Kruse Kronicle

Managing Tensions, Or How to Keep from Making Stupid Arguments

"On this episode of "Calmly Considered," Michael and Allan discuss the importance of polarity management, a way of viewing tensions not as either/or problems to be solved, but both/and tensions to be managed. When tensions are turned into problems as is so often the case in today's politics, stupidity reigns supreme and solutions remain elusive."

"Orphans" Versus The Abandoned: The Church's Complicit Role in Poverty

FCS Urban Ministries: Big Heart to Love the Abandoned

 

Bob Lupton has an excellent piece on how most orphans in Haiti are, in fact, children who have been unwillingly abandoned because their parents are without the means to care for them. Yet faith-based "orphanages" market these children as orphans. He concludes:

 

"There are still many true orphans in Haiti whose parents have died or disappeared. Good orphanages are certainly needed as are good adopting families. The Corrigan's have adopted two of these orphans themselves.

 

But something is quite wrong when the prevailing non-profit orphanage system – mostly faith-based – "creates" orphans by mislabeling them and markets them as abandoned, yet does little to correct the underlying problem that forces their parents to give them up. It is a classic case of rightly motivated people rushing in to rescue the perishing, establishing emergency ministries that do in fact save lives, but failing to shift to empowerment strategies as the crisis becomes chronic.

 

When poverty becomes an industry supported by misinformed donors that enables professional workers to maintain a western lifestyle under the guise of alleviating poverty even as they perpetuate dependency, that industry must be challenged. Shelley and Clay Corrigan are doing just that. And in the most productive, self-sustaining, family-strengthening way."

 

Amen!!! Pope John Paul II defined poverty as exclusion from networks of productivity and exchange. The answer is inclusion. In short, economic development. But understand that if you champion economic development, you will be outside most of the Church. Much of the Church will reject you because, to them, compassion=relief aid. It is grounded in how it makes you feel with no critical thinking about the collective impact. The Church's progressive wing will mostly ignore you, except to occasionally denounce you in the name of social justice for promoting "neoliberal economics," exploitative global capitalism, and having supplanted God with economics. The poor of the world deserve more from us.

ReFrame: Following Christ in the Modern Era

What does it mean to follow Christ in our era? That is the central question for Christians in any era, but it is particularly challenging today. Some suggest that our postmodern and post-Christendom context is creating a level of disruption in the Church not seen since the Reformation. I think that is likely true. So how do we follow Christ today?

A new curriculum called ReFrame attempts a response. It is “A powerful 10-week film-based exploration of what it means to follow Christ in the modern era,” produced by Regent College (Vancouver, British Columbia) in cooperation with The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture. It is a truly exceptional series.

The curriculum features ten videos, each about thirty-nine minutes long. The first episode speaks of the increasing complexity and fragmentation of modern life. Our tendency is either to assimilate with our cultural context or to withdraw. We do not have a clear vision of how God might work in our midst. We do not know how to follow. The series uses the Emmaus Road story as a metaphor for being unable to see Christ among us until our vision is “reframed.” The second episode delves a little deeper into the specific challenges we face.

Beginning in the third episode, the series takes a narrative approach, moving from creation and fall to Israel, to Jesus the King, to new creation, to the Church and the Spirit, and so on, helping us see how our daily work and life is connected with God’s “story” at work in the world. The series concludes with guidance on how we might more authentically be disciples in light of our context and light of God’s unfolding narrative.

The format of each episode is built around the TED Talk concept. Half of the video is a speaker making an engaging presentation. There is a setup segment at the beginning and a wrap-up segment at the end. Interspersed throughout the video are commentary, testimony from biblical scholars and theologians, and vignettes by people from business, law, education, and science. People like Scot McKnight, Andy Crouch, Amy Sherman, and Eugene Peterson are among the contributors. Each episode is very well produced, moving along at an engaging pace.

I cannot emphasize enough how refreshing this curriculum is. I have served in various leadership capacities within the Presbyterian Church, USA, and various faith-based entities for most of my adult life. At some point in the late 1990s, I discerned that many Christians have difficulty seeing how their discipleship connects with daily life in meaningful ways. Church has become ancillary to “real life.” The Church is where to receive therapeutic care, get moral instruction for children, or join programs that offer opportunities for charity and the pursuit of justice outside of real life. The Church is not a place where we are formed for mission at the workplace and in the mundane affairs of the world. I am convinced that renewal in the Church will begin only when God’s mission and the whole of life are reintegrated.

Key to reintegration is reframing, yet I find precious few people in ecclesiastical structures and academic institutions who see the urgency and centrality of this need. When attempts are made, they usually proceed from a purely theological bent, without dialog with other disciplines like sociology, economics, science, education, and business. They lack winsome authenticity. ReFrame is a refreshing exception.

ReFrame acknowledges its Evangelical milieu, but I am convinced the curriculum would be well received across a wide range of denominational and theological communities. I am working out the details of doing multiple small groups with the series at Pine Ridge Presbyterian, starting at Lent. The idea is to buy a digital license and “flip the classroom.” Participants will watch each episode online at a password-protected site and then meet weekly to discuss and apply what was learned. The curriculum is a turnkey product complete with guides and promotional materials.

I have been following Regent College for at least fifteen years and am impressed with its innovation and quality of services. I know of few other institutions like Regent. The College offers classes and degrees that focus on the reintegration of life, and I am sure one purpose of the curriculum is to raise the profile of the academic and practical resources they provide. More power to them! I hope they are so successful that seminaries around the country will feel compelled to follow their lead. Maybe even the Presbyterians one day. ;-)

You definitely need to check out ReFrame. If you go to their site, you will find a two-minute promotional video. Episodes 1 and 5 are free to get a flavor of the experience. Thanks to the ReFrame folks for an exceptional product. I cannot wait to put it to use.

Followership: The Other Side of Leadership

Ivey Business Journal: Followership: The Other Side of Leadership

"... Followership is a straightforward concept.  It is the ability to take direction well, to get in line behind a program, to be part of a team and to deliver on what is expected of you.  It gets a bit of a bad rap!  How well the followers follow is probably just as important to enterprise success as how well the leaders lead.

The label “excellent follower” can be a backhanded compliment.  It is not a reputation you necessarily want if you are seeking higher corporate office.  There is something of a stigma to followership skills.  Pity because the practical reality is one does not reach progressively more responsible leadership positions without demonstrating an ability to follow and function effectively in a group.  The fact is that in organizations everybody is both a leader and a follower depending on the circumstances which just adds to the paradox of the followership stigma.

Followership may take the backseat to leadership but it matters:  it matters a lot!  Quite simply, where followership is a failure, not much gets done and/or what does get done is not what was supposed to get done.  Followership problems manifest themselves in a poor work ethic, bad morale, distraction from goals, unsatisfied customers, lost opportunities, high costs, product quality issues and weak competitiveness.  At the extreme, weak leadership and weak followership are two sides of the same coin and the consequence is always the same:  organizational confusion and poor performance. ..."

5 Things I’ve Learned in 5 Weeks Out of Church - Tom LeGrand

Perspectives: 5 Things I’ve Learned in 5 Weeks Out of Church - Tom LeGrand

Consider this official. I am issuing an apology to every member of every church that I have served over the last 20+ years. ...

... But this Sunday Sabbatical has also illustrated some things to me, particularly now that I am working a 9-to-5 (or, more like 7-to-6) day. Honestly, I’ve never had a real job before, one that occupied a truly specific time slot and required a very specific and demanding schedule. Yes, church work is intense, but the one perk is that it usually has a great deal of flexibility in the day-to-day operations.

I actually think that every pastor needs a season of the workaday world, as it would benefit both the leader and the led. It is amazing how much can be learned by living in the same mode as the people to whom you are called to minister. Here are a few that I’ve picked up: ...

Getting up for church is hard

Family Matters

Yes, It’s okay to attend church where your children want to go

A Sunday off is not a damnable offense

Meaningful relationships are much better motivators than guilt

Good reflection.

 

Relationships That Make a Difference - Bob Lupton

FCS Ministries Blog: Relationships That Make a Difference

Relationships. Two teenagers tossing a football. A couple falling in love, getting married, having kids. Business partners launching a new venture. Church friends sharing a meal.

Relationships all. Why do we have them? Fun, intimacy, profit, nurture? For social creatures like us, relationships have a whole range of benefits, all of which add value to our lives.

So when an affluent American church says they are building a relationship with a poor African church, what value are they expecting to gain? Relationship-talk is common among churches these days. It usually means something like: “We are not giving them money, not much anyway, not yet. We want to establish a relationship first, get to know them, build mutual trust. Then perhaps we will find healthy ways to invest together in ministry. But it’s the relationship that’s most important.” This is familiar, politically correct mission-speak that’s currently in vogue.

Something had to change when colonialistic missions fell out of favor. But simply channeling funds to indigenous leadership had its challenges. Long distance partnerships, we found, were difficult to manage.

So the alternative was relationships. If we invest time simply being together, learning from each other, experiencing the distinctives of each others’ cultures, then friendships will grow, trust will deepen, and we may find our way into productive, enduring mission together. We hope.

But how long will this take? How long before we can launch into a productive project together – one that will not end in misunderstandings or unhealthy dependency? And, of course, our African friends are wondering how long it will be before we trust them enough to let loose of our ample reserves.

It’s a delicate dance, this relationship building. We wonder when (or if) our relationships will become strong enough or our agendas align well enough to allow a true partnership.

Genuine liking. Mutual respect. Enjoyment of each others’ company. Appreciation of each others’ uniqueness. All important, yes. But is this all we want? At what cost? Cultural exchange is a pricey process.

Come on. Is cultural exchange really what we want? Don’t we really want to do something? Build something. Help someone? Don’t we really want to effect change, make a difference?

How long do we have to wait around pen-pal-ing and guest-swapping before we actually accomplish something of significance?

So what is it in Africa (or our other favorite place of need) that we are really interested in fixing? Saving souls? Africans are far better evangelists than we are and besides, they speak the local language and know the culture.

Building orphanages and schools? That may be fine so long as we make a heavy commitment to fund on-going scholarships and overhead. But, of course, we are well aware of the problems such dependency creates. We also know that education without a good job at the end is futile.

At the risk of sounding unspiritual and upending our mission-trip methodology, why don’t we just go ahead and invest our mission money in something that will make a lasting difference? Like a profitable business that will create legitimate local employment as well as produce a return that can be re-invested.

When local people are working, the need for subsidized social services decreases. A profitable company can provide health care. A business that shares profits enables employees to educate their children. Workers with disposable income can improve their homes, maintain their water supply, build their own churches.

Decent jobs do all of this. And more. Profitable businesses spawn other businesses that create additional jobs. Isn’t it time for us to admit that what works so well for us in our culture may be the very thing that will allow other cultures to flourish?

Legitimate business relationships – now there’s the kind of relationship that adds value.

(Republished with permission)

Achieving Sustainable Community and Economic Development. SAT Talks

Why aren't you signed up for SAT Talks?

How do we achieve sustainable community and economic development? A little study makes it easy to appreciate the need for sustainable community and economic development. It is also easy to identify countless models that are ineffective at best and harmful at worst. But identifying models that actually work ... that is another story, especially discerning the role of faith-based organizations.

I've been writing and talking about these issues for years. As I have found stories with promise, I have shared them here at the Kruse Kronicle and on Facebook. I have hoped to inspire people with a new way of thinking, to see examples of things that work, and to give hope about ultimately addressing poverty. It is time to take things to another level.

I invite you to an event called SAT Talks in Olathe, Kansas (suburban Kansas City), on October 29 and 30. The event is structured like the TEDS Talks, with six experienced practitioners giving short thought-provoking presentations followed by lively questions and debates. It is all centered on one big idea:

How can churches and other faith-based organizations pursue their missional goals in ways that lead to self-sustaining solutions where needs are being met without relying on charitable resources and where the person or community has the ability to provide the ongoing means and opportunities to achieve their full potential?

Sponsors include the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, Soleran, McDaniel-Knutson Financial Partners, and Inhance Leadership. This inaugural event will feature:

• John Quinn of Sinapi Foundation: "The Sinapi Foundation's purpose is to create sustainable paths out of poverty for women and their families in rural Guatemala...."
• Gaston Warner of ZOE: "A Christian ministry helping orphans and vulnerable children to help themselves. ..."
• Steve Weber of Heart to Heart International: "Heart to Heart International (HHI) is a nonprofit international health organization that is committed to improving global health & expanding access to healthcare for those in need. ..."
• Cayce Stapp of Church of the Resurrection: "The purpose of Church of the Resurrection is to build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians. ..."
• Tom Bassford & James DeLisle of The Co-Op: "The Co-Op is an initiative of Kansas City area churches willing to move beyond the four walls of the church to be a part of the long-term work of community development. ..."

Please help spread the word. Tell businesspeople you know who may be looking for ways to employ their gifts for helping the least of these. Tell your pastor and mission leaders. Tell anyone with a heart for seeing sustainable faith-based community and economic development take root. This is only the beginning of better things to come.

Click here for more: SAT Talks.

Learning to Fail Fast (in the church)

Lewis Center for Church Leadership: Learning to Fail Fast

"... Petrie advocates what he calls "vertical development" or the advancement in a person's capacity to think in "more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways (in contrast to horizontal development that adds knowledge, skills, and competencies). New leaders must think differently before they can act differently.

Often the qualities we see in church leaders are precisely those most associated with a low level of vertical development (dependent/conformer) — team player, faithful follower, reliant on authority, seeks direction, and aligns with others. A smaller number function at the next level (independent/achiever) — independent thinker, self-directed, drives an agenda, takes a stand for what they believe, and guided by an internal compass. But today's need is for the more highly developed independent/collaborator leader characterized as interdependent thinker; sees systems, patterns, and connections; longer-term thinking; holds multi-frame perspectives; and holds contradictions.

The new leader must be far more adaptable to changing circumstances. Collaboration is essential in order to span boundaries and develop networks. Leaders will need to be much more comfortable with ambiguity in order to be always looking for clues and patterns in the changing landscape. Just as important, this new way of leading must move beyond leaders to affect the entire organizational culture of the church. Congregations need to expect incomplete solutions, much trial and error, and a great deal of learning about themselves and their contexts. ..."

Amen. Reading this post brought to mind an article I read about Microsoft's evolving software development process. It used to be that Microsoft developed an operating system, released it, and then tried to stabilize it over the next three years. In the meantime, the next system was being designed, but you were mostly stuck with a given format for three years. It was much like building a house and moving in until you moved again in three years, and for that reason, each house had to be delivered pretty much as a fully functional operational house when you moved in. Now operating systems have ongoing updates. There are still occasional major revisions, but there is also constant evolution and correction. The church has got to think more that way as well. The article is somewhat lengthy but an interesting read: How Microsoft dragged its development practices into the 21st century

Is Evangelical Morality Still Acceptable in America?

Alan Noble has a very good piece in the Atlantic: Is Evangelical Morality Still Acceptable in America? He doesn't define exactly what he means by "Evangelical Morality," but clearly, he is talking about people who hold more traditionalist views on a set of moral issues. Here are some excerpts:

"... Behind all of these charges is the suspicion that evangelicals are simply refusing to accept contemporary American mores; they are privileging their faith over the moral spirit of the age. But for many evangelicals, these beliefs are not actually a sign of retreat from public life. Instead, there is a fear that in an increasingly secularized society, there will be less tolerance for people who wish to act upon their deeply held religious beliefs, except in narrowly defined, privatized spaces. This is a fundamentally American concern: Will I have the right to serve God as I believe I am obligated to? ..."

"... To a large extent, this tension has been caused by a shift in what we think of as the domain of morality. The vocabulary we use to describe same-sex marriage and contraceptives has changed from the language of morality to the language of rights. ..."

"... Often, the Christian defense of what they believe is their religious liberty is framed as fundamental hatefulness, homophobia, and misogyny, rather than disagreement grounded in morality. Much to the shame of the faith, a few who claim to be Christian really are motivated by hate. Those who disagree with them see little point in engaging with them on these issues, which is understandable, but it's unfair and counterproductive to extend that attitude to all evangelical Christians. If the evangelical worldview is deemed invalid in the public sphere, then the public sphere loses the value of being public. American discourse will be marked by paranoid conformity, rather than principled and earnest disagreement. And our ability to prophetically speak to one another and to our nation's troubles will be restrained.

The right framework here is one of pluralism: the ability of many different kinds of people to live out their faith in public with and among those who deeply disagree with them. This is no easy challenge; it's painful and ugly and hard. But the alternative to is a thin, univocal culture, one in which the only disagreements we have are trivial. And that would be a shame."

I don't share many of the values to which Evangelicals subscribe, but that is just the point. The issue is not how I should deal with people with views I'm afraid I have to disagree with. The measure is how I would want to be dealt with if I had an unpopular view.

Mission Trips: On Avoiding the Dark Side

I have a deep suspicion, at times cynicism, about short-term mission trips. Some of you already know this about me. I say this with reservation because I know so many people who say a short-term mission trip was so transformative for them (though I do remember reading a study a while back that said these trips have a lasting impact on precious few people.) So while I can freely admit that these trips have positive merits, two things deeply disturb me. One concerns the dignity and welfare of the poor who are supposedly being "helped," and the other is the all too frequent experiential consumerism I fear I hear in those who take these trips.

Rafia Zakaria has an excellent op-ed piece in Aljazeera America, The white tourist's burden. "Growing Western demand for altruistic vacations feeds the white-savior industrial complex." She writes:

... If designer clothes and fancy cars signal material status, his story of a deliberate embrace of poverty and its discomforts signals superiority of character. As summer looms, many Americans — college students, retirees and others who stand at the cusp of life changes — will make similar choices in search of transformational experiences. An industry exists to make these easier to make: the voluntourism business.

A voluntourist is someone like Jack, who wishes to combine exotic vacation travel with volunteer work. For anyone interested in being one, a dizzying array of choices awaits, from building schools in Uganda or houses in Haiti to hugging orphans in Bali. In all of them, the operational equation is the same: wealthy Westerners can do a little good, experience something that their affluent lives do not offer, and, as in Jack's case, have a story to tell that places them in the ranks of the kindhearted and worldly wise.

As admirably altruistic as it sounds, the problem with voluntourism is its singular focus on the volunteer's quest for experience, as opposed to the recipient community's actual needs...

It troubles me that the central aim is often not to discern how to authentically partner with others to improve well-being. Rather the aim is for the volunteer to have a particular type of "experience" that is meaningful to them. That is not to say authentic partnership can't be meaningful, but it is to say that true partnership is frequently frustrating, messy, and at times disappointing. Partnership is also long-term. The traveler is often actually a consumer, purchasing an experience for their own therapeutic purposes.

It troubles me further that for volunteers on these trips, the experience becomes a type of conspicuous consumption. Just like sporting my new iPhone shows off my techie style, talking about my noble experience working with the poor becomes a way of sporting my superior moral character and street smarts. And what really troubles me most is that I can identify these traits in my own life at times, and I am deeply aware of how seductive this stuff is.

But the problem doesn't end here. As Zakaria shows, these trips are too often disruptive and destructive of the long-term welfare of the people being "helped." They can destroy jobs, break up families, and foster dependence. This type of work needs to be carefully scrutinized, but far too often, good intentions are thought to be enough. Due diligence and serious introspection are needed.

Zakaria rightly concludes:

Despite its flaws, the educational aspect of voluntourism's cross-cultural exchange must be saved, made better instead of being rejected completely. Natalie Jesionka, a columnist at the Daily Muse, offers future voluntourists some direction on making a real impact on their trips. ...

Two book-length resources I would suggest are Corbett and Fikkert's When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself, and Bob Lupton's, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse It.

Religion Links

1. Huffington Post: Understanding Why Americans Seem More Religious Than Other Western Powers

Many Western Europeans think of Americans as hopelessly, bafflingly, and dangerously, religious. Many Americans think of Western Europeans as distressingly, inexplicably, and unrelentingly, secular. In 2009, the German sociologist Hans Joas observed that “it is widely accepted that the United States is far more religious than practically any comparable European state.” And he noted Western European puzzlement: “The more secularized large parts of Europe became, the more exotic the religiosity of the United States seemed to European observers.” So why are Americans, compared with Western Europeans, seemingly so religious? And are we as religious as we seem? ...

2. Business Insider: Countries With More Money Tend To Be More Godless

3. Pew Research: Global Religious Diversity

4. The Atlantic: The Changing Face of Christian Politics

... Christian political engagement is changing in this country as believers seek to untangle their faith from the worldliness of partisan politics and ideology. The melding of Christianity and partisan politics has been 40 years in the making, but the costs of that entanglement have only become clear to Christians over the last decade. ...

... A Christianity that seeks to unilaterally impose itself on the nation is unlikely be fruitful, but it is similarly unrealistic and unproductive to force a secular morality on believers. ...

5. Christian Century: Religious nones may not be who you think they are

... But they may not be who you think they are. Today, nones include many more unbranded believers than atheists, and they show an in­creasingly diverse racial and ethnic mix.

Researchers say this is already making nones’ attitudes and opinions less predictably liberal on social issues.

A survey of Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute found 21 percent are “unaffiliated” (PRRI’s umbrella term for a diverse group including atheists, seculars, and people who say they still believe in God); 20 percent are Catholic; and 19 percent are white evangelical.

“Nones are dancing on the razor’s edge of leading,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI. ...

6. Huff Post: American Bible Reading Statistics Reveal Who Is Studying The Good Book And Why

... According to a study, “The Bible in American Life," conducted by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, 50% of Americans read some form of scripture in the past year, and 48% of those read the Bible. Four in 5 read it at least once a month, and 9% of Americans say they read the Bible daily. ...

7. Religion News Service: Bible study: More people say the Good Book isn’t a God book

The study, conducted annually by Barna Research, finds:

• The most “engaged” readers — who read the Bible almost daily and see it as sacred — are now matched by “skeptics” who say it’s just a book of stories and advice. Both groups measured 19 percent.
• While the engaged stayed steady since 2011, skeptics grew by 10 percentage points — since the same survey was conducted in 2011.
• Skeptics cut into the number of folks Barna calls “Bible friendly,” those who read the Bible occasionally and see it as inspired by God. The “friendly” demographic fell to 37 percent, down from 45 percent in 2011.
• The percentage of people who view the Bible as sacred has dropped to 79 percent, down from 86 percent in 2011.

8. Faith & Leadership: Disruption and leadership development in mainline Protestantism

Mainline Protestantism has been slow to create new models of clergy leadership development that take into account the disruptive forces acting in congregations and the culture. ...

9. Boston Globe: Can the evangelical church embrace gay couples?

A new wave of thinkers says yes — and is looking to Scripture for support. ...

10. Cannon & Culture: An Antidote for ADHD Activism

Review by Jordan J. Ballor of Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, The World is Not Ours to Save: Finding the Freedom to Do Good (IVP, 2012)

Writing as a lifelong activist against nuclear weapons, Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is uniquely placed to criticize a brand of evangelical social activism that emphasizes energy and enthusiasm over patience and perseverance. Christian obedience requires all these at various times and in various manifestations, but Wigg-Stephenson detects an imbalance at the heart of contemporary Christian cultural engagement that threatens to wither the roots of the entire enterprise. He is greatly concerned about the “cause fatigue” that he commonly, and increasingly, sees among younger Christians. ...

11. Christianity Today: Aged Out of Church

Ask anyone who's hit midlife, and they'll tell you: this stage is no joke for us.

The emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational shifts that occur at midlife can lead to disconnection from old social networks and a profound sense of loneliness, which brings with it serious health risks. At this point, many also feel drained by the increasingly common occurrence of death, disease, divorce, and the changes that redefine old friendships.

And yet, rather than engage these important but uncomfortable issues that come with aging, our culture—including, at times, the church—would rather laugh it off....

12. Religion News Service: Survey finds growth, vitality in multisite church model

(RNS) The vast majority of multisite churches are growing, according to a new study, and they are seeing more involvement from lay people and newcomers after they open an additional location.

Nearly one in 10 U.S. Protestants attends a congregation with multiple campuses, according to findings released Tuesday (March 11) in the “Leadership Network/Generis Multisite Church Scorecard.” ...

13. Atlantic: Greed Is Good: A 300-Year History of a Dangerous Idea

Not long ago, the pursuit of commercial self-interest was largely reviled. How did we come to accept it? ...

14. Huff Post: Why Do People Go to Church?

... What are we doing in worship? We are sorting through our mixed motives and mysterious desires. We are learning God's story again. We are returning home so that we can go with power into the everyday world.

15. Library of Economics and Liberty: You're Not Pushing Paper Across A Desk. You're Saving the World.

In my profession as an economics professor and through churches I have attended, I've been around a lot of people who want to "make a difference." They almost inevitably equate "making a difference" with "working for a government or a non-profit organization like a church that is dedicated, at least in part, to helping poor people." Rarely do I hear anyone say "I want to work in accounts receivable for a company that makes faucets--or worse, a company that just sells faucets and other sundries."

But here's the irony: I suspect that you will probably make a bigger, albeit harder to see, difference in the lives of many by working in accounts receivable for Amalgamated Faucets than you will on your two-week summer mission trip or in your career as a relief worker. ...

16. Christian Century: TV Protestants

An episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead features a scene in a Baptist church that has a Catholic-looking crucifix. HBO’s new series True Detective includes a scene in which a fundamentalist preacher crosses himself. These are two isolated examples of how the people involved in making television shows and movies don’t know or don’t care about the differences between different forms of Christianity. ...

Two-thirds of churched adults say it has been at least three years or more since they heard church teachings on work and career

Barna Group: Three Trends on Faith, Work and Calling

I'm two months slow in posting this article, but it is important.

... Barna Group's new research shows that three-quarters of U.S. adults (75%) say they are looking for ways to live a more meaningful life. Whether such meaning is found in family, career, church, side projects or elsewhere, these are all questions of vocation—that is, the way in which people feel "called" to certain types of work and life choices. And in 2014, these questions remain as strong as ever for millions of Americans

Among Christians, there is an additional question: "What does God want me to do with my life?" According to Barna Group's study, only 40% of practicing Christians say they have a clear sense of God's calling on their lives. Christian Millennials are especially sensitive to this divine prompting—nearly half (48%) say they believe God is calling them to different work, yet they haven't yet made such a change.

Sermons are commonly preached on evangelism, discipleship, and spiritual disciplines—but what about vocation? It turns out that most churchgoers are craving more direction and discipleship when it comes to the theology of calling, especially as it relates to work. Barna research shows nearly two-thirds of churched adults say it has been at least three years or more since they heard church teachings on work and career, and yet, the workplace is where most Americans spend a the biggest share of their waking hours. ...

The implied message: Your work is irrelevant and without connection to your discipleship. Meaningful work is the purview of church institutions, and only the work associated with "ministry" (evangelism, charity, and justice activities) is of value.

Religion Links

1. Business Insider: A Fascinating New Poll Shows That Americans Are Losing Faith In God

A new Harris Poll released today reveals that only 74% of Americans believe in God, an 8% decline since 2009.

Before today, U.S. adults had remained fairly consistent in their religious beliefs — 82% of U.S. respondents previously reported that they believed there was a God since 2005.

In another decline, only 54% of Americans are now "absolutely certain" in God's existence, a 12% decrease over the last decade. ...

2. Daily Mail: The Bible-ignorant [British] youngsters who can't tell Noah from Adam: Third of children didn't know Nativity story came from Holy Book

• One in three Britons didn't know where story of birth of Jesus could be read
• Some 54 per cent of children never read Bible stories by adults, study found
• Campaigners now fear the religion is in a state of permanent retreat

3. Christian Newswire: 92% of Americans Own a Bible but Only 16% Read it Daily

4. Religion News Service: Respect for clergy drops, but among Republicans, not so much

(RNS) Clergy used to rank near the top in polls asking Americans to rate the honesty and ethics of people in various professions. This year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1977, fewer than half of those polled said clergy have "high" or "very high" moral standards.

But opinions on clergy differed markedly by party, with Republicans viewing them far more favorably than Democrats.

Overall, 47 percent of respondents to the survey gave clergy "high" or "very high" ratings, a sharp drop in confidence from the 67 percent of Americans who viewed them this way in 1985.

Among Republicans, 63 percent gave clergy one of the two top ratings for ethics, compared with 40 percent of Democrats. ...

5. Economist: All about Adam

A furious—and political—debate about the origins of mankind ...

... A quest for certainty is an American tradition. Old World believers often inherit religion passively, like a cultural artefact. Americans, an individualistic bunch, are more likely to switch churches or preachers until they find a creed that makes sense to them. They admire fundamental texts (the constitution, for example) that plain citizens may parse for immutable truths.

At the same time, the literalist faith is in crisis. Young Americans are walking away from the stern denominations that have held such sway over post-war American life, from Billy Graham's crusades to the rise of the religious right. After they hit 18, half of evangelical youngsters lose their faith; entering a public university is especially perilous. As a generation, millennials (those born between the early 1980s and 2000s), are unimpressed by organised anything, let alone organised religion. Many young adults told the Barna Group, an evangelical research outfit, that they felt stifled by elders who demonised secular America. Young Christians are more accepting of gay rights than their elders. In a challenge to creationists, a quarter of young adults told Barna's study that their churches were "anti-science".

The seeming paradox of a strong faith in crisis is explained by rigidity: that which cannot bend may break instead. ...

6. The Dish: The Language Of Certainty In Atheism

 

7. Faith & Leadership: Mainline Protestants and disruptive innovation

Mainline Protestants can still have an exciting and life-giving future -- if they learn the lessons of disruptive innovation from the steel industry and other organizations, say three Christian institutional leaders. ...

8. Call & Response Blog: Denominational leaders as bridge-builders

... The image of a bridge was one powerful expression of the issues they face now and anticipate facing in the future. But what most struck me were the ways in which, rather than despairing of their bridging roles, these leaders accepted the challenges and articulated the issues with clarity and grace.

First, they understood themselves as being "bridgers" who manage polarity and tension between people, issues or factions in the denomination. ...

 ... Second, these leaders saw their role as being a bridge to support systems and resources for congregations that are disbursed. ...

... Third, guest Marlon Hall, Houston pastor, filmmaker and leader of the Awakenings Movement, helped the gathered denominational leaders think about the ways in which they are a bridge between "the powerful and the engaged," between the status quo and disruptive innovation. ...

9. Religion News Service: Why evangelicalism needs controversies like Duck Dynasty

10. Pew Forum: Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High

11. Associated Press: Evangelicals mass in Peru amid boom

... Evangelicals have seen the most growth in Lima's teeming working class districts but more and more converts are coming from Peru's highlands thanks to proselytizing radio stations emerging in recent years in the region, said Rev. Juan Carlos Perez, a local leader of the Movimiento Misionero Mundial church. ...

... Peru and its capital remain bastions of Roman Catholicism. About three in four Peruvians identify themselves as Catholics. But evangelicals are on the rise, jumping from 5.2 percent of the population in 1981 to 12.5 percent in 2007, the last year for which government census figures are available.

Perez claims evangelicals now account for at least 20 percent of Peru's 30 million people, which would give it one of Latin America's highest growth rates. ...

12. Time: It's Social Ties—Not Religion—That Makes the Faithful Give to Charity

... Having found that religion and charity go hand-in-hand, Robert Putnam and I sought to understand why.  The answer might surprise you. We initially thought that religious beliefs must foster a sense of charity—whether inspiration from biblical stories like the Good Samaritan or, perhaps, a fear of God's judgment for not acting charitably. However, we could find no evidence linking people's theological beliefs and their rate of giving—which also helps to explain why the "religion effect" varies little across different religions. The rates for charitable giving according to the Jumpstart survey are: 61 percent of Black Protestants; 64 % of Evangelical Protestants; 67 % of Mainline Protestants, 68 % of Roman Catholics, and 76 % of Jews. By contrast, only 46 % of the not religiously affiliated made any charitable giving.

Rather than religious beliefs, we found that the "secret ingredient" for charitable giving among religious Americans is the social networks formed within religious congregations. The more friends someone has within a religious congregation, the more likely that person is to give time, money, or both, to charitable causes. In fact, even non-religious people who have friends within a religious congregation (typically, because their spouse is a believer) are highly charitable—more so than strong believers who have few social ties within a congregation. ...

13. Christianity Today: Who Owns the Pastor's Sermon?

Church or pastor? When sermons become books that make millions in royalties, the answer is important.

Spoiler: Copyright law favors churches.

14. Jesus Creed: Who "attended" those earliest churches?

On the basis of a new approach at looking how to discern the social makeup of the earliest Christian house churches, one based more on housing space occupied than on ideal social types, Peter Oakes has offered to us a new way of thinking more realistically and concretely about who was in the earliest house churches. His book is called Reading Romans in Pompeii. ...

... The earliest churches, then, are not made up of pietists who wanted to study the Bible but ordinary Romans from all sorts of backgrounds, needs, yearnings, and connections — each bringing to the table different ears for the gospel. ...

... Undoubtedly, one the best books on Paul/Romans I've read in a long, long time. Oakes combines judicious historical sensitivities with solid exegetical insight, all wrapped into a proper caution that is not always observed among those who use social evidence.

15. The Bible and Culture: Social Description in Early Christianity

Here is an excellent post from Larry Hurtado reminding us that it is wrong to say that early Christianity was largely made up of impoverished slaves, women, minors, and the rural poor. This, is a complete myth. See below. ...

... Here's a sample from Meeks's now-classic work, The First Urban Christians (pp. 72-73): "the most active and prominent members of Paul's circle are people of high status inconsistency . . . They are upwardly mobile, their achieved status is higher than their attributed status." That is, e.g., people involved in trade, business, etc., whose energy and abilities enabled them to acquire a social status that they didn't inherit or have by way of being born into a traditional elite class.

There's much, much more to note. But this will do, hopefully, to steer interested readers toward a more accurate, less simplistic, view of the social makeup of the earliest circles of Christian believers.

16. Why are the virgin birth, empty tomb and resurrection controversial? - N. T. Wright

17. Euangelion: Sin and Death in Eastern Orthodox Theology

I introduced a nice book about Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology by Andrew Louth. In the first post I was describing the Eastern tradition's view of sin, death and destruction. The two most important elements of this perspective I want to highlight now. ...

... Thus, the most significant consequence of the Fall in light of the resurrection is the presence of death. So, according to Louth, it is Christ's conquest of death in his resurrection means that death rather than sin is central to the Orthodox understanding of the consequence of Adam's disobedience (70). ...

... Second, Louth presents the story of Adam is more the story of "everyman" than a story of the "first man". While not denying the latter, he says the Father's were interested in the former. In this sense the story is mythical. ...

... The more I think about it, I'm beginning to find these to be a more satisfying explanation than my inherited tradition. ...

Me too.

18. BioLogos: Long Life Spans in Genesis

... There are 30 age numbers we can get from Genesis chapter 5—three numbers for each of ten patriarchs: the age when a son was born, the number of years the patriarch lived after the son was born, and the total number of years the patriarch lived. For example, "When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of… Seth. The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years… Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years" (Genesis 5:3-5). We get similar accounts of Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah (though for Noah we have to go to Genesis 9:29 to see how old he was when he died).

The first thing more careful observation reveals about these 30 numbers is that all of them end with the digits 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. You might not think that is too remarkable until you realize that it eliminates half of the possible numbers. It is like seeing a list of 30 numbers that are all even. We wouldn't think that was a random distribution of numbers. In fact, the odds of getting all thirty numbers to end with just these "approved" digits in a random distribution of ages are about one in a hundred million.[1] That should make us suspicious that Genesis 5 is merely giving a historical report. Something else must be going on here. ...

19. The Cultural Cognition Project - Yale Law School: Have Republicans changed views on evolution? Or have creationists changed party? Pew's (half-released) numbers don't add up ... 

... Right away when I heard about the Pew poll, I turned to the results to see what the explanation was for the interesting -- truly! -- "shift" in Republican view: Were Republicans changing their positions on creationism or creationists changing their party allegiance?

And right away I ran into this logical inconsistency.

Surely, someone will clear this up, I thought.  

But no.  

Just the same predictable, boring "ha ha ha ha!" reaction.

Why let something as silly as logic get in the way of an opportunity to pound one's tribal chest & join in a unifying, polarizing group howl?

20. Huffington Post: Three Reasons Why Evolution Will Never Convince a Creationist

1) Evolution is not, strictly speaking, mentioned in the Bible, so a Creationist is not inclined to trust it. ...

2) People tend to assume that the two realms of science and faith must be in opposition to one another, or that when one is "right" on an issue the other cannot hold any merit in the conversation. ...

3) Starting from the "evolution" perspective is always taken to be challenging what is found in Genesis 1-3. Perhaps this seems obvious to you. But if that is where a person representing evolution starts, she or he has lost the Creationist from the get-go.

None of this way of approaching the conversation addresses the content of the Bible and the type of writings we find in them. This is, it seems to me, the central issue.

21. Spirit, Science, and Metaphysics: Scientists Claim That Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves To Another Universe At Death

A book titled "Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe "has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible. - See more at: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/scientists-claim-that-quantum-theory-proves-consciousness-moves-to-another-universe-at-death/#sthash.m65dCbI8.dpuf

A book titled "Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe" has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible. ...

Religion Links

1. A federal Judge Declares Tax Exclusion For Clergy Housing Payments Unconstitutional. Peter Reilly makes the economic and legal case for preserving the exclusion, In Defense Of Special Tax Treatment For Clergy:

... Section 107 is best analyzed by reviewing the historical context surrounding the development of Section 107 of the Internal Revenue Code, the clergy housing allowance. Section 107 is only one part of the larger statutory framework of exclusions for employees who receive employer-assisted housing due the requirements of the job and for the convenience of their employers. See Joint Committee on Taxation, General Explanation of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, (JCS-10-87) May 4, 1987, at {54}(in amending I.R.C. 265(a) “Congress concluded that it was appropriate to continue the long-standing tax treatment…claimed by ministers and military personnel who receive tax-free housing allowances”). 

Current tax policy lightens the tax burden of the taxpayers who receive qualifying employer-assisted housing. See Sections 107 (clergy housing), 119 (general housing), 134 (military housing), and 911(a)(2) (foreign housing). Congress created these tax-free housing allowances within its discretion and to demonstrate a willingness to give tax breaks to classes of taxpayers who have little choice about their personal living space. Whether the employer provides a cash allowance or a home, each benefit serves the same purpose; that is, often the employer’s needs affect the living space needs of its employees. Many times, these classes of employees frequently relocate, thus preventing them from settling down and hindering long term close friendships. Further, the employers frequently require them to use their homes to conduct employer business. Additionally, the employee’s place of service may not be desirable. These employees must reside where their employer requires and must frequently use their residence for employer business. Some employees sacrifice amenities that most citizens take for granted, such as long term stability in one locale and privacy. ...

2. Eleven Myths About Going to Seminary

1. YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD TO GO TO SEMINARY.

2. SEMINARY AND DIVINITY SCHOOLS ARE EXPENSIVE.

3. YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT BEFORE YOU ARRIVE AT SEMINARY.

4. YOU HAVE TO HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO SEMINARY EVEN BEFORE YOU WENT TO COLLEGE....

3. 10 Facts About The Transforming Global Religious Landscape

1. Religious 'Nones' Are Third-Largest Group

2. China Has Huge Population Of Religiously Unaffiliated

3. Most People Are Part Of Religious Majorities In Their Countries

4. Hindus Are Highly Geographically Concentrated

5. Most Countries Have A Majority Religion

6. Christianity Is A Majority In Over 100 Countries

7. Oldest And Youngest Religions

8. The World's Only Jewish Majority Country

9. Christianity Dominates A Majority Of The World's Regions

10. Religious Nones Still Believe

4.Who's a Jew? Few American Jews say it's a matter of belief

WASHINGTON (RNS) In the most comprehensive study of American Jews in 12 years, a strong majority said being Jewish is mostly about ancestry or culture, not the religious practice of Judaism.

"A Portrait of Jewish Americans," released Tuesday (Oct. 1) by the Pew Research Center, shows strong secularist trends most clearly seen in one finding: 62% of U.S. Jews said Jewishness is largely about culture or ancestry; just 15% said it's about religious belief. ...

 5. Christianity Spreading at Remarkable Rate Among Middle, Upper Castes and Youth in Emerging 'New India'

... The current "remarkable receptivity to Christ" across the entire spectrum of Indian society, which had been traditionally among only lower castes and marginalized communities, is one of five dominant themes identified by Indian anthropologist Prabhu Singh that define today's India and its missional challenges. ...

... "With more than 71 million claiming Christianity, India is now the eighth largest Christian nation in the world," said Dick McClain, president and CEO of The Mission Society, publisher of "Unfinished." "Yet with 456 languages and more than 2,611 distinct people groups, India still has more people groups unreached with the gospel than any other nation -- 88 percent of its population. ...

6. Study Theology, Even If You Don't Believe in God

This lost liberal art encourages scholars to understand history from the inside out.

7. Peter J. Leithart on The End of Protestantism

 The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.

When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t. What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can. ...

... Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.

Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism. ...

8. If it is not ‘mainline,’ what is it?

Is there a better name for main­line Protestants? How about vintage Protestants? Or the VPCC—Vanishing Progressive Christian Church? Or the Legacy Church? ...

... Religion News Service took up the challenge, inviting votes and comments in an informal survey. More than 200 people voted. The comments ranged from theological to historical, serious to snarky.

“Liberal Church” led with 24 percent of the votes. Some liked the social and political connotation, but others used liberal as a slam on a church they regard as too loose on doctrines of sin and salvation. Merritt said October 15 that she preferred a different spin on liberal: “Liberationist Church,” because “it taps into the good news that our beliefs lead us to seek liberation for all the oppressed, to expand freedom for all.”

Next, at 17 percent, were those who said labels just don’t work for religious distinctions anymore. National surveys find growing numbers just want to call themselves “Christian.”

“Oldline” was favored in 6 percent of the votes. “Grandma’s Church” drew 3 percent. It has the ring of truth: mainline churches have the greatest percentage of members age 65 and older of any Christian tradition.

Most folks—46 percent—preferred their own picks. ...

 9. Sermons stretch as biblical literacy wanes

Religious literacy is declining as "nones" rise, forcing changes in how churches — and even comedians and filmmakers — relate to their intended audiences. ...

... “One of the results of biblical illiteracy is that sermons are, for the first time in centuries, getting longer,” said Brett Younger, associate professor of preaching at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta.

“Precisely because people have not grown up with the stories, many preachers see their job as explaining the text rather than helping worshippers experience the hope of the story,” he told ABPnews in an e-mail.

Brandon Hudson said his preaching has changed to accommodate visitors and newcomers who grew up without church. ...

 10. Watch Out, Pastors: Millennials Are Fact-Checking Your Sermons

 But the most interesting finding: Nearly 4 out of 10 practicing Christian millennials are fact-checking their pastor's sermons. Notes Barna:

The one-way communication from pulpit to pew is not how Millennials experience faith. By nature of digital connectedness, Millennial life is interactive. For many of them, faith is interactive as well—whether their churches are ready for it or not. It's an ongoing conversation, and it's all happening on their computers, tablets and smart phones. What's more, many of them bring their devices with them to church. Now with the ability to fact-check at their fingertips, Millennials aren't taking the teaching of faith leaders for granted. In fact, 14% of Millennials say they search to verify something a faith leader has said. A striking 38% of practicing Christian Millennials say the same.

 11. New Study: Three-Quarters of American Giving Goes to Religion

 Americans give a lot of money to religion—but not in the ways we usually think. ...

... Unlike previous data sets, the current study captures a wider swath of religious giving—not just that to churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like, but to religiously-affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. When that larger group is included, 73%—almost three quarters—of American giving goes to religious organizations.

This point is significant for several reasons. First, it highlights the importance of religion in American philanthropic life. ...

Second, and relatedly, this data shows just how much of America’s tax deductions are a boon to religious organizations. ...

Third, it’s these “religiously-identified organizations” —RIO’s in the hideous acronymization of Washington—that are at the center of the current controversy over religious exemptions to civil rights laws. ...

12. Tithing, church giving dips; sign of the economy or value of charity?

Tithing and church giving in general has taken the most prolonged dip since the Great Depression. Is the economy to blame or perhaps a failure to teach that tithing and giving is an integral part of the spiritual life? ...

13. What archaeology tells us about the Bible

A contentious dig in Israel delves into the kingdoms of David and Solomon, stirring a debate over the veracity of the biblical record.

14. Biblical Credibility and Joshua 10: What Does the Text Really Claim?

... The lexical issues remain vexing and problematic, but they can be addressed. Even if we acknowledge that we have not yet sorted out the lexical details, the presence of terms such as “stop,” “stand” and “wait” gain new possibilities in light of the language of celestial omens and the fact that the context is one that is just right for an ominological application (i.e., on the brink of battle). Certainly a reading of the text in light of omens is more likely for an ancient text than a reading in light of physics.

It should be noted that the text does not suggest the astronomical phenomena were unique; instead, verse 14 says plainly that what was unique was the Lord accepting a battle strategy from a man (“the Lord listened to a man”). A Mesopotamian lamentation (first millennium) shows this same type of terminology for divine judgment when it speaks of heavens rumbling, earth shaking, the sun laying at the horizon and the moon stopping in the sky, and evil storms sweeping through the land. Joshua’s knowledge of the Amorites’ dependence on omens may have led him to ask the Lord for one that he knew would deflate their morale—for the opposition to occur on an unpropitious day.

15. Who “attended” those earliest churches?

On the basis of a new approach at looking how to discern the social makeup of the earliest Christian house churches, one based more on housing space occupied than on ideal social types, Peter Oakes has offered to us a new way of thinking more realistically and concretely about who was in the earliest house churches. His book is called Reading Romans in Pompeii. ...

... The earliest churches, then, are not made up of pietists who wanted to study the Bible but ordinary Romans from all sorts of backgrounds, needs, yearnings, and connections — each bringing to the table different ears for the gospel. ...

Capitalism and the Kingdom - Bob Lupton

I love Bob Lupton's monthly posts in Urban Perspectives newsletter. I identify with what he writes in his latest installment, Capitalism and the Kingdom. Capitalism is not "biblical" in the sense of being prescribed by God. And in that sense, there is no "biblical" economic system. All economic systems are human constructs that incorporate human wisdom and sin. This is not to say that the Bible doesn't give us insight into what constitutes shalom and insight into anthropology. We begin with those insights and work from there to discern the most shalom-filled world we can.

After spending thirty years studying and working on poverty, I am deeply persuaded along with Lupton that business, jobs, and market economies (my word for Lupton's "capitalism") are superior to other options for pursuing shalom in the world ... not biblical, not ordained by God, not perfect ... superior. That doesn't make me right, but it is an honest confession of how I have come to my present conclusions.

The curious thing about this is my inclinations and motivations are likely more similar to people who see themselves as progressive. From childhood, I've been captivated by questions about how to work for a more just and shalom-filled world, particularly as this relates to people at the margins. My graduate degrees, one academic and the other applied were grounded in understanding how society changes and how to change it. I have not come to economics out of a desire for financial success or to buttress deeply held political convictions. I've come to it from a genuine desire for understanding that informs discipleship.

The most challenging thing for me is the realization that most people want to process the issues that concern me through a political lens, first and foremost. I read recently that people are more willing to marry someone of a different religion than they are someone of an opposing political party. I suspect political affiliation may have eclipsed religion as an identity marker in our culture. Consequently, I find many progressives, or people who the Religious Right has burned, will not give me an ear from the start. Their filters tell them I am not one of them, and they need not engage, or they engage with me as the uncompromising ideologue they already know I am. Many on the right overestimate my identification with their political agenda and ambitions. And let me be clear that my mission is not to find some "third way" between extremes. The people that captivate me are those who I sense are rooted in a quest for understanding that runs much deeper than political justification. And I am especially captivated by the people who can ask good questions regardless of how closely our conclusions to date may align. I very much sense Lupton is a kindred spirit, which is why I appreciate him and identify so strongly with this article.

Capitalism and the Kingdom

I have never placed a political campaign sign in my yard. Not that I am disinterested in who gets elected to public office. That's clearly important to me. But to go public with my political biases is likely to alienate about half of the supporters of my non-profit. It's better for business, I have found, to keep my political opinions to myself, to talk out of both sides of my mouth when necessary, and keep my mouth shut when in doubt.

Some might call me spineless. I prefer diplomatic. I can usually see both sides of an issue and when I can find common ground between differing opinions I do my best to steer the conversation toward mutual understanding. When that doesn't work I try to offer some conciliatory comment and then change the subject.

But there is one subject I have always been very straight about: caring for the poor. This is a conviction. There may be disagreement about just how best to do this caring, but for me compassionate and just treatment of the poor is a non-negotiable. It is a Divine mandate. And I will go to the mat over this one.

Because I have been politically elusive, my Democratic friends often pigeonhole me as a Republican with a big heart. My Republican friends peg me as a Democrat who is opposed to entitlements. Both camps seem to think I'm an anomaly. That's probably good for keeping diverse friends and satisfied supporters.

But after forty-plus years of living and serving among the poor, I have witnessed nearly every expression of care that good people have visited upon the less fortunate – from feeding the homeless, to counseling pregnant girls to keep their babies, to patching widows' roofs, to advocating for addicts who need treatment. I have done all of these and hundreds more. And I have been joined by countless others whose hearts compel them to help those in need. Sometimes our service has made a difference (though its really hard to tell, especially in the short run). Sometimes we have inflicted unintentional harm (and that too is hard to tell, since we never quite know what is behind the smiles). One thing I am quite sure of, however: it is much safer being a supportive listener than it is being an eager helper. And another thing I have learned: when you do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves, you are likely doing them a disservice.

After four decades of serving, the romance is gone. I am left with an unvarnished view of the realities of urban poverty. But the Divine calling imposed upon me to become a neighbor to the poor has never been lifted. And because my commitment and voice and heart remain on the side of the poor, my Democratic friends want to embrace me as a fellow liberal (who has a few right-wing tendencies!). And because I have seen the destructive effects of subsidizing poverty and oppose dependency-producing entitlements, I am accepted by Republican friends as a fellow conservative (but with a heart!). Lately, however, (ever since I came out of the closet with Toxic Charity) I fear this delicate balance I have maintained for so long is beginning to "list to the starboard" (that's tilt to the right). I have begun to publicly declare that the only thing that will enable the poor to emerge from poverty is a decent job. And the primary creators of decent jobs are business people who believe deeply in the free enterprise system. Coming out on the side of capitalism identifies me with Republicans. You see why I'm in trouble now, don't you?

In one of my recent Urban Perspectives I said:
For-profits and not-for-profits represent two fundamental divisions of our economy: wealth creation and wealth transfer. Business is the wealth creator; all others exist on the transfer of that wealth… How strange that business creators, so essential to our well-being, are so often viewed as somehow less spiritual, less compassionate than those who live off the wealth they produce! Strange, too, how we esteem sacrificial non-profit "servants" but malign as greedy capitalists the for-profit producers who underwrite their charities.

One minister friend responded:
Interesting post. I've always loved your even handed approach and refusal to tow the liberal or conservative line. But some of the language in this one surprised me. Capitalism could be baptized but it is not God's final revelation. Some of the language you use here of Ordained For-Profit sector sounds like a myth that profit-driven life will bring the kingdom.

My more liberal friends are suspect of the free enterprise system. They point out to me the excesses, the CEO's who live in opulence and cut their minimum wage employees to thirty hours a week to avoid having to provide health insurance. They say that a system propelled by greed is anything but righteous. They have ready examples of the Enron's that defraud their employees and the BP's that destroy our environment. The for-profit sector is not to be trusted, they contend. Wealth producers, if not carefully controlled and regulated, will more than likely exploit their workers, despoil the environment, cut safety corners, avoid (if not evade) paying taxes, conceal health hazards, and squeeze every penny to the bottom line.

My liberal friends have a point. A competitive economic system can indeed produce winners and losers. And without oversight it can lead to cartels and monopolies. Unchecked greed can certainly be very destructive. All true. But then a socialistic system can produce similar inequities and injustices (minus the wealth creation). Obviously, no economic system is without its shortcomings. But recent history, ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent economic struggles of many European Union member countries, it has become abundantly clear that socialism has failed to deliver on its promises. We are also witnessing the dramatic expansion of economic vitality (and poverty reduction) in China and India as they have cracked open the doors to free enterprise. With all of its potential for exploitation and excess, the capitalistic system is certainly winning the day.

Because capitalism and political freedom are so often linked together, it is tempting to connect them with Judeo-Christian values. That's what my pastor friend was concerned about when he referred to the "myth that profit-driven life will bring the kingdom." Because capitalism has worked so well for us (most of us), making us the most prosperous nation in history, it is tempting to equate it with Shalom. In Judeo-Christian teaching, Shalom, or wholeness, prosperity and peace, is the end to which all righteous people aspire, both here and in the hereafter. Associating capitalism with Shalom may be tempting, yes, but as my minister friend rightly points out: "Capitalism could be baptized but it is not God's final revelation."

I am convinced that the only thing that will enable the poor to emerge from poverty is a decent job. I am further convinced that the best chance of creating decent jobs lies with our free market capitalists. Does this mean that capitalism is the Divine design for bringing about Shalom? I suspect not. Nor is any economic system devised by flawed humanity. But in spite of its bent toward self-interest, even with its excesses and inequities, capitalism has an historic opportunity to create shared prosperity that can benefit every person on the globe. What capitalism needs in order to fulfill its promise is sanctified self-interest.

(Reposted with permission)

How Churches Can Help Without Hurting After Super Typhoon Haiyan

Jamie Aten with some excellent adive: How Churches Can Help Without Hurting After Super Typhoon Haiyan

Rule #1: Don't jump into action before you know the needs on the ground. ...

Keep Your Focus on the Survivors' Needs

... He shared with me that after the Exxon Valdez, many of the local communities were overwhelmed by the support that was provided from all over the world. ... However, they actually had people send barrels and barrels of summer clothes and even swimsuits. (You could imagine how much good that did in the wintery climate off the Alaskan coast.)

In the end, these communities were actually stuck with a $200,000 bill just to get rid of the clothes they could not use. ...

Understand Your Motivation for Wanting to Help

... Some people enjoy the community that comes after disaster work. Others want to be known for doing good. Others are called by their faith to do whatever it takes to help. I want to encourage you and your church to be the latter.

Volunteer, but Do Not be an SUV

I also want to encourage you and your churches not to self-deploy. Spontaneous uninvited volunteers (SUV) can create havoc at a disaster site and can even get in the way of those trained to offer specialized aid. ...

Join Forces and Support Local or Established Church and Aid Organizations

... Overall, our research has found that one of the most effective ways to help after a disaster is to make financial contributions to recognized aid organizations. Financial contributions make sure that the right assistance is available at the right time.

Needs on the ground also change rapidly and dollars can quickly be changed from a meal to supplies. I realize that we often like to give gifts and items. This is understandable. It makes us feel like we are more personally connected. We can sometimes even picture in our mind's eye someone getting the gift we have sent. ...

Church is not Worship, Community, or Mission. It's All Three

Rachel Young has a thoughtful article at the The Presbyterian Outlook's Outpost blog titled, Consumers, missionaries, or worshipers? She writes:

... We use the language of buying and selling, of efficiency, of getting the best product for the best price, even as we think about our relationships, our work, our leisure, our church. We are consumers.

I don't have space in this post to offer evidence for these big claims. Check out Hugh Halter and Matt Smay's book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church for an evaluation of how this metaphor seeps into churches. The consumer metaphor invites us to seek church experiences that fit our interests and time. We go to church to get our spiritual needs met. If I were to modify the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (see below for the actual answer), the consumer might say, "Man's chief end is to connect with God by listening to a great message and hearing great music." ...

So maybe, as some suggest, a better metaphor is missionary. She writes:

... So, we might modify the Westminster Shorter Catechism to say, "Man's chief end is to partner with God to redeem and restore our hurting world."

The missionary metaphor compels me. But, what I find lacking in both of these metaphors is the primacy of worship. Is the gathering of a church only functional? To give people a feel good experience or to shape them as missionaries? Or, are the people of God called first to worship God and then be sent? The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism actually reads, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

I hear her concerns, and I know they are widely shared. I hear similar concerns expressed across the church. But I think pitting these various metaphors against each other, or prioritizing one over the other, IS the problem. I commented in response:

I like how Stan Ott talks about church as three-dimensional: doxological, koinonial, and missional. Or more simply: worship, community, and mission. The three are inseparable. I think classifying desire for a meaningful worship experience as consumerist is overly harsh. It is pursuit of that experience above all else that is destructive. I would also say that pursuit of worship as prior, or over and above the other two, is problematic.

Genuine worship draws us into community and inspires us to mission. Genuine community is worshipful and it is in community that we discern and do mission. Mission is a worshipful response to God and deepens us in community as we do it together. All three aspects must be held together.

There is an ongoing debate in the church about a (false) dichotomy of community (and personal nourishment) versus mission. I sense some want to lift "worship" up as the "third way" out of this conflict. Instead, I suggest that the answer is to embrace all three boldly.

Religion Links

1. First the Nones, now the Spirituals

... Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country, they asked, "In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person? Select One."

The result, cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify themselves as "spiritual" in America today?

1. They're more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but the deity in question is more frequently a "higher power" than a personal God. ...

Related: U.S. College Students Evenly Divided Between Religious, Secular and Spiritual, in New ARIS Study

... Among the students surveyed, 31.8% identified their worldview as Religious, 32.4% as Spiritual, and 28.2% as Secular. Within each group there was a remarkable level of cohesion on answers to questions covering a wide array of issues, including political alignment, acceptance of evolution and climate change, belief in supernatural phenomena such as miracles or ghosts, and trust in alternative practices such as homeopathy and astrology. ...

2. Unpaid Pastors May Be 'Future Of The Church' For Protestant Congregations

... Though small evangelical congregations have long relied on unpaid pastors, mainline churches haven't. They've generally paid full-time or nearly full-time salaries, said Scott Thumma, a Hartford Seminary sociologist of religion.

That's changing, however, as churches face declining numbers and look to new ministry models to make ends meet. Thumma sees more mainliners cutting back to halftime or one-quarter-time packages for clergy, who increasingly work second jobs. ...

3. Trends Among Growing Churches: Some Reflections on the Fastest Growing and Largest U.S. Churches

... On this year's lists, we noticed many of the same trends we've seen in the past. Among the recent trends, we continue to see multisite churches becoming more and more common. Among the 100 Largest churches, we find only 12 have a single campus (although one church did not report how many campuses it has). On the Fastest-Growing list, the number with a single campus is much greater—42, reflecting close to a split in the number of churches that do and do not have multiple campuses.

Some once believed this move to grow via multiple campuses was a temporary trend, but it appears to be a trend that's here to stay. While it was once the domain of only the largest churches, we now see smaller churches deploying the same methodology. What's interesting to me is the number of churches that utilize a multisite methodology and are also committed to church planting. The two are definitely not exclusive of one another. I think this may have something to do with the missionary heart of these churches. ...

4. Do we need denominations?

When people search for a church to join, one early stage decision in the process is whether to find a denominational or non-denominational church. Are denominations important? Is it good for a congregation to be part of a denomination?

On the one hand, independent, non-denominational megachurches and their pastors too often feature in media headlines, as reporters and editors almost gloat in uncovering the latest scandal. Even when there is no scandal, the retirement or death of an independent church pastor (regardless of the congregation's size) will often set that congregation on an irreversible downward glide path toward institutional oblivion.

On the other hand, conventional wisdom has it that denominations in general, and mainline Protestant denominations like The Episcopal Church in particular, are dying anachronisms.

Are denominations important? ...

The short answer is "Yes!" ;-)

5. Church Hunting? There's an App for That

... Launched in September 2011, FaithStreet is one of those brilliant innovations designed to meet a big need with simple technology. Churches fill out an online profile with key information such as location and contact numbers. Web visitors can easily browse churches near them that fit their needs. But Coughlin's web application is an unorthodox business model: FaithStreet doesn't make money unless people give to their local churches. Churches that use FaithStreet encourage attendees to give online, from which FaithStreet takes a cut. "What's great about the model is we win only when the church does," says Coughlin. ...

6. The myth of scientists as atheists

... In fact, I believe that the notion that almost all scientists are atheists is a myth. A recent Pew poll agrees with my view: 51% of polled American scientists believing in some kind of deity. While that rate is far lower than the general public in the US, it is still a majority. ...

7. The Religious Alternative To Obamacare's Individual Mandate

... The sharing ministries are not insurance: there's no guarantee that a given bill will be covered. Instead, it's like a co-op, where members decide what procedures to cover, and then all pitch in to cover the cost as group.

"It's a group of people, in this case Christians, who band together and agree that they want to share one another's burdens," says Andrea Miller, medical director for the largest Christian health-insurance alternative, Medi-Share.

She says members put aside a certain amount of money every month, which then goes to other Christians who need help paying their medical bills. Medi-Share's monthly fees vary, but that family options "average less than $300 a month."

There are a few requirements to fulfill before participating, Miller says. The first is that you have to be Christian. "Second, you need to agree to living a Christian lifestyle, including no smoking, including not abusing alcohol or drugs," she says.

To constitute as a health care sharing ministry — and therefore be exempt from the Affordable Care Act requirements — the nonprofit has to have been in existence since 1999 (Medi-Share has existed since '93). The ministries also have an independent accounting firm conduct a publicly available annual audit. ...

8. At Biologos, "Reflections on Reading Genesis 1-3: John Walton's World Tour": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country, they asked, "In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person? Select One."

The result, cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify themselves as "spiritual" in America today?

1. They're more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but the deity in question is more frequently a "higher power" than a personal God.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.mpIr5pSX.dpuf

Earlier this year, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, my colleagues over at Trinity's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, decided to find out. In an email survey of nearly 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country, they asked, "In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person? Select One."

The result, cross-tabulated with a series of other questions, is a portrait of a collective identity distinctly different from both the religious and the secular, representing (along with each of the others) roughly one-third of the college population. So who are those collegians who identify themselves as "spiritual" in America today?

1. They're more likely to be female than male. In fact, while equal proportions of the young men and women call themselves religious, the former identify as secular versus spiritual by a ratio of over three to two; the latter, as spiritual versus secular by nearly two to one.

2. They are much more likely to believe in God than the Seculars, but the deity in question is more frequently a "higher power" than a personal God.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.mpIr5pSX.dpuf

First the Nones, now the Spirituals

First the Nones, now the Spirituals

The Gospels of Sin Management

Jesus Creed: The Gospels of Sin Management and Their Empty Allegiance

American evangelicalism is what it is because of its gospel. Dallas Willard calls its gospel the “gospel of sin management.” American liberal Protestantism is what it is because of its gospel. Dallas Willard also calls its gospel the gospel of sin management. (Some of you will know I call this gospel the “soterian” gospel in The King Jesus Gospel.) Its emphases — right and left — is forgiveness of sin, eternal life in heaven, assurance in the here and now, and either an act (decision) or acts (good deeds) are the precipitating element that gains a person access to salvation. ...

... They have an “empty allegiance” to Jesus. You’re in whether are a transformed into Christlikeness or not. ...

... On the Right, the gospel is “vampire faith” (they want Jesus for his blood), it is shaped by atonement theology and obsessed with atonement theology, and it is about “relief from the intrapsychic terrors of fundamentalist versions of hell” (149).

On the Left, the gospel is about “good acts” and activism and “self-determined acts of righteousness” (149). So the Right is about proper beliefs and the Left about proper behaviors. The gospel is about conformity to Christ in a God-bathed kingdom reality. ...

My comment in response:

I think part of the solution is recovery of the significance of everyday life and work. The primary locus of ministry for most of us is our home, our workplace, and our neighborhood. It is with and for those who are in our circle of influence. And when I say "ministry" here, I don't mean using these contexts as staging opportunities for evangelism (though evangelism will occur) or as opportunities right injustices (though righting injustices will occur). I mean seeing our participation in these aspects of life, the living and work that is done there, as integral with serving God.

I think it needs to be noted that the soterian gospel of the right and left places the locus of "ministry" in the pastors and ecclesiastic institutions, elevating the centrality and importance of those connected with these institutions. Conscious or not, there is considerable psychic investment to keep things the way the are because of the affirmation and status it brings. The rest of church becomes amateur helpers to the evangelism/justice professionals, which is okay by many of them because they can go do their good deeds as prescribed by the professionals while living most of the rest of their lives as practical atheists. All in all, an effective codependency.

Saturday Links

 1. Population Reference Bureau has a great resource that maps their 2013 World Population Data Sheet on an interactive map. Here is one example:

2. Modern family redefined: Say 'goodbye' to the typical American family

A New York Times story looking at the skyrocketing rate of birth outside of marriage among women under 30 (now over 50 percent of such births) pointed up one of the key differences between marriages and cohabitating couples:

Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.

The research, in aggregate, says that things are changing for the American family, and quickly. There may be ways for the government to address the trend: increased financial benefits for getting and staying married, for example, or a macro-effort to actively battle rising economic inequality, but systematic change will be a long hard fight. The research seems to suggest that such a fight is worth the effort.

3. The Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap: A Look at Future Declines in the Availability
of Family Caregivers

4. Young People Are Still Dropping Out Of The Labor Force

Kids are likely staying in school for longer (or avoiding work altogether) thanks to a tough labor market. On the other hand, the 65-and-over crowd has seen the sharpest uptick in participation. The financial crisis bled retirement savings, forcing older Americans to stay on the job for longer.

5. How Big Data Is Transforming The Mobile Industry

6. Millennials Now Bringing Their Parents Along On Job Interviews

7. Why Bigger Is No Longer Better

Every manager and entrepreneur wants to grow their business.  Get bigger and more powerful, the thinking goes, and you'll have it made. The added heft will give you the upper hand in negotiations with suppliers and the doors of customers will swing wide open.

That used to be true to a certain extent, but not so much anymore. Digital technology has markedly evened out the playing field. Startups become billion dollar companies overnight while venerable brands like Kodak and Blockbuster hit the skids.

This turn of events presents considerable challenges for managers.  While there are still some advantages to scale, the disadvantages often outweigh them.  You have lots of customers, a large workforce and stodgy institutional investors to keep happy, all of which contribute to strategic rigidity.  To compete in the new economy, we need a new playbook. ...

8. Can For-Profit Corporations Have Religious Purposes?

...Okay, some may respond (e.g., here), churches and other organizations have free exercise rights, but for-profit corporations do not.  But why would this be?  An individual sole proprietor — of, say, a kosher deli, to use Will's example — would clearly be able to press a religious liberty claim, whether or not she hopes the deli will make her rich (and whether or not she commits to donate her earnings to a religious charity).   Does this individual lose such rights if she incorporated?   Does that somehow make her religious motivations any less sincere? Any less judicially cognizable?  I can't see how.   What, then, if the deli owner formed a partnership with her equally devout brother?  Would that matter?  And, again, if an informal partnership would be okay, why would the adoption of a corporate form and limited liability matter?

The consequence of the "no religious liberty for corporations" position is that individuals who would like to go into business are penalized if they seek to go into business without any potential recourse, under RFRA or otherwise.  The choice presented by the state is go into business or stay true to your religious beliefs.  Although I suggested otherwise before, it seems to me this approach imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of religion.  Whether this burden can be justified in a given case is a separate question, but the burden is there. ...

9. Five Insights About Private Property from Aquinas

1. God designed creation to support life, especially human life. ...
2. Private property engenders good stewardship. ...
3. Private ownership supports order in society. ...
4. Private property helps maintain peace in communities. ...
5. Private property benefits the community. ...

10. Germans Revolt Against Germany's Green Energy Revolution

11. Brussels fears European 'industrial massacre' sparked by energy costs

Europe's industry is being ravaged by exorbitant energy costs and an over-valued euro, blighting efforts to reverse years of global manufacturing decline.

12. What If Roads Lasted Twice As Long?

If there were a better way to take care of roads in the Lone Star State, it would be a very valuable idea.

Enter Sahadat Hossain, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and the man behind a new state program to shore up crumbling roads using an underground support system of recycled plastic pins.

"Just think about it," Hossain says. "You need one million dollars to repair something. Or you can use a sustainable recycling material and do it for $200- or $300,000. You don't need to be an engineer to see that."

The scheme's low price is matched by its high effectiveness. In a two-year feasibility study that concluded this August, sections of Texas Route 287 with 10-foot-long pins drilled into the roadway slope moved only one to two inches. The control sections, left unsupported, moved 15 to 16 inches. ...

... The input cost of the pins, which have previously been tested in Missouri, is less than 50 percent that of traditional highway support measures like retaining walls. And because they are made from recycled plastic—each pin contains about 500 soda bottles—the pin concept turns plastic's non-decomposition from an environmental headache to an engineering solution. ...

13. This Map Shows Which Countries Are Going To Make The World Cup, According To Nate Silver's Prediction Model

 

Learn About Tableau

14. Why So Many Articles Have Terrible Headlines Online

15. The 11 Most Common Grammatical Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

16. What would happen if your church was reviewed on TripAdvisor?

Churches spend a lot of time on the big things, like a glorious anthem and prophetic preaching. But a UMC pastor says small details matter, too, like lights that burn brightly, signs that make sense and greeters who greet. ...

Saturday Links

1. How effective has the Millennium Villages Project been?

Here is a recent Op Ed in the NYT the Millennium Villages Project by Joe Nocerra, Fighting Poverty, and Critics.

2. Global Economic Growth Has Hit A Two-And-A-Half Year High

3. What Every U.S. Family Really Needs for a Minimum Living Standard

... Computers have become nearly ubiquitous, as cell phones have replaced what was once a reliable indicator of minimum living conditions in the U.S.: the landline. Very soon we'll need to start measuring minimum living conditions in a new way. What if it's your broadband bill you can't afford? Or the computer or smart phone you actually need way more than a dishwasher?

4. The Global Decline of the Labor Share

The stability of the labor share of income is a key foundation in macroeconomic models. We document, however, that the global labor share has significantly declined since the early 1980s, with the decline occurring within the large majority of countries and industries. We show that the decrease in the relative price of investment goods, often attributed to advances in information technology and the computer age, induced firms to shift away from labor and toward capital. The lower price of investment goods explains roughly half of the observed decline in the labor share, even when we allow for other mechanisms influencing factor shares such as increasing profits, capital-augmenting technology growth, and the changing skill composition of the labor force. We highlight the implications of this explanation for welfare and macroeconomic dynamics.

5. The Myth of Part-Time America

... The scare stories are good scares, but they're not good stories, since they start at the end and forget the beginning and middle. The truth about Part-Time America is that a part of America has always been working part-time, and there's not much evidence that we're seeing a terrifically new phenomenon. ...

6. Women Want Work-Life Balance More Than A Big Paycheck

...The survey, which included more than 5,300 working women across 13 countries, asked women questions about what they would need in their careers to feel like they "have it all."

The most interesting result comes from their definition of success. Five to 10 years ago, 56% of women attributed success with earning a big paycheck, but only 45% of women think the same today. And while 39% of women previously defined success as finding the balance between work and personal life, that number has grown to 63% today. ...

I'll add that this dynamic contributes to differences in pay by gender. In aggregate, men are still more singularly focused on work and work is a more central part of male identity.

7. Men's average height 'up 11cm since 1870s'

... The researchers said the gene pool "cannot account for substantial increases in mean stature over four or five generations".

Growth is significantly affected by what happens in the first two years of life, they said.

So, a high rate of illnesses such as respiratory diseases or diarrhoeas - which caused many infant deaths - would also affect survivors' development and therefore their subsequent height.

Infant mortality rates fell significantly throughout the period studied.

Another factor taken into account by the researchers was an increasing move to smaller families - meaning fewer people to feed.

Higher income, more sanitary living conditions and better education about health and nutrition could also have had an effect, they said. ...

Economist Robert Fogel developed the term technophysio evolution in response to his study of the phenomenon. See The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World.

8. US birthrate decline slowing?

The US birth rate could be leveling off after a four-years of drop:  4 million Americans were born in 2012, just a few hundred fewer than2011. Teen births are in a "stunning turnaround," and the birthrate for older moms is increasing. ...

9. What's Killing Poor White Women?

For most Americans, life expectancy continues to rise—but not for uneducated white women. They have lost five years, and no one knows why.

10. Amish Community Not Anti-Technology, Just More Thoughtful

Many outsiders assume the Amish reject all new technology. But that's not true.

One Amish man in Lancaster County, Pa., checks his voicemail about four times a day. His shop is equipped with a propane-powered forklift, hydraulic-powered saws, cordless drills, and a refrigerated tank where milk from dairy cows is stored.

The difference between Amish people and most other Americans is the deliberation that takes place before deciding whether to embrace a new technology. Many Americans assume newer technology is always better, and perhaps even inherently good. ...

11. Religion In Workplace Increasingly Diverse; Comes With Potential Pitfalls

12. The shocking un-truth about church budgets

The church’s rapidly changing role in society requires new ways of looking at the allocation of financial resources. ...

... In the past we churches thought of ourselves as the backbones of society, places where good, moral and faithful people gather to pool resources so we can go out into the world and feed the homeless and convert people in order to save their souls. Keeping administrative costs as low as possible would help us to help the needy.

While many good and righteous things have come out of this view of ourselves, the truth is that that way of thinking is a pretty arrogant self-assessment borne out of a climate of popularity and ease. ...

... What we are now is mission outposts. We are islands in a world full of increasingly adrift people. We are places of solace and hope, community and hospitality for people who are too smart to believe in God and pretty convinced they don’t need the church — until they do. ...

13. 26 Maps That Show How Ethnic Groups Are Divided Across America

14. A Point of View: Why embracing change is the key to happiness

... And every analysis of what makes lucky and happy people lucky and happy demonstrates they adapt fast and well to new situations and people, and so are defended by complex social circles and acclimatised to change. They offer and request help and are free to embrace what's positive in life's inevitable alterations. They don't try to impose stillness on a universe which is in motion. They know real security involves a degree of exposure.

Sadly, most human authorities play to our fears and offer us stasis. They build us, if you like, shark cages for our time in the ever-changing water - consoling little pens which can't protect us when something huge and horrible arrives and we end up like Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws - all at sea. They offer apparently eternal values - eternity being unchanging and therefore reliable - the brotherhood of men, the wisdom of the free market, the evil of outsiders, the true path to heaven, the rewards of obedience. An incumbent government will warn against "changing horses in midstream" and we may accept a dire status quo because of how much worse the alternative might be. ...

Saturday Links

1. Phillip Swagel with a good piece on Inequality and Opportunity

... I am not convinced, however, that the president's proposals are well matched to the problem he describes. Indeed, Mr. Obama is better at describing the outcomes he seeks than at putting forward a coherent set of policies to reach those outcomes. But I think I see what he has in mind.

Mr. Obama is looking at two horizons. The main determinant of inequality is what the Harvard economics professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz call a "race between technological change and educational attainment." Technology has increased the demand for skilled workers but educational attainment has not kept up, leading to rising payoffs for those at the top. Widening inequality reflects the fact that too many Americans do not have the skills needed for today's economy. But changing this takes time. So while he proposes universal preschool to benefit the future work force and new training programs delivered through community colleges for existing workers, Mr. Obama seeks to foster a stronger economy here and now, to drive higher earnings for people at all income levels rather than just those at the top. ...

2. Shared Justice: Beyond Purely Economic Solutions to Poverty

Christians must agree on a holistic definition of poverty that includes relational and spiritual elements. ...

... But is the problem of poverty really that simple, a lack of opportunity given to those in the lowest economic class? It depends on how you define the terms "poverty" and "opportunity," as well as the terms "justice" and "charity"—all of which require multi-dimensional definitions if we hope to build a constructive conversation around the problem of poverty. Throughout the next two months at Shared Justice, we'll be fostering that conversation; to do so, though, we first must return to the basics and refine the questions. In other words, the question is: What are the right definitions?

But is the problem of poverty really that simple, a lack of opportunity given to those in the lowest economic class? It depends on how you define the terms "poverty" and "opportunity," as well as the terms "justice" and "charity"—all of which require multi-dimensional definitions if we hope to build a constructive conversation around the problem of poverty. Throughout the next two months at Shared Justice, we'll be fostering that conversation; to do so, though, we first must return to the basics and refine the questions. In other words, the question is: What are the right definitions? ...

... Broken relationships lie at the root of all of these things, so solving poverty demands that we meet more than just material needs—and that isn't easy. Generally Christians today have engaged in one-way giving and service amounting to little more than charity in the end, which is only part of our calling. And the result? Christians and the church have been relatively ineffective at providing lasting opportunities for the poor to overcome their situations. ...

3. Charitable Giving: Baby Boomers Donate More, Study Shows

4. Economist: Rewriting history - "A new measure for GDP adds billions to America's economy"

5. Why the Church and Charity Aren't Enough - Derek Penwell

...My friend argues that taking care of the poor is the church's responsibility -- that people who work hard shouldn't have to give so much of what they earn back to the government in taxes. Government is notoriously inefficient and sloppy.

So, I tell him that all of that might be true, but to people on the outside looking in, to folks who don't share his strong faith in the church's ability to get it right either, such a theology of social organization looks suspiciously like a dodge -- a flimsy attempt to baptize selfishness. To them it sounds like "I got mine … through a paradoxical admixture of my hard work and God's blessing, which means God wants me to have all this stuff; and conversely, it means God doesn't want poor people to have any stuff, let alone my stuff."...

6. Why China's 'Dominance' of Manufacturing Is Misleading

Gaudy statistics aside, the country has struggled to do what it needs to do -- move up the value chain.

On Monday, The Atlantic wrote a story based on an International Business Times infographic that portrayed China's enduring prominence in manufacturing. Remember, though; prominence is not the same as success. (Just consider this sentence: "Alex Rodriguez continues to be a very prominent baseball player.") China will play a major role in global manufacturing for years -- and probably decades -- to come. But the country's role is not a healthy one, and the weaknesses in Chinese manufacturing outshine the huge numbers displayed in the graph. ...

 

7. The Average American Car Is Older Than Ever Before

 

"The average age of the 247 million light vehicles on American roads today is 11.4 years, an all-time high, according to a new study from Polk. ..."

 

8. Redistributing Wealth Is the Wrong Way to Fix a Rigged Game

 

Elites shouldn't be forced to share ill-gotten gains -- they should be prevented from ever getting them.

 

9. How should the US deliver food aid?

 

Food shipped from America has saved the lives of millions of people since the Food for Peace programme was set up in 1954, but the strict rules demanding almost all of the food has to be sourced in the US and sent on American ships are coming under increasing attack.

10. Many Americans have no friends of another race: poll

About 40 percent of white Americans and about 25 percent of non-white Americans are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race, according to an ongoing Reuters/Ipsos poll.

 

David Fitch on a New "Order" of Clergy

Reclaiming the Mission: Create a New ‘Order’ of Clergy: A Recommendation to Denominations - David Fitch

... I suggest there is a need for a new order of clergy (if I may call it that): a missional leader who can understand the relationship between work and ministry so that it is seamless. He or she dedicates 10-15 hours a week to organizing the Kingdom community in their local context.  He or she knows her gifting and can lead out of that gifting. He or she has a job that he/she can support her/himself and her family with. He/she can develop a job skill that can adapt to changing circumstances. Often, he or she adjust their work hours so that she can work a tad less than the average 40 hour week. He or she can then give time to the leadership of their community without disrupting a daily/weekly rhythm of being present with family and neighborhood as well. The small church community can offer a small stipend to make up the difference. He or she does all this with 3 to 4 other leaders who do the same. Each is recognized for one of the five-fold giftings out of which they minister and lead in relation to the other leaders. They are apostle, prophet, pastor-organizer, teacher-organizer, evangelist working together, 15 hours plus 15 hours, plus 15 hours, plus 15 hours plus 15 hours. They are doing more out of multiple giftings than one single pastor ever could. They are bearing each other’s burdens. They are a “band of brothers and sisters.” This becomes a sustainable missionary kind of ministry that changes the whole dynamics of ministry because they are present in jobs, families and neighborhoods and makes possible long term ministry in context. It is, in essence, a new version of the old monastic orders of mission adapted to the capitalistic societies in the West while providing the means to resist (and provide witness) to its more oppressive sinful patterns.

Denominations need to define a new order of clergy because anyone seeking to operate in ministry this way will easily get defeated. Some of the more obvious ways they will get defeated are: ...

... For all these reasons we need to fund a new imagination for a new emerging clergy class that are in essence self sustaining contextual N. American missionaries. But the denominations for the most part have not navigated this. My guess is, if the denominations formed a new order of clergy, helped developed imagination and supporting structures for it, there would be untold numbers flocking to this group. There are literally thousands of second career people, and thousands of younger seminary graduates  dissatisfied with current options (dying small church senior pastor or mega church staff person) who would gravitate towards this kind of commissioning.  But we have no larger imagination for it. A new order of clergy could help and support these kind of missionaries and stir up such an imagination. Such an order of clergy could seed a whole new mission for a renewal of the Kingdom in N America. ...

Saturday Links

1. Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness

People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity.

2. Blacks, Hispanics more optimistic than whites

... After years of economic attitudes among whites, blacks and Hispanics following similar patterns, whites' confidence in their economic future has plummeted in the last decade, according to the analysis. Blacks and Hispanics, meanwhile, have sustained high levels of optimism despite being hit hard in the recent recession. ...

... The AP-NORC analysis of data from the General Social Survey, a long-running biannual survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, found just 46 percent of whites say their family has a good chance of improving their living standard given the way things are in America, the lowest level in surveys conducted since 1987. In contrast, 71 percent of blacks and 73 percent of Hispanics express optimism of an improved life - the biggest gap with whites since the survey began asking. ...

3. The Book of Mormon: Why the world’s most capitalist religion breeds so many entrepreneurs

... The Mormon religion, however, stresses more than just self-reliance. Its emphasis on hard work, staying focused, and giving back to the Church also stirs entrepreneurial inclinations. The almost-mandatory missions carried out by its young men and women before they start their careers forge an ability to withstand rejection and disappointment while also fostering communication skills that help not only with sales jobs but also in starting companies. All the while, an unrelenting focus on the family means that Mormons are incentivized to “follow the rules” and earn money to feed many mouths, while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

And so the US is riven with examples of what appears to be a disproportionately high number of business and entrepreneurial success stories to emerge from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members account for just 1.7 percent of the US population. ...

4. A Record Number Of Young Adults Are Still Hunkered Down With Mom And Dad

... In 2012, 21.6 million young adults aged 18-31 lived at home with their parents, up from 18.5 million just before the recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. 

"This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009," the report says. ...

5. U.S. Marriage Rates Keep Declining

Marriage rates in America are at an all-time low. And the median age at which women say "I do" is the highest it's been in a century.

Charles Blow had these observations about Marriage and Minorities.

6. The Long-Term Effects Of Poverty Linger Even After People Become Wealthy

"Scientists find [people who grew up poor] are more prone to illness than those who were never poor. Becoming more affluent may lower the risk of disease by lessening the sense of helplessness and allowing greater access to healthful resources like exercise, more nutritious foods and greater social support; people are not absolutely condemned by their upbringing. But the effects of early-life stress also seem to linger, unfavorably molding our nervous systems and possibly even accelerating the rate at which we age."

7. The other killer. Hepatitis kills more people than HIV in most countries.

8. India’s Garment Industry Gets Respun

As cost increases in China and concerns over labor conditions in Bangladesh push manufacturing firms away, India is gearing up its own garment industry to try to capitalize on the opportunity and boost its faltering economy. India has so far failed to fully take advantage of its huge potential labor force living out in the countryside. This may soon change, with companies like Aravind Mills planning to open dormitories for workers. Additionally, the Indian government, taking a page from China’s development model, has plans to create textile parks, with space designated for worker housing. ...

9. The Missouri Table: A Response to Ethical Foodies From a ‘Factory Farmer’

... One caller to a radio show I appeared on recently desribed the people who patronize fast food restaurants as "sheeple." That kind of derision leads me to believe that the caller will only feel good about himself if he believes I eat hamburgers several times a month at a place with cheesy uniforms and kid’s meals. I’m happy to oblige, but it is hard for me to take him seriously. He’s not as interested in making the world better as he is in feeling superior to people who can’t afford to eat the diet he believes necessary to living an ethical and sustainable life. He’s not nearly as concerned about the future of the planet as he is at being noticed, approvingly, by the kind of people who worry about the proper way to boil lentils, raise a few heritage pigs in their backyard, and are always available to be interviewed by NPR and the New York Review of Books. ...

A little harsh but a lot true.

 10. The Slower Rise in Health Care Costs

The rate at which health care costs are rising had slowed down in recent years, and perhaps not unexpectedly, Obama's economic advisers have sought to draw the link that "As ACA Implementation Continues, Consumer Health Care Cost Growth Has Slowed." But an array of evidence suggests that something beyond that legislation--which after all, is mostly not yet implemented--is the cause.

1) The slowdown in the rise of health care spending was already being noted in newspaper articles back in early 2012. ...

2) The slowdown in rising health care costs since the recession is international, as a press release with the OECD Health Report 2013 explains. ...

3) There's some reason to be dubious as to whether the slower rate of growth in health care spending will persist. ...

11. ‘Saudi America’ was the world’s No. 1 petroleum producer in April for the 6th straight month

12. Efficiency Drove U.S. Emissions Decline, Not Natural Gas, Study Says

Aggressive energy efficiency efforts by households, companies and motorists led to the decline in carbon dioxide emissions from energy use in the United States, according to a recent report. The controversial finding contradicts recent studies that say the power sector's shift away from coal to cheap natural gas caused the bulk of reductions.

U.S. emissions last year fell by 205 million metric tons, or 4 percent, from 2011 levels. CO2 Scorecard Group, a small environmental research organization, says that nearly half the decline came from energy-saving measures such as retrofits and smarter appliances in homes and offices, as well as from Americans driving fewer miles, and using more fuel-efficient vehicles. 

Natural gas is responsible for only about one-quarter of last year's emissions drop, CO2 Scorecard Group asserts....

As the article notes, other reputable research disagrees, attributing most of the drop to shale.

13. Millennials and Leaving Church: Really?

... Before you either quote the reports or the responses to the reports, read Brad Wright’s book: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media.

Here are some highlights from Wright’s 3d chp, one asking if we (think we) are losing our youth.

Josh McDowell: “It is clear that we have all but lost our young people to a godless culture.” Josh’s statement is typical.

It’s also not in tune with good social-scientific data. For instance, there was a widely circulating rumor (I heard it) that said 4% of our evangelical youth will be evangelicals when they get older. Wright chased the number into bad stats. Here are some better ones:

1. Young adults are less religious, but what does this mean?
2. 12% in the 70s and 80s were unaffiliated; now 25% are. But this is the same number as with other age groups.
3. Currently, 22% of young adults are evangelicals; that’s up from 21% in the 70s but down from 25% in the 90s.
4. Negatively, unaffiliated has increased for young adults.
5. Positively, the number who are affiliated with churches has remained the same.
6. Those affiliated with Evangelicals, Black Prots, and RCC are the same as in the 70s. (Mainliners are down.)
7. No sign of cataclysmic or big changes....

 

Saturday Links

I skipped Saturday Links last week due to the holiday weekend. I'm catching up this week.

1. Faith in the Free Market

"... Selke, now 36, is part of a vanguard of young Christians who believe that God uses not only the church and formal ministry but every sphere of society, including business and free markets, to advance his work of shalom. Selke parlayed his experience analyzing companies, creating spreadsheets, and evaluating profitable opportunities for an investment bank into helping social entrepreneurs—people who create organizations in order to benefit society.

In 2010, Selke co-founded Hub Ventures, an accelerator in San Francisco investing in entrepreneurs launching companies that produce a social good. The 12-week program provides up to $20,000 in seed funding, mentorship, workshops, and access to investors in exchange for an average of a 6 percent ownership stake. What separates Selke's program from other business accelerators en vogue in Silicon Valley is the focus on "entrepreneurs building technology solutions for a better world," Selke says. ..."

2. The Global Low Fertility Panic: Just a Phase?

"...Our new book, The Global Spread of Fertility Decline: Population, Fear, and Uncertainty (Yale University Press, 2013) analyzes these trends and the demographic, political and economic consequences and uncertainties as low fertility has become a global phenomenon. Like other facets of globalization, low fertility rates are by no means universal: High fertility persists in sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of the Middle East, but elsewhere low fertility is more the rule than the exception. These underlying trends in childbearing mean that in the near future the rate of population growth both in Europe and Asia are likely to decline. The world is not on a path of unrestrained demographic growth, as some believe. People all over the world have hit the brakes.

Thirty years ago only a small fraction of the world's population lived in the few countries with fertility rates substantially below the "replacement level" - the rate at which the fertility of a hypothetical cohort of women would exactly replace itself in the next generation - normally set at 2.1 children per woman for populations with low mortality conditions. Fast forward to 2013, with roughly 60 percent of the world's population living in countries with such below-replacement fertility rates.

The consequences of these changes are striking. ..."

3. Immigration and Entrepreneurship

According to a Small Business Administration-commissioned report in 2012 by Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the business ownership rate is higher for immigrants than the native-born, with 10.5 percent of the immigrant work force owning a business compared with 9.3 percent of the native-born work force.

4. Graft Is On The Rise Around The World

5. Job-Stealing Robots Go Global

Asian workers have scored some victories in rising wages, but many are learning something the West has known for some time: Employers will seek out the cheapest labor on offer, and machines are even cheaper than an underpaid human. In the late 20th century, manufacturing jobs shifted from America to China, then from China to Southeast Asia, and now even those are being automated.

For America, at least, this trend shouldn't be so disconcerting. After all, it's developed economies like ours that are designing the robots Nike is now using. Low-wage manufacturing jobs are drying up, but they're being replaced by jobs in building, operating, and repairing the tech in question. Increasingly, companies will be likely to "onshore" these jobs to America, when shipping and distribution becomes much easier and cheaper. Manufacturing, it seems, will come full circle.

6. Economist Mark Perry with a provocative claim: Yes, the middle-class has been disappearing, but they haven't fallen into the lower-class, they've risen into the upper-class

 

7. Co.exist with what they see as 4 Bogus Claims About Why Walmart Can't Pay A Living Wage (I'm not in full agreement but they make they present their side articulately.)

8. Gallup Has Never Seen So Many Americans Sitting Out Of The Stock Market

9. K-State study: Arguments about money best predictor of divorce

"Results revealed it didn't matter how much you made or how much you were worth," Britt said in the university statement. "Arguments about money are the top predictor for divorce because it happens at all levels."

She said couples should seek a financial planner as part of premarital counseling, and talk about finances.

10. How the Dismal Science Got Its Name (It had nothing to do with Thomas Malthus or scarcity ... or even with students who have suffered through Econ 101 classes.)

 11. Matt Ridley writes I may follow the crowd, but not because it's a crowd

"... My friend objected that I seemed to follow the herd on matters like the reality of evolution and the safety of genetically modified crops, so why not on climate change? Ah, said I, but I don't. I agree with the majority view on evolution, not because it is a majority view but because I have looked at evidence. It's the data that convince me, not the existence of a consensus. ..."

12. Dan Lewis debunks the myth that the end of the telegraph is here: The Spread of a False Fact

13. PC sales see 'longest decline' in history

Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the "longest duration of decline" in history.

14. Time of 'Incredible Violence': Historian Gives Readers Glimpse of Medieval Life

15. Farming Got Hip In Iran Some 12,000 Years Ago, Ancient Seeds Reveal

Archaeologists digging in the foothills of Iran's Zagros Mountains have discovered the remains of a Stone Age farming community. It turns out that people living there were growing plants like barley, peas and lentils as early as 12,000 years ago.

The findings offer a rare snapshot of a time when humans first started experimenting with farming. They also show that Iran was an important player in the origin of agriculture.

16. LGBT group finds acceptance at evangelical college

"... Fuller's community standards states that "sexual abstinence is required for the unmarried" and marriage is between one man and one woman.

Nevertheless, Fuller's decision not to push back against OneTable is a critical step toward acceptance for gay evangelical students, said Justin Lee, the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, which tracks the burgeoning movement. An increasing number of young people have been coming out on Christian campuses nationwide, whether they are accepted or not, and Fuller's move acknowledges that and provides a touchstone for students who would otherwise keep their sexuality a secret, he said. ..."

17. New generation activists build bridges

A traditional organizing approach makes opponents into 'enemies,' but a new crop of union and other activists is using love and empathy to create alliances and new possibilities.

 

Saturday Links

1. The Myth of a Stagnant Middle Class

A favorite "progressive" trope is that America's middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s. One version of this claim, made by Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary, is typical: "After three decades of flat wages during which almost all the gains of growth have gone to the very top," he wrote in 2010, "the middle class no longer has the buying power to keep the economy going."

This trope is spectacularly wrong. ...

... Americans are also much better able to enjoy their longer lives. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, spending by households on many of modern life's "basics"—food at home, automobiles, clothing and footwear, household furnishings and equipment, and housing and utilities—fell from 53% of disposable income in 1950 to 44% in 1970 to 32% today.

One underappreciated result of the dramatic fall in the cost (and rise in the quality) of modern "basics" is that, while income inequality might be rising when measured in dollars, it is falling when reckoned in what's most important—our ability to consume. Before airlines were deregulated, for example, commercial jet travel was a luxury that ordinary Americans seldom enjoyed. Today, air travel for many Americans is as routine as bus travel was during the disco era, thanks to a 50% decline in the real price of airfares since 1980. ...

2. Grow, Baby, Grow! GMOs And the Future of Industry

... We can imagine a future in which GMO agriculture is producing a whole range of things we now think of as industrial products and chemicals. Over the 21st century we seem headed for dramatic, and even mind-blowing, progress in gene technology. It's not too much to think that this revolution will be as big in the future as IT is today. This will be a much more efficient way to create a complex array of substances without the kind of environmental impact that refineries have today. Solar power's future may be much less about replacing oil as a way of producing electricity than about circumventing traditional industrial processes: the fusion of the factory and the farm may be the chief technological business of the new century.

This whole process opens the door to a huge reduction in the costs, economic and environmental, of producing the materials we need for civilized life. It will further reduce the need for human employment in the extractive, refining and processing industries. It will also represent a growing challenge to countries with extraction based economies, much as the development of synthetic rubber was a challenge for rubber tree plantations in places like Malaysia and Brazil. Like all truly powerful new technologies, this one is going to cause massive social change and upheaval in all kinds of hard-to-predict ways. ...

3. Economists Have A One-Page Solution To Climate Change

... "If you let the economists write the legislation," Jacoby says, "it could be quite simple." He says he could fit the whole bill on one page.

Basically, Jacoby would tax fossil fuels in proportion to the amount of carbon they release. That would make coal, oil and natural gas more expensive. That's it; that's the whole plan. ...

4. World GDP Change, 1998 to Present

5. 24/7 Wall St has great piece on the oldest U. S. company logos. The oldest?

6. Why Machines That Can Do Human Things Won't Replace Us Anytime Soon

I believe the answer lies in a fundamental understanding (or lack thereof) of what automated technology is supposed to do for us as a society. In a nutshell, it's like this: Automated technologies are supposed to help human beings become better human beings, not help machines become better human beings.

7. 60% Of Self-Proclaimed Vegetarians Ate Meat Yesterday

A poll conducted by CNN surveyed 10,000 Americans about their eating habits, and roughly 6% of the respondents self-identified as vegetarians. The researchers then asked individuals to describe their eating habits, and 60% of the "vegetarians" reported having eaten meat within the last 24 hours.

Okay, that could've have been a fluke (or just a really, really dumb sample group). Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted a similar study. This time, they telephoned approximately 13,000 Americans, and 3% claimed to be vegetarians. When they followed up a week later, 66% of the self-proclaimed veggie-lovers had eaten meat the day before.

8. New Online Christian Magazine Offers Funding for Entrepreneurs

New Christian entrepreneur magazine goes live online with plans to offer seed funding for new startups and small businesses.

The online format of hot new Christian entrepreneur publication G-Code Magazine has gone live featuring an exclusive interview with Christian music artist and songwriter Cornell Jermaine, and a mission to provide startup capital to at least 100 new small businesses in the next 18 months.

9. Things for United Methodist laity to unlearn — from a layperson's POV

1.  While our church leaders, Pastor, church staff, are responsible to give vision, direction and guidance, they are not charged with keeping us happy. ...

2.  The church building does not belong to us; it is an asset for ministry.....

3.  Worship on Sunday is not entertainment, and we are not the audience.   Worship is a time for us to gather, hear God's word, get filled up, and go in the power of the Spirit to change the world. ...

4.  There are a lot more of us (laity) than there are of them (clergy).  Why did we ever decide sharing the Gospel was only for the 'professionals'? ...

10. Two Paths for Charitable Giving: From the Head or From the Heart

Mr. Friedman said donors who give emotionally were like people who spend money on an expensive dinner. "It's too focused on the donor so it will naturally not be focused on the most effective causes," he said. "It's being directed by some other criteria. There is nothing wrong with that. I describe it as consumption."

Mr. Tempel said that it was fine to ask organizations to be accountable, but that it could go too far. "People who follow their head looking at return on investment — they will be most disappointed if they have unrealistic expectations on what is possible," he said. "Some things are just difficult to deal with, like solving illiteracy in a community."

11. Pew Research with an interesting piece on Americans' reading habits over time

The population of e-book readers is growing. In the past year, the number of those who read an e-book in the past year increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older in December 2011 to 23% in November 2012. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who read a printed book in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population in 2011 to 67% in 2012.

12. Just in case you have been living under a rock, the Supreme Court made same big decisions this week. One Catholic leader, Msgr. Charles Pope, has an interesting response to the decisions on gay marriage:

Msgr. Charles Pope lamented that since 1969, when it became easier to divorce, contraception became widely available and now that the legal standing of gay marriages had been put on equal footing of those of heterosexual couples, that the word 'marriage' no longer has resonance within the Catholic faith.

It is a simple fact that word “marriage” as we have traditionally known it is being redefined in our times. To many in the secular world the word no longer means what it once did and when the Church uses the word marriage we clearly do not mean what the increasing number of states mean.

The pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian then went on to suggest that the Catholic church drop the word marriage altogether and use "Holy Matrimony" in its place.

I propose that we should exclusively refer to marriage in the Church as “Holy Matrimony.” According to this proposal the word marriage would be set aside and replaced by Holy Matrimony. It should be noticed that the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this Sacrament formally as “The Sacrament of Matrimony.”

13. How Much Time Do Pastors Spend Preparing a Sermon? The median time spent in preparation is 13-15 hours.

14. What Happened to the Mysterious Humans of the Sahara 7,000 Years Ago?

15. DNA Buried 7,000 Centuries Is Retrieved

16. Mouse cloned from a drop of blood

Why Some Companies Seem To Last Forever

Business Insider: Why Some Companies Seem To Last Forever

... What explains this longevity? Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Charles O’Reilly calls it "organizational ambidexterity": the ability of a company to manage its current business while simultaneously preparing for changing conditions. "You often see successful organizations failing, and it's not obvious why they should fail," O’Reilly says. The reason, he says, is that a strategy that had been successful within the context of a particular time and place may suddenly be all wrong once the world changes.

Staying competitive, then, means changing what you're doing. But the change can't be an abrupt switch from old to new — from print to digital distribution, say, or from selling products to selling services — if that means abandoning a business that's still profitable. Hence the call for ambidexterity. You can't just choose between exploiting your current opportunities and exploring new ones; you have to do both. And the companies that last for decades are able to do so time and time again. ...

I think there is a message for congregations and denominations as well.

Saturday Links

1. More deaths than births among whites

Last year, more people who are white and not Hispanic died than were born, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. That group is still the USA’s largest but its share of the total has been shrinking for years.

2. Human Population Growth Creeps Back Up

Earth's human population is expected to coast upward to 9.6 billion by 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100, up from 7.2 billion people alive today, a United Nations agency has projected.

The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs yesterday released revised numbers for the coming century, raising median estimates for population growth in 2050 and 2100. The agency's prior best guess had humanity at 9.3 billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion in 2100. ...

3. New homes still getting bigger

At 2,306 square feet, the typical new home is about 50% larger than its 1973 counterpart while the typical family is 10% smaller and the typical household 15% smaller. The Census Bureau defines a family as two or more people living in the same home who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. A household consists of anyone living in a home regardless of their relationship.

4. American Suburbia Is Shrinking For The First Time Ever

The population of rural and small-town America contracted over the past two years for the first time on record as young people left to search out work in the cities and birth rates fell, according to official data.

An analysis of US Census Bureau data by the Department of Agriculture found that although population growth in America’s rural heartland has risen and fallen for decades with changes in the US economy, the pace of decline accelerated in the years 2010-2012. And for the first time, the so-called “natural increase” in population – total births minus deaths – was insufficient to offset the loss from those migrating away.

5. Business Insider says Online Courses Have Reached A Turning Point That Should Scare Colleges but Mashable says Millennials Prefer Traditional Classrooms Over Online Ones.

6. NYT: Data Reveal a Rise in College Degrees Among Americans

7. Homeschooling Growing Seven Times Faster than Public School Enrollment

A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%. Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times faster than the number of children enrolling in grades K-12 every year.

8. The Wedding Industry’s Pricey Little Secret

In 2012, when the average wedding cost was $27,427, the median was $18,086. In 2011, when the average was $27,021, the median was $16,886. In Manhattan, where the widely reported average is $76,687, the median is $55,104. And in Alaska, where the average is $15,504, the median is a mere $8,440.

 And speaking of weddings, here is an excellent piece on the economics of wedding dresses.

9. Why Men Still Are Still Scared To Take Paternity Leave

But even when offered paternity leave, studies show most men won’t take it. A 2012 study of tenured track college professors found that only 12% of fathers took paid parental leave when it was offered compared with 69% of mothers. When new dads in the study did take paternity leave, many were still involved in projects at the office.

10. Dads, Feel Your Babies Kicking With Huggies Pregnancy Belt

11. Online Petitions Combat Corruption Abroad

According to Change.org, 44% of international petitions among the 100 largest petitions on the site target government corruption. In stark contrast, none of the petitions among the 100 largest campaigns that originated in the U.S. focus on corruption.

12. Wanting Expensive Things Makes Us Happier Than Actually Buying Them

The evidence is unequivocal: Money makes you happy. You just have to know what to do with it.

So what should you do with it?

Stop buying so much stuff, renowned psychologist Daniel Gilbert told me in an interview a few years ago, and try to spend more money on experiences.

13. Nuclear power seemed to be back in the news this week. New Yorker says Time to Go Nuclear, New Geography says No Solar Way Around It: Why Nuclear Is Essential to Combating Climate Change, and The Energy Collective had a great piece The Bigger Picture: Nuclear Energy vs. Fossil Fuels.

14. Nicaragua Congress approves ocean-to-ocean canal plan

15. China's Plan To Build The World's Tallest Skyscraper In 90 Days Is 'Revolutionary'

16. Singapore's Vegetable Towers

With more than 5 million people crammed into 274 square miles, commercial land values in Singapore are among the highest in the world. Therefore, the island nation needs to get creative when it comes to growing food in a limited space.

17. US breweries have exploded, from 89 in the late 1970s to more than 2,400 today, a 2,600% increase

18. The 'Star Trek' Medical Scanner Is About To Become A Reality

The small device is similar to the medical tricorder scanners featured in Star Trek, and is used by simply placing it against your forehead. 

A few seconds later you can see your blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, respiratory rate, and body temperature.

The Scout then records and stores the information on your smartphone, allowing you to track your vitals or share them with a doctor.

19. The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'

While not strong, the pace has not been any weaker than the pace for wages in the fixed-weighted employment cost index—the ECI. That pattern disproves the widespread impression that mainly “bad” below-average-wage jobs are being created. Average hourly earnings would be declining relative to wages in the ECI if job growth were disproportionately weighted toward below-average-wage jobs.

20. A Christian Walmart for the poor? Willow Creek's new care center

Consider the Chicago-area Willow Creek Community Church, one of the bigger "brands" in the non-denom world, which just built a new "care center" where those in need can come and "shop" for food, children's clothing, even eyeglasses. It's 60,000 square feet are laid out, according to the Chicago Tribune, "less like a thrift shop or food pantry, and more like an upscale mall, complete with cheery colors, welcoming seating areas and designer lighting," according to the Chicago Tribune. Clients pay something if they are able--$5 to visit the children's "boutique," for example, or a $20 copay for an eye exam.

Consider the Chicago-area Willow Creek Community Church, one of the bigger "brands" in the non-denom world, which just built a new "care center" where those in need can come and "shop" for food, children's clothing, even eyeglasses. It's 60,000 square feet are laid out, according to the Chicago Tribune, "less like a thrift shop or food pantry, and more like an upscale mall, complete with cheery colors, welcoming seating areas and designer lighting," according to the Chicago Tribune. Clients pay something if they are able--$5 to visit the children's "boutique," for example, or a $20 copay for an eye exam. - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/christian-walmart-poor-willow-creeks-new-care-center-27430#sthash.OhuyPOdG.dpuf

A Christian Walmart for the poor? Willow Creek's new care center - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/christian-walmart-poor-willow-creeks-new-care-center-27430#sthash.OhuyPOdG.dpuf

The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'

The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'

Saturday Links

1. The Atlantic says Just 27% of BA's Have Jobs Related to Their Major? Don't Believe the Fed's New Stat

2. 100 fastest growing inner city businesses

From a pet relocation service, a wine lifestyle marketer, to a scrap metal regenerator, America's urban core is home to a variety of fast-growing companies. Here's the top 100, as ranked by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City.

3. Factory safety: Battle of the brands

... This approach has been criticised by the Workers Rights Consortium because, unlike its plan, it contains no binding commitment to help fund improvements to make factories safe. Yet it is debatable whether wealthy factory owners really lack funds to make factories safe, as opposed to the lack of incentive due to the Bangladesh government's failure to enforce its own building code. WalMart points out that the government has now started to close unsafe fatories, 19 so far (presumably because of the constant protests by locals since the collapse of Rana Plaza). It says its new approach will detect unsafe factories significantly faster than the Workers Rights Consortium's plan.

Perhaps it would be better if everyone agreed on a common approach. But if there must be competition, it is surely better that it is over how to make factories safer than the alternative.

4. Economist Timothy Taylor with some interesting thoughts on Spending on America's Pets

5. Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories

While psychologists can't know exactly what goes on inside our heads, they have, through surveys and laboratory studies, come up with a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief. In 2010, Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The Psychologist, a scientific journal. They found, perhaps surprisingly, that believers are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in particular. Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness.

6. Why You Feel Smart Around Some People But Dumb Around Others

... Experiments show that when people report feeling comfortable with a conversational partner, they are judged by those partners and by observers as actually being more witty.

It's just one example of the powerful influence that social factors can have on intelligence. Research in this area should prompt us to think about intelligence not as a "lump of something that's in our heads," as the psychologist Joshua Aronson puts it, but as "a transaction among people."...

... This research has important implications for the way we educate children and the way we manage employees. For one thing, we should replace high-stakes, one-shot tests with the kind of unobtrusive and ongoing assessments that give teachers and managers a more accurate sense of people's true abilities. We should also put in place techniques for reducing anxiety and building self-confidence that take advantage of our social natures. And we should ensure that the social climate in schools and workplaces is one of warmth and trust, not competition and exclusion.

Professor Aronson calls the doltishness induced by an uncomfortable social situation "conditional stupidity." We should use that insight to create the conditions for brilliance. ...

7. Do those who doubt climate catastrophism lack scientific credibility?

8. Everything Wrong With America In One Simple Image (INFOGRAPHIC) The article is a bit over the top, but this graphic was interesting:

9. America's Declining Teen Birth Rate, Explained in 3 Charts

10. Suburbia Needs Jesus, Too Interesting piece that has caused some buzz in social media. Her point about the centrality of everyday life is something I resonate with.

11. Teenagers Are Actually Starting To Use Twitter... In Part To Escape The 'Drama' And Parents On Facebook

12. Methodists May Discourage Those Over 45 from Becoming Pastors

13. How does copyright work in space?

CHRIS HADFIELD has captured the world's heart, judging by the 14m YouTube views of his free-fall rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity", recorded on the International Space Station (ISS). The Canadian astronaut's clear voice and capable guitar-playing were complemented by his facility in moving around in the microgravity of low-earth orbit. But when the man fell to Earth in a neat and safe descent a few days ago, after a five-month stay in orbit, should he have been greeted by copyright police? Commander Hadfield was only 250 miles (400 km) up, so he was still subject to terrestrial intellectual-property regimes, which would have applied even if he had flown the "100,000 miles" mentioned in the song's lyrics or millions of kilometres to Mars. His five-minute video had the potential to create a tangled web of intellectual-property issues. How does copyright work in space? ...

Saturday Links

 1. The High Calling published an article I wrote. I linked it earlier, but here it is again in an act of shameless self-promotion. It goes to some core issues I'm trying to put into a book. Six Ideas on How to Lead Congregations to Integrate Work and Discipleship

2. Should Pastors Know How Much Church Members Give?

A recent study found that churches where pastors know how much is donated and by whom were more likely to be doing well financially. However, only half of the 3,000 responding congregations (and only 39 percent of evangelical ones) told the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving that their pastors knew this information.

What experts said (starting with "yes" and moving to "no" ): ...

3. Model for megacities? Mexico City cleans up its air.

... With urbanization advancing, economies expanding, and climate change a concern, Mexico City has emerged as an unlikely environmental example for cities in developing countries suffering similar air quality issues.

Mexico City recorded only eight days with air quality considered "good" in 1992. That compares with 248 "good" air days in 2012, reflecting the success of initiatives to relocate industry, kick clunkers off the capital's streets, encourage cleaner technologies, and expand public transit and cycling options. ...

4. Unmanned Drones May Have Their Greatest Impact on Agriculture

Talk about beating swords into plowshares. The mention of drones may conjure up images of Star Wars-like spacecraft or hell-fire war machines. But the controversial technology may prove to have its greatest impact in a peaceful endeavor: farming. ...

... The market for agricultural drones lies in the technology's ability to provide farmers with a bird's-eye view of their land. Historically, farmers have walked their land to survey it—looking for areas that need more fertilizer or water. More recently many have begun using small passenger planes to look at their lots from the air. But since airplane rental and fuel costs can quickly run into five figures, there's strong demand for cheaper alternatives. ...

... "Eighty percent of the utilization, once we are allowed to have Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the national airspace, in the first 10 years is going to be in precision agriculture," said Michael Toscano, CEO of AUVSI. "You will have a situation where you can spray crops by a UAS that flies 2 or 3 feet above the plants. You can control the downwash because you can put the pesticides on the plants and not in the ground where it gets to the groundwater."

"It sounds trivial but those numbers really add up a lot," said Rory Paul of Volt Aerial Robotics. "If we could save farms 1 percent on inputs like herbicide and pesticide and increase their yields by 1 percent, you are looking at multibillion dollar savings."...

5. Fascinating piece about the The Historical Horror of Childbirth

... Such stories were not at all shocking, as a woman's chances of dying during childbirth were between one and two percent -for each birth. If a woman gave birth to eight or ten children, her chances of eventually dying in childbirth were pretty high. The infant mortality rate was even higher. The chances of a child dying before his fifth birthday were estimated to be around 20 percent, depending on the community (accurate records are scarce). In addition to the fear of death or the fear of the child dying, there was no pain relief during labor, except for whisky in some places. ...

6. "INDIA will soon have a fifth of the world's working-age population." India's moment

7. 'Late-life crisis' hits the over-60s

"Of the 33% who went through a crisis, bereavement was the most common trigger, followed by personal illness or injury."

8. Hispanic High School Graduates Pass Whites in Rate of College Enrollment

 

9. Atlantic Cities asks the question that has interested me for years: Why Do So Many People Think Gun Violence Is Getting Worse?

"Twenty years into this safer era, we still don't know quite how we got here. Perhaps in absence of a logical narrative, many Americans simply find it hard to believe this is true."

10. People Don't Wear A Shocking Amount Of Their Clothes.

"The average person only wears about 20% of the clothing in his or her closets. Most clothing goes unworn because it's the result of an impulse buy or doesn't fit correctly, Ray A. Smith at the Wall Street Journal reports."

11. This week was the 20th anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web. The Day Distance Disappeared

12. Great piece! The Tech Trends to Fear the Most: It's Not All Good

13. The market 'bubble' you've never heard of: "Some economists are worried that farmland prices are nearing bubble territory. How bad can it be if no one's heard of it?"

14. Michael Barone says College Bubble Bursts After Decades of Extravagance

15. Whatever happened to these Fortune 500 companies? "Here are seven companies from the first Fortune 500 that have since been merged, split up, or put out to pasture."

16. Dwight Lee has a thought-provoking piece about The Two Moralities of Ebenezer Scrooge.

17. The global economy: Welcome to the post-BRIC world

18. Development finance in Africa

19. Toxic Waste Sites Take Toll on Millions in Poor Nations

New studies attempt to quantify just how harmful the rampant exposure to lead and other chemicals is in the developing world.

20. James Pethokoukis with a provocative article about income inequality: Why A Decline In Income Inequality Would Be Bad News

Why has income inequality been rising in advanced economies — it's not just the US, people — over the past few decades? The economic consensus mostly explains the phenomenon as a race between accelerating technological change and expanding education. And the rise of inequality shows, as JPMorgan economist Mike Feroli puts it in a new report, that the "pace of technological advance has outstripped the ability of the educational system to supply the human capital skills needed to utilize this technology, leading to out-sized earnings gains for those who have such skills (the so-called college wage premium)."...

Six Ideas on How to Lead Congregations to Integrate Work and Discipleship

The High Calling: Six Ideas on How to Lead Congregations to Integrate Work and Discipleship

“How can we create a congregation where work and discipleship are truly integrated?” This is a question I am hearing more often, even though much has been written about a theology of work in recent years.

Pastors and church leaders are looking for a programmatic strategy. I don’t think there is one. ...

This is a piece I wrote for the High Calling. They posted it yesterday. What do you think? What ideas do you have?

Denominational Change in American Protestantism since 1972

Black, White, and Gray: Denominational Change in American Protestantism since 1972 (Brad Wright)

Talk about a picture that says a thousand words ...

Saturday Links

Some weeks the pickin's are thin. Not this week.

1. Asians are now the largest immigrant group in Southern California: New Suburban Dream Born of Asia and Southern California

2. Surge in unwed mothers: Deep in the stats, it's not what you think

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, 42 percent of children will have lived with cohabitating parents by the time they are 12 years old, almost twice as many who will have divorced parents. And this particular sort of family structure is on the rise, a number of studies show.

3. In a sharp trend reversal, highway fatalities rise

"The news, while disheartening, is not surprising," said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. "With the improving economy and historically low levels of motor vehicle deaths in recent years, we expected deaths to increase. Highway deaths have been declining significantly in recent years."

4. We live in a house that is 105 years old. IMO, most houses built after 1940 are boring. How Americans' Taste in Houses Has Evolved Over the Last Century

5. Are we purging the poorest?

In a new book, MIT urbanist Lawrence Vale examines the downsizing of public housing.

6. Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have been popping up everywhere promoting their new book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. Here is a PBS interview:

Watch Google's Schmidt, Cohen Describe a 'New Digital Age' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

7. Love this story: Alleviating Poverty with a Washing Machine Powered by Your Feet

The GiraDora uses the principles of a salad spinner to make cleaning clothes less back-breaking and time-consuming work for millions of people in poverty.

8. Amen to this article. Good charities spend more on admin but it is not money wasted

The popular idea that charities fritter money on unnecessary admin has been proven wrong. You must spend to be effective.

9. Why US firms are turning to Mexico, leaving China behind

 ... Mexico has more international trade deals than any other country, and exports as many goods as the rest of Latin America combined.

There has always been an electronics manufacturing hub in Tijuana, but Chinese competition damaged its business a decade ago.

Now rising wage costs in Asia and a higher exchange rate are prompting many companies targeting the US market to take another look at Mexico. ...

...The new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto wants to put a new spin on the country with the image of a booming economy and as a good place to do business.

Security and the drugs problem still dominate talks between the US and Mexico, but its southern neighbour's increasing importance in the global economy is changing the relationship. ...

10. The Manufacturing Cost Components For A Bunch Of Different Things

11. Five Innovative Technologies that Bring Energy to the Developing World

12. No-Wash Shirt Doesn't Stink After 100 Days

13. Craig Stanford, 'Planet Without Apes' Author, Says Eco-Tourism Could Save The Primates

A slice of the money that tourists pay can run $500 an hour at some of the sites in East Africa and goes to build hospitals and hire teachers." Although it's not philosophically or altruistically driven, the bottom line is the animals are more valuable alive than dead, since there's an incentive to protect them.

14. Approaching Nutrition From An Investor's Mindset

How does one succeed in nutrition when nobody seems to agree on anything? How can one get the benefits that arrive in the early stages of a diet without staying too long and compromising their health? What has worked well for me is thinking about nutrition like an investor thinks about investment opportunities.

15. The Lies You've Been Told About the Origin of the QWERTY Keyboard.

The QWERTY configuration for typewriters can be traced, actually, to the telegraph.

16. Money Buys Happiness and You Can Never Have Too Much, New Research Says

Here again we have to revisit the differences between happiness, joy, meaning, and satisfaction.

17. Baseball as a Road to God

Watch Baseball and Religion on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

18. Why Older Minds Make Better Decisions

Recent research has already challenged what we thought we knew about the capability of the brain. What has become clear, says Dr. Gregory Samanez-Larkin of Vanderbilt University, one of the network's co-directors, is that despite a decline in some types of cognitive function, "older people often make better decisions than younger people."

19. Moon Landing Faked!!!—Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories

New psychological research helps explain why some see intricate government conspiracies behind events like 9/11 or the Boston bombing.

20. Scot McKnight answers the question So What's an Anabaptist?

21. Beneath the stereotypes, a stressful life for preachers' kids

22. When and Where Is It Okay to Cry?

23. 10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work

24. Scientists May Be On Brink Of Major Discovery In Hunt For HIV Cure

Danish scientists are expecting results that will show that "finding a mass-distributable and affordable cure to HIV is possible."

They are conducting clinical trials to test a "novel strategy" in which the HIV virus is stripped from human DNA and destroyed permanently by the immune system.

Saturday Links

1. What a horrific week for Boston and west Texas people. Our prayers are with the many people who have been so deeply traumatized and injured in these events. Regarding how we respond to such events in public discourse, I thought this article from Slate was especially good. Be Meaningful or Be Quiet

"... We need more restraint and less wild guessing. Free-flowing debate in the search for meaning is a part of these moments and a part of the human condition, but what I'm talking about is using tragedy for evidence shopping. That people reach immediately for their pet political theory at moments like this highlights what's wrong with a lot of political debate. But perhaps this moment also offers a useful sorting technique. If you can't shut up now, when either reason, decency, or good taste requires it, you disqualify yourself from the conversation in calmer times. ...

... Political debate about facts is fine. When the White House puts out a picture of the president in the situation room, it's fine to point out that it's propaganda they never put out on Benghazi. But a person who uses tragedy as new evidence in an existing political fight is probably incapable of keeping this window open. They can't pause to honor the solemnity of a moment of tragedy or wait until the facts come in, which means that the facts never really mattered much to them at all. These partisans are ever on alert to advance their relentless claim—whatever it is. Michael Moore immediately fingered Tea Party types after the bombing. In the hours after attack, when authorities questioned a man of Saudi dissent (who was later released), Rep. Steve King tied it to the comprehensive immigration reform he opposes. Nate Bell, an Arkansas state lawmaker, tweeted, "I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A" There was lots of this from partisans on both sides on Twitter. ..."

2. Are We Losing the Young? Evangelicals by Age Since 1972

3. David Murrow asks Are sermons becoming obsolete?

... So, what does this mean for the church? Is the lecture style sermon going the way of the dinosaur?

Yes and no. There will always be live sermons. But will anyone be listening?

Just as universities are re-thinking the lecture, it might be time for churches to re-think the sermon. Thom and Joani Schultz polled churchgoers and found that just 12 percent could recall the topic of the last sermon they heard. Only five percent of men credited sermons as their primary source of knowledge about God.

So if sermons are becoming obsolete, what will take their place?

Discipleship. Our generation may be drowning in ideas, but we're starving for real human contact.

The problem is, our churches are structured to deliver sermons and music. If there's any energy left, we disciple people. ...

4. First, there was this article about Self-Employment An Escape From Long-Term Joblessness For Some Older Workers. It may work for some who are out of jobs, but Hiranya Fernando warns Why You Shouldn't Quit Your Day Job To Pursue Your Dream. 

To be sure these are inspiring stories. They make us hope and dream. And I support anyone who is dissatisfied with desk jobs and corporate gigs and is now thinking of other options. But my advice is to take the time to understand your specific situation before you do anything purely because "it feels right" or because "it's a childhood dream."

And don't do it because everyone else is. Don't do it because the neighbor's second cousin and Aunt Maggie's daughter are doing it, and it sounds so easy. Even people who are relatively happy in their jobs think something is wrong with them because everywhere they go they are bombarded with "How I quit my day job and started a million-dollar leaf-raking business."

5. Walter Russell Mead Warns There's No Comeback for the PhD

Drezner says that there are really only two reasons why you might get a Ph.D. One, you're crazy; or two, you're crazy about the subject you will be studying. But even the latter is becoming a kind of luxury for those lucky few who can afford to spend several years on a degree without any guarantee of future employment. All others should heed Drezner's advice before surrendering the money, years, blood, and tears it takes to earn the right to be called "Doctor."

6. I suspect the J C Penny fiasco is going to become an important case study for business schools: Sometimes, We Want Prices to Fool Us

7. Max Baucus warns about Obamacare: Obamacare Architect Warns "Huge Train-Wreck" Ahead

8. Eric Wemple quotes Mark Lamont Hill in Gosnell case: HuffPost host says left 'made a decision' to not cover trial

"For what it's worth, I do think that those of us on the left have made a decision not to cover this trial because we worry that it'll compromise abortion rights. Whether you agree with abortion or not, I do think there's a direct connection between the media's failure to cover this and our own political commitments on the left. I think it's a bad idea, I think it's dangerous, but I think that's the way it is."

9. Mother Jones has a great piece on the social psychology of our political leanings: How Science Can Predict Where You Stand on Keystone XL

10. Atlantic Cities says The More Diverse a Metro Is, the More Segregated It's Likely to Be

11. Christian Science Monitor: Babies are conscious? Science confirms what moms know.

Babies are aware of what's going on, not just reflexively reacting to it, scientists concluded after a series of experiments on babies as young as 5 months.

12. Are e-readers hurting our reading comprehension?

13. The future of the car: Clean, safe and it drives itself. See the Economist video about driverless cars.

Yet many people already travel, unwittingly, on planes and trains that no longer need human drivers. As with those technologies, the shift towards driverless cars is taking place gradually. The cars' software will learn the tricks that humans use to avoid hazards: for example, braking when a ball bounces into the road, because a child may be chasing it. Google's self-driving cars have already clocked up over 700,000km, more than many humans ever drive; and everything they learn will become available to every other car using the software. As for the liability issue, the law should be changed to make sure that when cases arise, the courts take into account the overall safety benefits of self-driving technology.

14. University of Illinois: Small in size, big on power: New microbatteries a boost for electronics

 With so much power, the batteries could enable sensors or radio signals that broadcast 30 times farther, or devices 30 times smaller. The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies – imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available.

"Any kind of electronic device is limited by the size of the battery – until now," King said. "Consider personal medical devices and implants, where the battery is an enormous brick, and it's connected to itty-bitty electronics and tiny wires. Now the battery is also tiny."

Now, the researchers are working on integrating their batteries with other electronics components, as well as manufacturability at low cost.

15. What was old is new again: The Beat Goes On: How Vinyl Records Are Making A Comeback

"Vinyl manufacturing plants are bursting at the seams," said Kurtz. "We took a nascent industry – vinyl – breathed life into it and now we can't even handle the amount of business we are creating."

Saturday Links

1. Atlantic: Could Earth's Population Peak in 2050?

"For the past two decades, demographers have generally agreed that global population growth will continue to inch steadily higher in the coming century, raising concerns about everything from pollution to housing to the world's water supply.

But a new study out of Spain suggests those estimates may be way off—we're talking several billion people off—and that the earth's population could instead peak as soon as 2050. Applying a mathematical model to global population trends, these researchers believe that there will be fewer people living on earth in 2100 than there are today. ..."

Since I started studying demography thirty years ago, low fertility estimates seem the closest to actual outcomes. People seem to be moving to lower fertility rates faster than most expected.

2. Speaking of world population, Chatham House writes about The End of Youth

"Advances in medicine and health care mean that people all over the globe are living longer, much longer. At the same time mothers in most countries are having fewer babies. The combination is a demographic timebomb. Sarah Harper looks at the challenges that lie ahead and the changes needed to cope with a grey new world."

3. Pew has published an interesting report on Demographics of Asian Americans

4. Forbes on Why China Is Finally Abandoning Its One Child Policy

"The policy was originally justified as necessary because of excess population and to promote economic development. Much has been written and can be found on the Internet about this policy and the current and long-term effects it is having and will have on China. The reluctance by China's central government to abandon the one child policy is not out of a failure to recognize its shortcomings. Rather, it is because the policy has been highly successful in achieving a principal objective, a unification of the public in support of an unelected, autocratic central government."

5. World Bank Aims To Eliminate Extreme Poverty By 2030

To reach that goal, Kim said the world need to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line of $1.25 per day to 3 percent globally by 2030, and raise the per capita incomes of the bottom 40 percent of every developing country.

The 3 percent level is a new target for the World Bank, which estimated in 2010 that 21 percent of the global population, or 1.2 billion people, lived extreme poverty.

Some World Bank estimates have put the 3 percent target at about 600 million people living below the poverty line by 2030.

6. Susan Brown writes about A 'gray divorce' boom

Until recently, it would have been fair to say that older people simply did not get divorced. Fewer than 10% of those who got divorced in 1990 were ages 50 or older. Today, 1 in 4 people getting divorced is in this age group.

7. Science reports on the prospects of One Drug to Shrink All Tumors.

8.  The Genetic Literacy Project on Monsanto Protection Act? Separating the facts from the fury

9. Dean Kalahar says Economics Is Easy, And Can Be Learned In 5 Minutes

10. Rebecca Schuman on why you shouldn't pursue that Ph.D.: Thesis Hatement

11. Facebook 'Dislike' Button Not A Good Idea, Says Product Engineer Bob Baldwin In Reddit AMA

12. Finally, we have an answer to one of the most important questions of our generation: How Many Spaces After a Period? Ending the Debate.

13. ABP News with some interesting data on the future of Mega Churches: Small is big for Millennials

14. Goal Control 4D. How referees will be automatically informed of goals in World Cup 2014.

15. For those of you who have deficiencies in your cultural education about all things Whovian, here is a primer for you: 'Doctor Who' Explained in 25 GIFs

Saturday Links

Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

1. Rewriting the story of polarized debate: He got Tea Party and Occupy to talk

Nabil Laoudji's Mantle Project puts citizens on stage to tell stories of the experiences that led them to their positions on tough issues. That's how he got members of the Tea Party and Occupy movement to speak on the same stage in a civil – and entertaining – exchange.

2. Next Reformation presents Barna's six reasons young Christians leave the church.

3. Forbes: The Happiest And Unhappiest Jobs In America

4. Mozambique: From Marxism to market

British journalist Paul Fauvet came to Mozambique in 1980 just as the country was plunged into a civil war. He has witnessed every key event since. Here he describes the transformation of his adopted country from revolutionary Marxist state to embracing the market and the exploitation of its resource riches.

5. Poor Americans Are Driving The Evolution Of The Banking System

We've reported on how people in emerging markets residents are opening bank accounts and paying for things with their mobile phones, transforming business in those countries. 

But the US Federal Reserve would like you to know (pdf) that the changes aren't all in other parts of the world.

Poor people in the US are some of the most avid users of mobile banking and mobile payment systems. ...

6. One In Four Teens Plan On Relying On Mom And Dad Till Age 27

7. Gen Y Isn't The 'Entrepreneurship Generation'

We all keep hearing that Gen Y's are the "entrepreneurship generation," but new research states otherwise. I worked with Monster.com on a new study focused on multi-generational worker attitudes to uncover the state of entrepreneurship through the eyes of different generations of workers. The report found that 41% of Gen X employees (ages 30-49) and 45% of Boomers (ages 50-69) consider themselves to be more entrepreneurial, compared to only 32% of Gen Y workers (ages 18-29 years). ...

8. Work Is More Than a Means to Evangelism

As already discussed, Matthew Lee Anderson's recent Christianity Today cover story on "radical Christianity" has been making waves. This week at The High Calling, Marcus Goodyear offers a healthy critique of one of Anderson's key subjects, David Platt, aligning quite closely with Anderson's analysis about the ultimate challenges such movements face when it comes to long-term cultural cultivation.

Focusing on Platt's latest book, Follow Me, Goodyear notes that, despite Platt's admirable efforts to get Christians "off their seats," he often "emphasizes the great commission so much, it overshadows all other teachings of the Bible."...

9. I don't know if I'm convinced, but here are The 21 Principles of Persuasion from Forbes.

10. Mental Floss with a great list of 30 Things Turning 30 This Year.

11. Few People Understand The Difference Between Risk And Genuine Uncertainty

What are the odds that your new idea will succeed?  If it does, what will the return to you be?

One of the problems that we have in business (and life!) is that we often can't know the answer to questions like this in advance.  And this drives us nuts.  Consequently, a lot of people invest a great deal of effort into reducing uncertainty.  There are two problems with this approach.  The first is that we often don't understand uncertainty very well, and the second is that profitably opportunities only exist where outcomes are genuinely uncertain. ...

12. Christopher Hitchens wants to know Has militant atheism become a religion?

... In my interactions with religious and nonreligious people alike, I now draw a sharp line, based not on what exactly they believe but on their level of dogmatism. I consider dogmatism a far greater threat than religion per se. I am particularly curious why anyone would drop religion while retaining the blinkers sometimes associated with it. Why are the "neo-atheists" of today so obsessed with God's nonexistence that they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of belief, or call for a militant atheism? What does atheism have to offer that's worth fighting for? As one philosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like "sleeping furiously."...

13. Econbrowser has a detailed analysis of Declining U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

14. David Shukman wants to know Why such a fuss about extinction?

What is wrong with extinction? I realise this question is the conservation equivalent of a landmine - or an elephant trap. And that it is likely to ruffle a lot of fur.

But I ask because I am merely wondering whether we sometimes forget a grim reality of the story of life on Earth - that extinction has always been with us.

In fact, it has quite often been good for us. ...

15. Is Google Maps Changing Our Behavior?

... The people who used the digital navigation device demonstrated pretty good route recognition and rather poor survey knowledge. By comparison, the paper map users scored better on the survey test and almost perfect on the route test. What's happening here, Münzer and colleagues argue, is that pedestrians who use computer navigation fail to envision, encode, and memorize the cognitive maps they otherwise would have. The cost of convenience, in other words, is spatial orientation. ...

16. 18 obsolete words, which never should have gone out of style

Saturday Links

1. Scientific American has some interesting thoughts on How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health

... Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as "will" or "going to." In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say "Wo qu ting jiangzuo," which translates to "I go listen seminar." Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. ...

2. Fair Trade 2.0? Coffee's Economics, Rewritten by Farmers

3. R. J. Moeller qutoes from John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) new book:

"Capitalism has a purpose beyond just making money. I think the critics of capitalism have got it in this very small box. That it's all about money. It's based in being greedy, selfish and exploitative. And yet, I haven't found it to be that way. Most of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I know and have met did not start their business primarily out of a desire to make money. Not that there's anything wrong with making money. My body cannot function unless it produces red-blood cells. No red-blood cells and I'm a dead man. But that's not the purpose of my life.

Similarly, a business cannot exist unless it produces a profit . . . but that's not the only reason it exists."

4. David Henderson with thoughts on the economic impact of marriage: "Get Married and Stay Married"

When I was writing a review of Dwight Lee's and Richard McKenzie's excellent book, Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life, I called Dwight to ask a question and we got talking about Rule #5: Get Married and Stay Married. Dwight pointed out that if you follow the other 7 rules but don't get married or stay married, you have a substantial probability of building a fortune and a satisfying life. But, he said, if you don't get married and stay married, you tend not to follow at least some of the other 7 rules.

5. With more thoughts on the economic impact of marriage, Glen Reynolds reflects on The other marriage inequality

While the upscale college-educated crowd continues to marry at very high rates, marriage rates are plummeting among those further down on the socioeconomic ladder.

6. Steven Pearlstein with a thoughtful essay: Is capitalism moral?

... A useful debate about the morality of capitalism must get beyond libertarian nostrums that greed is good, what's mine is mine and whatever the market produces is fair. It should also acknowledge that there is no moral imperative to redistribute income and opportunity until everyone has secured a berth in a middle class free from economic worries. If our moral obligation is to provide everyone with a reasonable shot at economic success within a market system that, by its nature, thrives on unequal outcomes, then we ought to ask not just whether government is doing too much or too little, but whether it is doing the right things.

7. Matt Ridley with an interesting piece on how Obsidian chronicles ancient trade. This conclusion was interesting.

Instead, Dr. Butzer argues that Sargon's conquest itself caused the collapse of trade by destroying cities and disrupting what had till then been "an inter-networked world-economy, once extending from the Aegean to the Indus Valley." In other words, as with the end of the Roman empire, the collapse of trade caused the collapse of civilization more than the other way around.

8. Speaking of economic History, Rewriting Biblical history? Agriculture might be 5,000 years older than believed.

A new find suggests farmers in Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat and barley.

9. Americans Just Keep Driving Less And Less

10. The New York Times on New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs. (To LEDs)

11. Science 2.0 on A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?

... "Educational systems could be improved by acknowledging that, in general, boys and girls are different," said University of Missouri biologist David Geary in their statement. "For example, in trying to close the sex gap in math scores, the reading gap was left behind. Now, our study has found that the difference between girls' and boys' reading scores was three times larger than the sex difference in math scores. Girls' higher scores in reading could lead to advantages in admissions to certain university programs, such as marketing, journalism or literature, and subsequently careers in those fields. Boys lower reading scores could correlate to problems in any career, since reading is essential in most jobs."

Generally, when conditions are good, the math gap increases and the reading gap decreases and when conditions are bad the math gap decreases and the reading gap increases. This pattern remained consistent within nations as well as among them, according to the work by Geary and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Leeds that included testing performance data from 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 75 nations. ...

12. Malcolm Gladwell was half right. Professor Jonah Berger on his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

13. Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible

14. Mashable has great advice with 5 Alternatives to Unfriending Someone on Facebook

15. David Brooks with insight on How Movements Recover

... Two rival reform movements arose to restore the integrity of Catholicism. Those in the first movement, the Donatists, believed the church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity. ...

... In the fourth century, another revival movement arose, embraced by Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo. The problem with the Donatists, Augustine argued, is that they are too static. They try to seal off an ark to ride out the storm, but they end up sealing themselves in. They cut themselves off from new circumstances and growth.

Augustine, as his magisterial biographer Peter Brown puts it, "was deeply preoccupied by the idea of the basic unity of the human race." He reacted against any effort to divide people between those within the church and those permanently outside. ....

16. A great piece by someone who considers them unaffiliated with any religion. Every Christian and congregation needs to reflect on the insignificance of the church in this writer's life. His tribe is growing: The significant insignificance of religion

Rise of the "Nones" is Greater for Older Americans

Black, White, and Gray: Trends in the Religious Unaffiliated, the "Nones," by Age - Brad Wright

A lot has been written recently about the rise of the "Nones," people expressing no religious affiliation. Sociologist Brad Wright offers a fascinating insight by looking at the percentage of people at various stages of life who report affiliation. Young adults are not surprisingly the group with the highest percentage, but Wright offers this chart.

Wright makes this observation:

Once again, the percentage of being unaffiliated increased in each group, but relatively speaking, it's increased most among the middle-aged and the elderly. In both the percentage of the unaffiliated more than tripled, compared to the 2.5x increase in the young. There is some lagged effect, as the elderly are catching up the middle-aged in the past decade, but overall, the rise of the religious nones is something that spans all age groups. Thus it's a societal-wide change more than just an age or generational change.

This data doesn't explain the rise, but I have a theory: Church offers little for discerning significance in life.

A few random thoughts (mostly intuitive perceptions.) There is disillusionment with church life for many older adults who grew up in the Church. Young adults interested in the Church are starting up independent congregations narrowly targeted to their particular age demographic. Older Christians feel rejected. As a traditional congregation tries to become more appealing to the younger demographic, long-time congregants experience a loss of meaningful rhythms and routines for them. With those gone, worship no longer seems meaningful. Some look for other congregations, but I sense many see integrating into a new community faith community as too much work. As the number of congregations with familiar patterns dwindles and close, they slip out the door into the ether.

Dr. Eileen Lindner, Deputy General Secretary for Research and Planning of the National Council of Churches USA, gave a presentation two years ago. She points out that fifty years ago, congregations and denominations were engaged in a whole range of work that ministered to the world. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, para-church organizations emerged to do what congregations once did ... like Young Life and Habitat for Humanity. Many of the things churches once did have been replaced by nonprofit organizations that may not have an explicit connection to faith. In one sense, the Church is a victim of its own success, having encultured values of service into the broader culture. But the downside is that it frequently feels like we are all left with squabbles about internal politics. Congregations and denominations are struggling for an identity and purpose in relating to the world.

As I've written several times, conservative congregations typically respond by offering programming directed toward therapeutic healing, personal piety, or political action to stop the "barbarians at the gates." Liberal congregations also offer therapeutic healing and personal piety but frequently include political action they discern is directed toward "social justice." Much of it appears to be a "me too" response to broader movements in the culture, hoping to leach off the meaning people find in these movements rather than the Church itself generating the meaning for congregants. Religion (right and left) becomes so captive to the categories and contours of cultural politics that theological understanding is lost. And if you want to do political action, there are far more dynamic venues than the Church.

And that brings me back to my overarching theory: Church offers little for discerning significance in life. Too much of the Church is about narrow personal piety (a niche market) while trying to make ourselves relevant to the culture with "me too" strategies from the periphery of culture. Until people see how daily life connects with God's unending mission, I think the Nones tribe will continue to grow and prosper.

Saturday Links

1. Conventional wisdom says wearing the red shirt in Star Trek will get you killed. Not so fast. Statistical analysis in Significance Magazine disagrees. (Keep your redshirt on: a Bayesian exploration)

"... In spite of wearing a redshirt, there is only an 8.6% chance of a member of the operations or engineering departments becoming a casualty. These personnel should ensure that their life insurance plans are based on their departments and not their uniform color.

Although Enterprise crew members in redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek. This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.

Red uniform shirts are safe, as long as the wearer is not in the security department."

 2. Interesting piece on automation in the Economist: Robocolleague

Robots are getting more powerful. That need not be bad news for workers. ...

... Historically, technological advances have been relatively benign for workers. Labour-market trends through the 19th and 20th centuries show surprising continuity, according to Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Robert Margo of Boston University. In recent decades, for example, computerisation and automation have displaced “middle-skilled” workers at the same time as employment among high- and low-skilled workers has increased. This “hollowing out” is not new, Messrs Katz and Margo note. Early industrialisation had similar effects. Middle-skilled artisans, like trained weavers, were put out of work by industrial textile production, but the fortunes of less-skilled factory workers and white-collar factory managers steadily improved. Mechanisation’s insatiable appetite for routine work of all types has yet to create mass unemployment. Quite the opposite.

The worry is that technology now has its sights set on non-routine tasks as well as mundane ones. Yet Mr Autor notes that just because a skilled job can be automated does not mean it will be. The number of workers used to build Nissan vehicles varies a lot between Japan, where labour is expensive, and India, where it is abundant and cheap. The relative cost of different types of workers matters for firms as they choose how to deploy new technologies. ...

3. Speaking of technology and its impact on industries Technology Upends Another Industry: Homebuilding

4. Businessweek has a piece about Indie Capitalism

Indie Capitalism has three foundational principles:

• Creativity generates economic value. Creativity is the source of profit. Yes, efficiency can squeeze more out of what exists, but creativity gives us originality, which translates into a market advantage and big margins.

• Creativity drives capitalism. These past few years we have been victimized by the disastrous results of “creativity” applied to the financial sector (mortgage-backed securities, for starters). What we lost sight of is that the scaling of creativity to actually make things of value sold in the marketplace is the true heart of our economic system. It is the true generator of net new jobs, wealth, and tax revenue.

• Creative destruction is crucial to economic growth. Crony capitalism, which relies on monopoly and political power, is antithetical to entrepreneurial capitalism. A faster cycle of birth, growth, and death of companies boosts creativity, economic value, and growth.

5. Business Insider reports on Why Manufacturing Jobs Are Returning To America For The First Time In Decades

 The bottom line: For the first time in decades, several key economic drivers have created a competitive advantage for the U.S. that will encourage corporate strategic decisions on capital allocation and acquisitions for generations to come.

Here's why:

1. Cheap and abundant natural gas. ...

2. Innovation. Despite talk of a brain drain, the U.S. remains the global innovation leader, maintaining a position enjoyed for 50 years. ...

3. Rule of law. Without the means to protect intellectual property, it cannot be exploited for competitive advantage. ...

4. Human capital. The wage gap between the U.S. and China has been shrinking. ...

5. De-complexity. Western multinationals continue to struggle with management of operations in developing countries. ...

6. Public policy and abundance. The federal government appears to be seizing the opportunity to promote job growth at home.

7. Credit, currency and the coming wave of mergers and acquisitions.

6. 3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production.

"Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.

If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo. ..."

7. And more about 3-D Printing. 3D Printing On The Frontlines — Army Deploying $2.8M Mobile Fabrication Labs.

Throughout history, war and innovation have gone hand in hand, whether it’s breakthroughs out of heavily funded R&D programs or makeshift contraptions thrown together with spare parts. Soldiers are trained to use the technology on hand to get the job done, one way or the other.

But how would military operations change if soldiers on the battlefield could have the best of both worlds: access to expert engineers able to fabricate custom-designed fixes right on-the-spot and in very little time? ...

8. And how about 4-D printing? 4D Printing Is The Future Of 3D Printing And It’s Already Here

"It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change and adapt themselves to the environment. In a recent TED interview, Tibbits compared the process of 4D printing to the process of natural adaptation:

Natural systems obviously have this built in — the ability to have a desire. Plants, for example, generally have the desire to grow towards light and they generate energy from the translation of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide to oxygen, and so on. This is extremely difficult to build into synthetic systems — the ability to “want” or need something and know how to change itself in order to acquire it, or the ability to generate its own energy source. If we combine the processes that natural systems offer intrinsically (genetic instructions, energy production, error correction) with those artificial or synthetic (programmability for design and scaffold, structure, mechanisms) we can potentially have extremely large-scale quasi-biological and quasi-synthetic architectural organisms."

7. The New York Times reports that Music Industry Sales Rise, and Digital Revenue Gets the Credit

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.

The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.

The Economist also posted this chart this week:

8. Teleworking: The myth of working from home from the BBC. "Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?"

9.  Europe's Youth Unemployment Nightmare Started Long Before The Euro Crisis 

"Reasons for high unemployment among the young include ineffective education systems (the share of early school dropouts is 20% in Italy and 30% in Spain) and dual labour markets with highly protected jobs for older employees. The good performance of Germany is not least a result of the German apprenticeship system, which facilitates labour market access for school leavers by lowering the company’s costs for employing them. The OECD’s latest “Going for Growth” report recommends reforms to strengthen the vocational training systems as one of the most effective ways to fight structural youth unemployment. This would also be a reasonable starting point for the EU’s youth employment programme."

10. Benjamin Wright - Book Review: God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life by Gene Edward Vieth, Jr.

11. Rough Type: Students to e-textbooks: no thanks

"What’s most revealing about this study is that, like earlier research, it suggests that students’ preference for printed textbooks is reflects the real pedagogical advantages they experience in using the format: fewer distractions, deeper engagement, better comprehension and retention, and greater flexibility to accommodating idiosyncratic study habits. Electronic textbooks will certainly get better, and will certainly have advantages of their own, but they won’t replicate the particular advantages inherent to the tangible form of the printed book."

12. How Many Ph.D.'s Actually Get to Become College Professors?

13. Top 10 Causes of Death in the U.S.

14. ABC reports that Young Hispanics Leaving Catholic Church for Protestant Faith

The Catholic Church has struggled to bring in young members in the United States. Less than half of U.S. Hispanics between 18 and 29 identify as Catholic, compared with the 60+ percent of Hispanics older than 50.

15. Robert Jones says Don't write off mainline Protestants

The narrative of decline in the mainline church underestimates the continuing influence of its members, says a religion researcher.

16. Some interesting observations by NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He says we tend to process our social world through three lenses: Social distance, hierarchy, and disgust. Conservatives tend to have a lower threshold of revulsion, while liberals, and particularly libertarians, have a higher threshold.

17. Bruce Fieler has an interesting piece in the Atlantic. Want to Give Your Family Value and Purpose? Write a Mission Statement

Saturday Links

1. Christian History magazine has an entire issue devoted to Christians in the New Industrial Economy: The World Changed, the Church Responded. It is a priceless collection of essays on how various religious traditions responded to (or failed to) the challenges of the Industrial Revolution.

Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.

2. Orange County Register says Don't count out mainline Protestants yet.

As flocks shrink, denominations that once defined America fight to stay relevant with new ways of reaching out.

3. The Washington Post reports that Megachurches thriving in tough economic times.

"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new survey shows.

Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years. Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."

4. Harvard Business Review: Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can't Innovate

... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...

... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...

... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...

... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...

5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea

6. The rise of post-industrial China? (Economist)

7. New Geography thinks U.S. LATE TO THE PARTY ON LATIN AMERICA, AFRICA.

"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.

This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."

8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.

9. A Portrait of U.S. Immigrants

Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey.

10. Marketing Daily says More Latinos See Themselves As Bicultural

With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a Latino market perceived to be homogenous?

11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”

"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about the scarcity of resources.  (If you belong to both of those groups, there is little advice that I can offer.)  However, in between those poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."

12. Being a Republican or a Democrat may all be in your head: Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study

... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...

... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. ...

13. Health Care Without the Doctors Coming to a Walmart Near You

STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.

He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...

... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...

14. Is this a case of marketing going too far? Young Japanese Women Rent Out Their Bare Legs as Advertising Space

15. Nanotechnology Rebuilds the Periodic Table

Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the building blocks for cutting-edge materials.

Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...

16. ExtremeTech says NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane.

17. Atlantic Cities has some great maps showing the impact of railroads on travel time in the early 19th Century, thus shrinking the nation. A Mapped History of Train Travel in the United States

18. A soccer goalie's worst nightmare.

19. You might want to think twice before a game of horse with this cheerleader.

Religion As An Activity Engaged In By Consenting Adults In Private

American Interest: Religion As An Activity Engaged In By Consenting Adults In Private

Sociologist Peter Berger concludes this article with this observation:

... But I do want to make a general observation: In all these cases the authorities accused of violating the plaintiffs’ rights operate with a definition of religion as a private matter to be kept out of public space. There is here a general issue of government overreach, as clearly illustrated by the (still unresolved) attempt by the Obama administration to force Catholic institutions to provide contraception coverage in their employees’ health plans. Beyond that, though, there is a very ideological view of the place of religion in society. In other words, religion is to be an activity engaged in by consenting adults in private. The attorney for the Judeo-Christian side in the aforementioned American case had it quite right when he compared the treatment of his client’s religion with measures of disease control. This is not an attitude one would expect to find in a Western democracy. It is curiously reminiscent of policies toward religion in Communist countries and toward non-Muslims under Islamic rule.

An aggressive secularism seems to be on the march in all these cases. It seems more at home in Europe, which is far more secularized than America. Even in the United Kingdom, it seems, the drums of the French Revolution still reverberate. But how is one to explain this sort of secularism in the United States? The “nones”—that is, those who say “none” when asked for their religious affiliation by pollsters—are a very mixed lot. One theme that comes through is disappointment with organized religion. There is an anti-Christian edge to this, since Christian churches continue to be the major religious institutions in this country. Disappointment then, or disillusion—but why the aggressive hostility? There is yet another theme that comes through in the survey data: An identification of churches (and that means mainly Christian ones) with intolerance and repression. I think that this is significant.

Let me venture a sociological hypothesis here: The new American secularism is in defense of the sexual revolution. Since the 1960s there has indeed been a sexual revolution in America. It has been very successful in changing the mores and the law. It should not be surprising that many people, especially younger ones, enjoy the new libidinous benefits of this revolution. Whether one approves or deplores the new sexual culture, it seems unlikely to be reversed. Yet Christian churches (notably the Catholic and Evangelical ones) are in the forefront of those who do want to reverse the libertine victory. Its beneficiaries are haunted by the nightmare of being forced into chastity belts by an all too holy alliance of clerics and conservative politicians. No wonder they are hostile!

I suspect he is right.

Gallup chief sees signs of religious revival

Christian Century: Gallup chief sees signs of religious revival

Despite a deep drop in the number of Americans who identify with a particular faith, the country could be on the cusp of a religious renaissance, says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll.

Grounded in more than a million Gallup interviews, Newport’s new book, God Is Alive and Well, argues that the aging of the baby boomers, the influx of Hispanic immigrants and the links between religion and health could portend a bright future for faith in America. [The following interview was edited for length and clarity.]

Why did you write this book?

I think religion is extremely important in America today. All of our research shows that, and I wanted to get empirical data about religion out there, rather than just speculation.

We here at Gallup have had a tracking project since 2008. We do 350,000 interviews a year, which is a huge and unique dataset that nobody else has. And personally, I grew up in a religious background and always found it interesting. ...

Of course, this caught my eye ...

You write that mainline Protestants are pretty much doing everything wrong in terms of growing their churches. Why is that?

For any group to grow, whether it’s a country or a church, you have to have more people coming in than going out. For example, the Catholic Church holds its own in terms of percentage of the American population because of the in-migration of Hispanics. But there is no massive in-migration of Protestants.

Second, there’s been no evidence that they’ve been able to evangelize effectively. And third, one way you grow is to have high fertility rates. Mormons are doing that well because their theology encourages big families. But Presbyterians, for example, have fewer children on average [than other Americans]. So, if you look at all the ways churches could grow, the mainline Protestants haven’t been able to hit the nail on the head with any of them.  —RNS

A Report on the 2010 National Profile of U.S. Nondenominational and Independent Churches

I haven't read the whole report yet, but this summary is very interesting.

Hartford Institute for Religion Research: A Report on the 2010 National Profile of U.S. Nondenominational and Independent Churches

... If the nation's independent and nondenominational churches were combined into a single group they would represent the third largest cluster of religious adherents in the country, following the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention; second largest in the number of churches – following the Southern Baptist. Overall, this research found over 35,000 churches representing more than 12,200,000 adherents. In total, four percent of the US population worships in an independent or nondenominational church.

And the phenomenon is on the rise. Our study identifies a larger number of people engaged in nondenominational churches than Barry Kosmin found in the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008 where they estimated 8 million Americans identified as nondenominational Christians. In their studies, this count was up significantly from only 0.1% or 194,000 in 1990. According to the General Social Survey, the percent of Protestants claiming "no denomination or non-denominational" has risen from roughly four percent in the 1970s to fifteen percent in 2006. (The Ties that Bind: Network Overlap among Independent Congregations Christopher D. Bader Christopher P. Scheitle and Buster Smith).

Pew's Religious Landscape Study also found significant numbers of Americans affiliate with independent and nondenominational churches, although the exact number and percent is not entirely clear given how they divided their labeling. It is absolutely clear, as Kosmin said recently, that "The rise of non-denominational Christianity is probably one of the strongest trends in the last two decades…. It is nearly as sharp an increase as the no-religion response." Additionally, the Baylor Survey of Religion report claims non-denominational churches are the fastest growing Protestant churches in America and in 2006, as it is now, they are the second largest Protestant group just behind the Southern Baptist Convention....

... These congregations should be seen as a separate and distinctive religious reality. If we begin to think of them as not just individual aberrant outliers or lone isolated congregations but rather as a unique religious phenomenon – as a distinctive religious market segment – then we can begin to address the question of why they have become so popular in the past few decades. As a group, they are a significant reality – one that demands consideration, study and reflection on why they are so prevalent currently. ...

... Megachurches often get associated with the nondenominational movement but in fact only about 35% of the Protestant churches over 2000 attenders are nondenominational. Nevertheless, roughly half of the nation's largest and fastest growing Protestant churches, as determined by the most recent Outreach Magazine listing were nondenominational. ...

What do you make of this trend?

Saturday Links

1. Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes

"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network's most recent surveys. This wave of "church planting" has been highest among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional hierarchies.

"I hear a lot of pastors say, 'I'm not just trying to be creative and avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,'" said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis.

Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the "emergent" church movement of the last decade or among "missional" churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.

Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.

..."

2. Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn's top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China's largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers' hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry's behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for "Saturday Night Live" and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry's reputation was at risk. ...

3. Yet another reflection on the impact of 3-D printing in Spiegel: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution

4. Some states are no longer requiring that cursive writing be taught. The Wall Street Journal laments The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note

5. Speaking writing, an e-company has developed a new spin on celebrity autographs: Is This Really the Future of the Autograph?

"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.

The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."

6. Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

7. Huffington Post ponders whether or not Biblical Baby Names Falling In Popularity

8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.

9. Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?

"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."

10. Feeling thirsty? Consider that Bottled Water Is More Dangerous Than Tap Water.

11. Good news for history mystery buffs. Amelia Earhart Plane And Flight 19 Wreckage Could Be Found By New NOAA Technology

12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic by throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well, and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn't Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball

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The Rise of Latin (mass) Youth

Real Clear Politics: The Rise of Latin Youth

Liberal bishops dismissed Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic constitution authorizing wider use of the traditional Latin mass, as a bone thrown to over-the-hill conservatives. But Pope Benedict XVI probably wrote it more for the young than the old. ...

... The secular press covers youth interest in the traditional Latin mass far more respectfully. The Economist recently reported on the "traditionalist avant-garde." The old mass, it found, isn't petering out but picking up some speed: "The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, started in 1965, now has over 5,000 members. The weekly number of Latin masses is up from 26 in 2007 to 157 now. In America it is up from 60 in 1991 to 420. At Brompton Oratory, a hotspot of London traditionalism, 440 flock to the main Sunday Latin mass. That is twice the figure for the main English one."

The influx of conservative Anglicans has bolstered these numbers a bit: "Dozens of Anglican priests have 'crossed the Tiber' from the heavily ritualistic 'smells and bells' high-church wing; they find a ready welcome among traditionalist Roman Catholics."

But the principal source of growth comes from youth interest. "Like evangelical Christianity, traditional Catholicism is attracting people who were not even born when the Second Vatican Council tried to rejuvenate the church," says The Economist. "Traditionalist groups have members in 34 countries, including Hong Kong, South Africa and Belarus. Juventutem, a movement for young Catholics who like the old ways, boasts scores of activists in a dozen countries."

Self-consciously "relevant" Catholicism is increasingly seen by the young as irrelevant. Youth masses that try to imitate the trends of the world, often lamely, generate only sporadic attendance. ...

Are there lessons here for the Protestant world?

Theology in Advent Hymns and Carols

Christmas Day, I wrote about my appreciation for O Come, Emmanuel, because I think it captures the biblical story better than most Advent songs. Jeffrey Barbeau has some good thoughts in his humorously titled Don’t Let N. T. Wright Steal Christmas!

Peter Leithart, remarking on the trendsetting biblical criticism of N. T. Wright, has questioned the way that many (presumably English) Christmas hymns fail to capture the political and social context of the birth of Jesus Christ. Leithart claims that Advent hymns (unlike Christmas hymns) capture the here and now. Advent hymns declare, in this way, a crisp, prophetic vision towards a world gone astray: “They are deeply and thoroughly and thrillingly political. Advent hymns look forward not to heaven but the redemption of Israel and of the nations, the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.”

For Leithart, we would all be better off ridding ourselves of hymns that fail to include the deeply political and social aspects of the original Christmas story. “Wright is no Grinch,” he claims. “He didn’t steal Christmas. What he stole was a false Christmas, a de-contextualized and apolitical Christmas. But we shouldn’t have bought that Christmas in the first place, and should have been embarrassed to display it so proudly on the mantle. Good riddance, and Bah humbug.”

As one who studies the literature of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Christianity (the period that gave us so many of our great English hymns), I must admit that some of Leithart’s critique rings true. Indeed, some of our most beloved hymns contain precisely the kind of otherworldly message that Leithart deplores.

Before we call for a moratorium on Christmas hymns, however, let’s remember that these hymns often contain powerful reminders of profound and, I daresay, eschatological change. We would be wise to listen. ...

Who's filling America's church pews

Christian Science Monitor: Who's filling America's church pews

In PurItan New England, Protestant and Catholic churches are declining while evangelical and Pentecostal groups are rising. Why the nation's most secular region may hint at the future of religion.

This is a lengthy article that is hard to summarize. Here are a few interesting excerpts:

... The recent changes in New England have been significant:

•Between 2000 and 2010, the Catholic church has lost 28 percent of its members in New Hampshire and 33 percent in Maine. It has closed at least 69 parishes (25 percent) in greater Boston.

•Over the same period, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) established 118 new churches in northern New England, according to the 2010 Religion Census. About 50 of them inhabit buildings once owned by mainline churches.

•Other denominations are growing, too, including Pentecostals: Assemblies of God (11 new churches in Massachusetts) and International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (13 new churches in Massachusetts and Maine). The Seventh-day Adventists, an evangelical group, opened 55 new churches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine between 2000 and 2010, according to the Religion Census. Muslims and Mormons are experiencing membership gains as well.

More change looms on the horizon. In 2013, northern New England will lose its only mainline Protestant seminary and accredited graduate school of religion when the Bangor Theological Seminary closes in May. Three months later, Southern Baptists will open Northeastern Baptist College – the first SBC-affiliated pastor-training college in northern New England – in Bennington, Vt. ...

... Much of the church growth in secular New England stems from immigrants and the cultures they create in pursuit of spiritual grounding. Researchers at the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC), a Boston-based Christian organization that studies urban ministries, call it a "quiet revival." It is often overlooked because the Religion Census tracks only denominations, yet nondenominational churches account for some of the fastest-filling pews, or folding chairs, as the case may more often be. ...

And ...

... In Westbrook, Maine, the Seventh-day Adventists last year acquired a new regional headquarters – a 14,500-square-foot library. In Northfield, Mass., near the Vermont border, a 217-acre campus will be handed to a Christian institution in 2013 as a gift from Oklahoma's Green family, billionaire owners of a craft store chain, who bought and renovated the property in order to give it away.

Some churches that offer an alternative to prevailing regional values, in both New England and around the country, are attracting new disciples. Liberal Unitarian Universalists have seen some of their fastest growth in recent years in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and other conservative Southern states.

In New England, the converse is true. Churches that echo the prevailing culture's moral relativism and liberal sensibilities sometimes struggle to differentiate themselves. Yet when a doctrine-minded pastor like Joey Marshall unpacks the Bible, verse by verse, many people yearn for his unflinching message. To accommodate growing numbers, Mr. Marshall's Living Stone Community Church in Standish, Maine, moved from a traditional 50-seat structure to a former paintball facility. ...

And ...

... Churches that have equated faith with political activism, in fact, are watching their ranks thin. Lewis, the Bangor Seminary dean, sees emphasis on politics as one reason some mainline denominations have seen their membership decline accelerate in the past 10 years.

"In the mainline denominations, liberalism is dead, but they just don't know it yet," says [Steve] Lewis, an ordained Methodist elder. "Liberalism has moved so far toward the social consciousness [agenda] that it's lost its spiritual roots. What they need [in the mainlines] is a passionate spirituality." ...

Interesting stuff.

The Top Seven Regrets of Pastors - Thom Rainer

Christian Post: The Top Seven Regrets of Pastors - Thom Rainer

I recently interviewed more than twenty pastors who had been in ministry for at least 25 years. All of these men were over 55 years old. A few of them were retired, but most of them were still active in full-time vocational ministry. ...

1. Lack of practical training for local church ministry. "I was not prepared for 80 percent of my day-to-day ministry after I graduated from seminary. ...
2. Overly concerned about critics. ...
3. Failure to exercise faith. ...
4. Not enough time with family. ...
5. Failure to understand basic business and finance issues. ...
6. Failure to share ministry. "Let me shoot straight. I had two complexes. The first was the Superman complex. ... My second complex was the conflict avoider complex. ...
7. Failure to make friends. ...

I'm certain that #8 was failing to spend enough time reading blog posts. ;-) What else should be on the list?

 

Churches shift focus to 'Christmas stores' as a more uplifting way to give

Chicago Tribune: Churches shift focus to 'Christmas stores' as a more uplifting way to give

"... Though it's become a tradition for many households and congregations to fulfill a child's wish list for families who can't do it on their own, a growing number of ministries are replacing that charity model with what they believe can be a more uplifting approach. From Rogers Park to Garfield Park, ministries in Chicago have opened pop-up Christmas stores where families can afford to check off their child's list thanks to donated merchandise offered at drastically reduced prices, if not for free.

Though many Christians bemoan the retail industry's hold on the holidays, some ministries have found that enabling parents to put gifts under their own trees, in many cases, restores a sense of dignity that's often lost when families are in need.

"Everybody gets to work together to make something wonderful happen," Williams said as volunteers wrapped Christmas and birthday presents for her youngest daughter last weekend. "It helps me feel good about myself."

The shopping opportunity also pushes patrons to take steps toward improving their lives. At Bethel, a Lutheran ministry in Garfield Park, more than 700 families earned additional currency called Bethel Bucks by attending seminars on parenting, financial management and renters' rights. ..."

Saturday Links

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1. Several articles I saw this week reflect on data presented in The Pew Forum's The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Here is one interesting chart from the survey showing what percentage of each religion's adherents live in minority religious status in their own country.

2. This is really fascinating. Smithsonian: Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!)

3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?

4. From the Guardian, Private healthcare: the lessons from Sweden

"... Despite its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

5. Scott Annan writes in The Future Of Business Is Morality, And The Future Is Now

"... We have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but also for their impact. And I'm not just talking about writing a check or funding a charity; I'm referring to business models for which community involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers. (Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea: the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is now.

Whether it's the job of the corporation or not to set the moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business, greater profit will follow. ..."

6. Scientific American asks, After 40 Years, Has Recycling Lived Up to Its Billing?

7. AOL has a short piece about the rise of small nuclear reactors. The Next Big Thing in Nuclear Power: Going Small

8. Scientific American has a list of The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.

9. Depression Surpasses Asthma as Top Disability Problem among U.S. and Canadian Teens

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

10. Robotic arm controlled by the mind allows paraplegic woman to feed herself

11. Interesting piece on Why We Prefer Masculine Voices (Even in Women).

12. Atlantic Cities looks into The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility.

13. People Are Leaving California In Record Numbers

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state's economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California's net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a "labor pool with the right skills at the right price" — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

14. The United States Has Seen A Huge Drop In Executions Since 2000.

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece: Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to President Obama's statement at Newtown, CT. When dealing with complex topics like gun control, we always talk about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more than 30,000 lives. There were 32,367 traffic fatalities last year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making such statements, as politicians often do.

16. The New York Times has an opinion piece by John Dickerson, The Decline of Evangelical America

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive. The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature, but his articulation of trends is right.

17. I saw two interesting posts on the sociology Facebook this week. The New York Times had a piece about announcing bad news on Facebook: On Facebook, Bad With the Good. Mashable reports that Socioeconomic Status Predicts Number of Facebook Friends.

18. Gangnam Style hits one billion views on YouTube. K pop rules!