Around The Horn – 1.28.10

Oakland A’s Lose Top Prospect to Priesthood
As a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, outfielder Grant Desme might’ve gotten the call every minor leaguer wants this spring.  Instead, he believed he had another, higher calling.

Face to Faith
Harriet Baber in the Guardian (UK) writes of American Megachurch Evangelicals: Popular evangelical Christianity is religiously vacuous. It is directed to secular ends which, arguably, should be promoted by secular means. Saddleback is religion for people who don’t like religion: transcendence is not on the menu.

Mugged By An Ultrasound
An absolute must read article by David Daleiden Jon Shields explaining why so many abortion workers have turned pro-life.  ”Harris felt her own child kick precisely at the moment that she ripped a fetal leg off with her forceps: ‘Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.’”

Angry at Happy Clappers
Kendall Harmon had this interesting piece from the Anglican Church in Tasmania.

Packer, Unpacked
When historians look back on the life of J. I. Packer, this volume may serve as a useful starting point. An accomplished group of contributors, including Timothy George, Alister McGrath, Chuck Colson, Mark Dever, and the late Richard John Neuhaus, come together in its pages to reflect on Packer’s legacy. Their conclusion: the Anglican scholar should be seen fundamentally as a “theologizer,” a “latter-day catechist,” a Reformed prophet standing in the tradition of Irenaeus, Augustine, Calvin, Baxter, and Owen.

The Myth of Perfect Parenting
More than any other generation, today’s parents are worried sick that they will mess up their children’s lives. A massive 2006 study revealed that parents post significantly higher rates of depression than adults without children. Judith Warner’s 2005 book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in an Age of Anxiety, captured the national obsession with successful parenting and its overwrought attempts to secure happiness and success for one’s offspring—and, by extension, oneself as a parent. Joan Acocella’s November 2008 New Yorker article, “The Child Trap,” disdainfully chronicled the anxiety and success-driven extremes of overparenting . . . .

The Real Prosperity Gospel
John Calvin paraphrased: Prone to blame God in adversity and praise ourselves in prosperity, we murmur against God if he does not grant us quiet nests. We imagine that adversity can only come from Satan—as if he were a second god—and thereby fail to recognize that nothing that happens, even when intended by Satan for evil, isn’t turned by God to the wider purpose of our salvation. Nothing can thwart God’s gracious purposes toward us in Christ. Paul does not say that all things are good, but he does say that God works all things together for good for his people (Rom. 8:28).

Individual and Cosmic
The dimensions of Christ’s finished work are both individual and cosmic. They range from personal pardon for sin and individual forgiveness to the final resurrection of our bodies and the restoration of the whole world. Now that’s good news—gospel—isn’t it? If we place our trust in the finished work of Christ, sin’s curse will lose its grip on us individually and we will one day be given a renewed creation. The gospel isn’t only about reestablishing a two-way relationship between God and us; it also restores a three-way relationship among God, his people, and the created order.

The New Political Rumbling
Peggy Noonan is at it again.  In her recent WSJ column she suggests our two-party system has become a division between “nuts” and “creeps.”  Using this paradigm and reflecting on the recent Massachusetts election she offers . . . .

What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like: 4 Big Trends to Watch
As we approach the imminent launch of the Apple Tablet and analyze new trends coming out of out of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (our full coverage), now is good time to reflect on what the web will look like in the next decade — and beyond.  I have four big predictions to share for what the web will look like in the near future. This is what I expect in the evolution of our online lives . . . .

Top Faith Leaders Urge Obama To Use Full Influence to Pass Health Reform
Despite the last week’s political twists and turns on Capitol Hill, the reality for families suffering needlessly due to lack of access to affordable health care has not changed — and the faith community’s commitment to making quality health care affordable for all remains steadfast.  Read the full text of the letter delivered to President Obama today, and the list of signatories.