I got a standing desk this week. My motivation was spiritual: though I love Jesus, I’ve heard that sitting too much makes you meet him a lot quicker. Once I set it up and started standing, there was one benefit I felt almost immediately—a deep sense of superiority to all the lazy losers still sitting at their desks. How do they live with themselves, I wondered, perfectly indifferent to the fact I’ve been sitting for decades. Now I could literally look down on them. And there’s no going back to my office chair. To quote Martin Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” Well, unless my legs get tired. Then I’ll be working on the couch.
A quick recap of what you might have missed this week
When John Ehrett was a young conservative in the early 2000s, he remembers a movement animated by Christianity. “Ever since I could remember, faith and freedom and conservative politics had been wrapped up together in a seamless web,” he writes in “Knowing What Time It Is.” But in recent years, he’s noticed a shift. The movement is changing, influenced by the emergence of the “post-religious right.” In this new milieu, concerns over issues like abortion and same-sex marriage have been sidelined in favor of once-fringe ideas like posthumanism and racial determinism. Ehrett concludes “The possibility that Christians may stand alone in the future – accepted by neither right nor left, a peculiar people indeed – no longer seems far-fetched. Any victory for ‘conservatism’ won through forfeiting the Christian ethic of active love will prove a pyrrhic one.”
An emotional response to the gospel is a good thing. But as the Australian priest Michael Jensen points out, a reliance on spiritual feelings can become a sort of bondage. “If experience becomes the validation of the truth, then those who lack such experiences are left in a kind of suspended uncertainty. Can it be true for me if I don’t feel it?” To those caught in such a quandary, he offers this freeing word: “The truth of the gospel is not dependent on the vividness of my inner life … the absence of intense feeling is not the absence of God.” Read: “The Tyranny of the ‘Christian Experience.’”
If you’re looking for a powerful Lenten reflection, you won’t do better than author Kate Bowler’s recent meditation on “The Courage of Despair.” She argues that enduring suffering without immediate resolution requires true faith. She names our tendency to banish negative feelings and writes that real courage involves sitting with pain while committing to small, daily acts of perseverance. “You are tethered if you keep showing up to prayer with nothing by silence, or exhaustion, or a single sentence you can barely finish … and maybe that’s enough for now.”
The latest theological dustup on the world wide web
Who doesn’t love a good testimony? The only problem is when you share someone else’s story, including salacious details about their lifestyle before coming to Jesus. That was the issue some took with a man who shared about his wife’s transformation. “My wife was formerly promiscuous. I was a virgin,” he wrote, before describing her dramatic transformation after being “radically born again.” A lively debate broke out in the comments. Some praised the post as a beautiful story of redemption. Others felt he was throwing his wife under the bus. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, as a rule, divulging your spouse’s past online, probably isn’t very wise.
Odd stories I thought you should know about
Source: Southern Living
If you worry that our government officials are less than trustworthy, this story certainly won’t help. Gregg Phillips, a top FEMA official, claims to have experienced teleportation on multiple occasions. He once found himself teleported to a Waffle House. “Teleporting is no fun,” he said. “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it.” I’m a big fan of Waffle House, so it doesn’t sound that bad to me.
Feel-good stories to lift your mood
In 2010, Tuesdays with Morrie author Mitch Albom visited an orphanage in Haiti. He came to help fix up the orphanage, which was run by an 84-year-old pastor. When the pastor told Albom that he was no longer able to run the orphanage, Albom blurted out “Well, I could probably run it. How hard could it be?” Very hard, as it turned out. But also, very worth it. CNN’s Anderson Cooper recently traveled to the orphanage, which has become an oasis for kids in a country ravaged by gang violence.
On the Holy Post, the team discusses a new kind of Christian fundamentalism and Skye speaks with Bob Goff about how he sustains joy in angry times.
On the Esau McCaulley podcast, Esau, Mike, and Malcolm dig into the roots of our outrage and ask how we can love our enemies in an age of constant political combat.
On the SkyePod, Skye and Mike Erre talk about aliens and what the Bible actually says about the Antichrist.
Fresh updates across the religious landscape
Died: Chuck Norris, Icon of American Machismo Who Returned to Faith
Oklahoma Pastor Deported to Mexico After Decades of Ministry
