You may not know the name Dan Savage but he’s quickly become the celeb du jour as he peddles the cause du jour: a gospel of hate (for Christians) and perversion.

The founder of the “It Gets Better” campaign, a self-espoused “anti-bullying activist,” Savage has a reputation for being a reprehensible bully who uses some of most disgusting tactics imaginable against people he hates.  His hypocrisy was on display last week.  Savage was invited to deliver the keynote address during the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. Instead of giving the expected talk about bullying,  CitizenLink notes, the students got “an earful about birth control, sex, and Savage’s opinions on the Bible.”  According to reports 100+ students left during his speech and Savage begins to ridicule them (remember, they’re high school students) – here’s a video of his rant:

The Gospel Coalition has an excellent article on last week’s event.  Make sure to read it all.

First Things also has this excellent article on Dan Savage.  Again, make sure to read it all.

Question: how do Christians engage the increasing level of hate and intolerance (particularly targeting the Christian faith) manifesting itself in our culture and country?

You may, or may not, know that Don Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz has been made into a movie.  I thought the book was ok, for what it was.  And, I know folks that found it helpful.  I can’t say I was overly curious about the movie, but I was a bit curious.  I ran across this review in The Atlantic, they offer a pretty sharp critique:

Unfortunately, in its attempt to be a more honest voice of evangelical Christianity, Blue Like Jazz the movie ends up saying barely anything at all. It tries to navigate a middle course between mainstream Hollywood and mainstream evangelical movie-making, and in the process loses everyone. The film doesn’t show skeptics anything distinctive about Christianity. And it tells believers not to share what they know, but instead to apologize for it.

In a movie that’s supposed to depict an authentic walk of faith, it just doesn’t feel real. From what I’ve witnessed—in the Bible, in my own life, and in the lives of those around me—an encounter with God elicits a desire to share the good news, not to say sorry for it. This is something Miller himself seems to understand, or at least he did, at one point. Blue Like Jazz the book does not end with an apology. It ends with an exhortation. “I want you to know Jesus too,” Miller writes. That’s what knowing Jesus does—it makes you want other people to know him, as well. It’s a truth as old as the Bible itself, but it’s entirely absent from Blue Like Jazz the movie. Instead of “I want you to know Jesus,” we hear, “I want you to apologize for Jesus.” It’s a message that Hollywood itself could have delivered.

Read it all.

‘When God Talks Back’ To the Evangelical Community
An interesting story from Fresh Air on NPR previewing T.H. Luhrmann’s new book:  Luhrmann has hypothesized that people going to services and prayer groups at evangelical churches have trained their minds to perceive God’s voice. In the prayer classes she attended, she observed people experiencing what she calls a new “theory of mind.”

Analyzing the Paintings of Thomas Kinkade
Beauty. Emotion. Buying. Kinkade pulled together religion, art, and commerce to sell a feeling.

The Priest that Went Down with the Titanic
Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.  It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

Witchcraft Warning from Wales
The Bishop of Monmouth has voiced concern over the illicit celebration of black magic rituals in churches and graveyards performed by devotees of Wicca in Wales.

6 Unbiblical Methods for Change
Many professing Christians seek change in their lives using methods which are contrary to Scripture. As a result, they don’t experience the change which God seeks to produce in his people. Here are six common, but ineffective, methods for lasting personal transformation.

Can ObamaCare Be Undone?
Two years ago, President Barack Obama signed his landmark health-care legislation into law. We’re still learning what’s in it, and approaching an election that will result in our digging deeper into a bureaucratic takeover of our most intimate, life-and-death decisions. Or we’ll repeal it. Is there life after Obamacare?  Several prominent pundits weigh in.

Do You Believe in Common Grace?
I  believe in common grace.  John Calvin taught me that it is God who lavishes giftedness on his human race.  We may therefore enjoy it wherever we encounter it, with gratitude to God (Institutes 2.2.15).

Ran across this fascinating article in the NYT.  Make sure to read it all.

AMERICANS are supposed to be mobile and even pushy. Saul Bellow’s Augie March declares, “I am an American … first to knock, first admitted.” In “The Grapes of Wrath,” young Tom Joad loads up his jalopy with pork snacks and relatives, and the family flees the Oklahoma dust bowl for sun-kissed California. Along the way, Granma dies, but the Joads keep going.

But sometime in the past 30 years, someone has hit the brakes and Americans — particularly young Americans — have become risk-averse and sedentary. The timing is terrible. With an 8.3 percent unemployment rate and a foreclosure rate that would grab the attention of the Joads, young Americans are less inclined to pack up and move to sunnier economic climes.

The likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another state has dropped well over 40 percent since the 1980s, according to calculations based on Census Bureau data. The stuck-at-home mentality hits college-educated Americans as well as those without high school degrees. According to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of young adults living at home nearly doubled between 1980 and 2008, before the Great Recession hit. Even bicycle sales are lower now than they were in 2000. Today’s generation is literally going nowhere. This is the Occupy movement we should really be worried about.

Read it all.

In yesterday’s edition of The Guardian George Carey, retired Archbishop of Canterbury, said that Christians are being persecuted and driven underground in Britain.  His comments were part of a written submission to the European court of human rights as they consider a landmark religious freedoms case before the court.

The Telegraph reports that Carey believes Christians are being “framed” by homosexual activists:

Martyn Lloyd-Jones
I am currently reading the 40th Anniversary Edition of Preaching & Preachers.  A great read.  Looking for some Lloyd-Jones resources, I ran across this site.  Check it out.

Coming Home Again
Cathy Grossman, Religious News Services, has an interesting article on “Reverts” – adults who are returning to the denominations of their childhood.  Worth the read.  Interesting application for many of us who lead churches.

‘Blue Like Jazz’ and Other Pressures of Christian Entertainment
An intriguing article by Torey Lightcap – he captures well my ambivalence about this and other ‘Christian’ movies:  Have you read Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz? If so, did you like it? Did you know it’s been adapted into a movie project whose funding was crowd-sourced by Christians eager to see it committed to film?

Pope Benedict XVI and Women in Ministry
From Scot McKnight: The Pope does not agree with many of us. He has recently taken a firm stand against ordaining women.

Together for the Gospel Talks
This year’s conference, “The Underestimated Gospel,” is taking place right now.  The talks are being uploaded just a few hours after they’ve been delivered.

9 World-Tilting Truths
A book preview from Trevin Wax:  Dan Phillips is that kind of author, and The World-Tilting Gospel: Embracing a Biblical Worldview and Hanging on Tight is that kind of book. Here is a basic overview of a biblical worldview. It’s refreshingly God-centered (thus the world-tilting image) and offers a robust yet accessible look at major biblical truths.  To top it off, Dan is fun to read. The book is long, but Dan’s writing style is punchy and memorable.

An Update on the AMiA: Communique from Rwanda
As per our April 2 communiqué, the bishops of the Anglican Mission who resigned in December have been asked to declare the ecclesiastical jurisdiction to which they wish to be translated within the next few weeks. However, we understand that clergy and churches require additional time to make this decision. Therefore, all PEAR clergy in North America must make a clear decision about either affiliating with the Missionary District or transferring directly to the ACNA or another Anglican jurisdiction by August 31, 2012.

Roman Catholic Cardinal: A Sin to Cooperate with the Obama Mandate
A leading Catholic cardinal at the Vatican has essentially said that complying the with Obama birth control mandate would have Catholics and Catholic organizations participating in sin.  The mandate compels religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions in health coverage for their employees and a revised mandate will compel them to refer employees for free coverage from their health insurance plans, which will eventually have the payment mandate.