Radical Christianity and other links

The posting of links does not constitute an endorsement of the sites linked, and not necessarily even agreement with the specific posts linked.

• Andy Stanley: Even if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you will have a better life by following his teachings -- "...let's just teach people to come in and sing Rock and Roll music, and follow some of the red-letter teachings of Jesus about loving one-another, and people can walk out of here on Sunday mornings fulfilled, have a better life, and perhaps, the pockets of wolves like Andy Stanley will be lined with the dollar bills of these goats."
• Austria passes controversial reforms to 1912 Islam law -- "The bill, which is partly aimed at tackling Islamist radicalism, gives Muslims more legal security but bans foreign funding for mosques and imams."
• Christian Persecution Has Never Been Worse -- "Last year—2014—will go down in history as having the highest level of global persecution of Christians in the modern era."
• Five Reasons to Not Observe Lent -- "...just as celebrating July the Fourth makes sense for Americans but not for the English, the Chinese or the Lapps, so Ash Wednesday and Lent really make no sense to those who are Presbyterians, Baptists, or free church evangelicals."
• How States Can Stop Same-Sex Marriage: Interposition of the Lesser Magistrate -- "State governments and their constitutions are also governments, “ministers of God for our good.” We often forget this principle, but the nation was built on it."
• How TV made Christianity radical again -- "Pop culture may fancy itself a cosmopolitan industry, but movies and television often seem relatively baffled by people of faith."
• Obama Assumes Islam Is Like Christianity Rather Than Judaism -- "It is impossible to break through even the most superficial aspects of Islam when viewing it through the prism of a religion that resembles Christianity."
• Officer in gay pride parade incident speaks out -- "Eric Moutsos, 33, said Wednesday that he was unfairly branded a bigot despite simply asking to swap roles and work a different part of the parade in June 2014...he said he never refused to work the parade."
• Pastor Instructs His Governor from the Word of God -- "Here’s what I said to our governor yesterday..."
• Pew Research U.S. Religious Landscape Survey -- "...the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%."
• Religion’s Role in the History of Ideas -- "Why is it so hard for my very smart students to make this leap—not the leap of faith but the leap of historical imagination?"
• Rodeo rejects student's painting because of gun in artwork -- "...Chase Otts' parents were belatedly informed by the school his painting, which had been awarded a gold medal by the rodeo's district art contest judges had been rejected by the organization's art steering judges."
• Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory? -- There are numerous examples of people in the public eye “misremembering events.”
• What I Learned from Dean Smith -- "I care because there are too few people like him – people who earn the spotlight only to shun it, people who are so committed to the success of others that they find success, people who know when to step in and when to get out of the way, people who draw out the very best from everyone around them."
• When scripture makes us uneasy -- "I think part of the answer comes when we look at what Jesus says about the Old Testament Law."
• Why self-respecting atheists should ditch the New Atheists -- "I merely submit that the screechy fire-and-brimstone certainty that pervades so much modern atheist discourse is not justified by its logical underpinnings....I suggest a return to gentle decency of Carl Sagan, a man who was highly skeptical of religious claims, but did not seize the majesty of science to pummel his opponents."