We stand with the miners of West Virginia!

Bruce Epperly on Tiger, Phil and redemption.

Andy Crouch responds to James Davison Hunter.

Derek Leman on what “purity” means in Leviticus.

Tamara Buchan: On the kingdom of God.

Michael Thompson: “For other teams it is enough to ‘have a good season’ or to ‘make a decent showing.’ But not for the faithful Cubbies, even when they put up the best record in baseball the dream is unfulfilled until they are the last team standing at the end of October. It is a quest, and it eludes us at every turn of the calendar.”

Meanderings in the News

1. We mourn the tragic death of the President of Poland, his wife, and all the leaders. We pray for Poland.

2. RJS, our blog, and the post about Professor Waltke got some media attention on USAToday last week. (One article last week quoted me as if I had written the post.)

3. A missing link now on video.

4. Sir Cliff and his early letter of non-commitment.

5. What’s the solution? a catch-20?

6. Obama shuts down the media.

7. Richard Mouw on the Beck-Wallis flap: “I think we have to concede a little bit to Glenn Beck on this one. Often faith-based calls for social justice are heavily ideological. I often cringe, for example, when church bodies make pronouncements on complex economic issues. Many “redistribution” schemes advocated by “prophetic” organizations would, if implemented, likely not aid the cause of the poor at all in the long run. At the same time, many expressions of faith in the market’s “invisible hand” would also be bad for those on the margins. Serving the cause of justice is no simple task. It takes careful reflection, practical wisdom, and a resistance to ideological purity. There is a good theological term for all of this: discernment.” I think Beck overstated his cause; Wallis stood his ground for justice as part of what churches need to think about; not enough folks think through how best to help the poor. See other responses here.

8. Many are saying this: “[Jenna Jordan’s] work suggests that decapitation doesn’t lower the life expectancy of the decapitated groups — and, if anything, may have the opposite effect.”

9. Hope you saw this piece by Stanley Fish on Habermas: “Religions resist becoming happy participants in a companionable pluralism and insist on the rightness, for everyone, of their doctrines. Liberal rationality is committed to pluralism and cannot affirm the absolute rightness of anything except its own (empty) proceduralism.”

10. Conan O’Brien.

Meanderings in Sports

Congrats to Phil Mickelson, winner of the Masters, the treasured prize of US golf.

It was nice to see the Cubs set up shop once again at home, at Wrigley Field, one of the finest stadiums in all of sports.