-
·
The Future of Seminary: Fix Dioceses
[Over on Patheos, they are doing a great series on the future of Seminary education. I haven’t read it all, and nobody asked me for advice, but I thought I’d throw in at least a couple of cents. Kurt Willems nails the economic burden and Tony Jones makes a compelling case for the very tools of…
-
·
Find me on tumblr
Just a quick notice that I’ve repurposed my tumblr page to be a tumbleblog about being a Stay-at-Home-Dad (SAHD). It’s called Stay-at-Home-Drew, and features the ongoing misadventures of the Downs clan. I invite you to check it out here. Also, a link has been placed in the menu bar (and in the blogroll at the…
-
·
Swearing and Aggression: why we’ve been wrong about raising our kids
I don’t think I ever heard my Mom swear. Not my Dad, either. Well, sometimes, when caught in a really bad day, he would say “Damn!” and hit the steering wheel. I do remember that. Otherwise, pretty much never. Me, I like to drop the occasional F-bomb because it feels right or because I feel…
-
·
On Ecclesiology: Leadership, Emergence, and #Occupy
In the Premodern world, humanity was led by “the divine right of kings,” in other words, authority was bestowed upon a singular human authority from a divine source. In the Modern world, humanity was led by singular representation. Authority was bestowed on an individual to represent the people, either through fiat or election. The Enlightenment…
-
·
A shocking lack of historical knowledge
We all know the paraphrase, if not the real quote by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.” And we seem to believe it. Sort of. Considering the ease with which we warn each other that such a leader as our own is the second coming of Hitler, it…
-
·
Occupy Wall Street’s collective statement
For those following #OccupyWallStreet, click on their first collective statement. One of the criticisms of the movement has been their lack of central authority and a clear, concise statement of demands. What is unique to this movement, and more typical of organizations today, rather than 50 years ago, is the belief that the first step toward…
-
·
Puritans: why Wall Street wasn’t occupied sooner
or #OccupyWallStreet and our fear of protests A favorite line over the last two weeks has been: I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Of course it did, but the media doesn’t really like protests. It is surprising since the news is all about sensationalism and big displays of strangeness and upsetting the status quo. It’s…
-
·
14 things you need to remember about birth
For months I’ve been jazzed about childbirth and what it means. Weird, I know. And posts from Thursday and Friday cover that area, but one thing surprised me: Not everybody even gets what happens in labor, including those that have gone through it. At first, I thought it was because I was focused on it,…