Levin – Openings in Our Fractured Republic. Two of my favorite writers talk. The way to achieve justice and prosperity isn’t to abandon everything you’ve inherited.
4. Katie Gaultney – Driven to Distraction. The city of Dallas wants Hinga Mbogo to shut down his auto repair shop to make way for new development, but is this gentrification without justice?
5. Karen Swallow Prior – Delight in the Good: On the Challenge of Entertainment. Entertainment is not an enemy to productivity; acedia is. Why the difference matters.
6. Ross Douthat – Clinton’s Samantha Bee Problem. It remains an advantage for the G.O.P., and a liability for the Democratic Party, that the new cultural orthodoxy is sufficiently stifling to leave many Americans looking to the voting booth as a way to register dissent.
7. Why Tim Keller Wrote a Prequel to The Reason for God. Christianity makes more “emotional, cultural, and rational” sense of our lived experience than any alternative worldview, Keller has long insisted. In The Reason for God, he made the rational case. In this volume, he tackles the other two.
