Link

(HT: Culture Making)

From the article:

With [5-year-old] Benny, Mr. Lewis [an NYU professor] went on to say, “we embraced a hybrid between home-schooling and unschooling. It’s not structured, it’s Benny-centric, we follow his interests and desires, and yet we are helping him to learn to read and do math.” They read to him hours every day. “It’s about trying to find things we both enjoy doing,””

Funny: I thought that was called parenting.

Ginger, you need to read this article (when you learn to read). You’re part of a super-hot wave of the future and didn’t even know it!

Please join me in prayer for our Indian brothers and sisters in Christ.

Here’s Charles on religion, as quoted by the AP:

“If I believe that Jesus is God and you believe Mohammed is God, then no matter how tolerant we are, we are never going to meet,” Charles said.

Charles then goes on to conclude that religious violence between Christians and Muslims is therefore inevitable.

Except, um, Mr. Charles, Muslims don’t believe that Mohammed is God. And this is a guy who has spent the last year making a movie about Islam. Perhaps he needs to take my world religions class before making his next film.

Here’s one sample quote:

We can invest in hobbies that will give back, like electronics, woodworking, and DIY in general. Being able to make, fix, repair, and build might be the most important skills to develop. We really only have each other, and I think we’re all better off when we’re able to be self-reliant when we need to be.

Mayday! Mayday! How to Land a Plane in an Emergency

A while back, on a random Wikipedia reading spree, I read up on the Teletubbies. Their entry contains this statement regarding the show’s relatively short production run (only 4 years of new shows were ever created):

However, since the four years of production had exceeded the target audience’s age span, it was deemed that continuation was unnecessary,[citation needed] and the existing 365 episodes will be played in re-runs for years to come.

Compare this attitude to that of Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was produced from 1968 to 2001, over 33 years. From 1962 to 1968, Fred Rogers had a similar show in Canada. As many people know, Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, specifically charged with ministry to children through television. (Would that all those in “secular” industries could receive theological training and be ordained to work in their particular vocations!)

Fred Rogers’ personal concern for the children who watched him shine through in every episode, and I cannot imagine him ending production because no 30-year-old would be expecting a new episode.

ESN Blog

We’ve launched this as a way to direct emerging Christian scholars to resources and articles around the web and to offer some voices of commentary on issues affecting them.

BTW, happy birthday to Agatha, who turns 5 today.

Here is what Leon Morris has to say about Luke 12:24:

Jesus reinforces this [teaching] with an appeal to the ravens (or ‘crows’, Goodspeed, GNB), mentioned here only in the New Testament (they are the objects of God’s care in Ps. 147:9). Birds do not engage in agricultural activities, but they do not lack for all that. God feeds them. There is possibly significance in the fact that ravens were unclean (Lev. 11:15). God makes provision even for these unclean birds. And Jesus goes on to remind his hearers that they are of more value than birds (cf. v. 7)

Here is a poem I wrote about a parallel passage, Matthew 6:34:

Matthew 6:34

It’d be too easy to assume
You were talking to me, so
Who? Your disciples? They
Seemed to worry more about
Fish than God (then anyway).
The crowds, hungry and poor
And the soldiers stealing their cloaks?
Maybe. And maybe yourself,
Reminding yourself of what
You already knew: the times
Were short, the work was long
From Capernaum down to Judah, and
The coming trial must not
Darken the day too soon.

Each day has trouble enough.

Photo credit: Raven and the First Men at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, by bRONTE dIGITAL