DISQUS

Wow, that's quite the image. Where'd you find it?

And by the way, you've got some sweet networking things (google connect, facebook, etc). Nice
Sorry I don't get over to comment and off the rss feed much.

Just found this on the Children's Defense Fund, Cradle to Prison Pipeline report. It's from an interview with the senator:

Mississippi State Senator Willie Simmons, who at the time represented Sunflower among other counties in the Delta, said that the state of Mississippi once used elementary school achievement scores to project future prison population. Simmons worked in corrections for 17 years and in 1992 was the deputy commissioner of Mississippi’s Department of Corrections. In that job, he said, he commissioned a study to project what the state’s prison population, then about 10,000, would be in 10 years.

Alan,
Thanks for the comment. I agree there is a lot of great things that can be done through the power of God at work in people. But, I don't get why you separate out \"human means\" as irrelevant or not a practical way to address needs. The early church gave and shared their possessions. Jesus told people to do that very thing on occasion. I'm not saying it's the only way, but many, many Christians in America have those resources in their hands and can use them to meet the needs of others. Pray for healing and ask for supernatural miracles, but if you have the means to feed that person, don't neglect that if the miracle doesn't come.

Alan,
Thanks for the comment. I agree there is a lot of great things that can be done through the power of God at work in people. But, I don't get why you separate out \"human means\" as irrelevant or not a practical way to address needs. The early church gave and shared their possessions. Jesus told people to do that very thing on occasion. I'm not saying it's the only way, but many, many Christians in America have those resources in their hands and can use them to meet the needs of others. Pray for healing and ask for supernatural miracles, but if you have the means to feed that person, don't neglect that if the miracle doesn't come.

Alan,
Thanks for the comment. I agree there is a lot of great things that can be done through the power of God at work in people. But, I don't get why you separate out \"human means\" as irrelevant or not a practical way to address needs. The early church gave and shared their possessions. Jesus told people to do that very thing on occasion. I'm not saying it's the only way, but many, many Christians in America have those resources in their hands and can use them to meet the needs of others. Pray for healing and ask for supernatural miracles, but if you have the means to feed that person, don't neglect that if the miracle doesn't come.

Janice. I hope the links above help. If you'd help me out and send me the research you come across, I'd love to post it. Thanks!

Having problems again Craig? If you can let me know specifically what your looking for I'll try and fix it.

Thanks,
ariah.

Super solid! Thanks for putting into words some of my struggles. I've tried to articulate the desire to choose a lifestyle (and food style) that could be both sustainable and attainable by others in our neighborhood. In other words, affordable both financially and time-wise for others with limited food budgets.

Thanks and I look forward to your other posts on this topic.

I think your thinking of this one:
A Year of Living Biblically
I hear it's a good read too.

Kristi,
I'm down with that, it makes a lot of sense. I remember skimming Letters from a Skeptic a long while back and being pretty unimpressed.
However, recently someone told me to listen to this sermon series of Boyd's called the Cross and the Sword, basically bashing on the unholy union of Christianity with politics, and I thought it was really solid. He's got a book out to on the same topic, but the sermons on audio are an entertaining listen. If your interested let me know.

I spent my formative teenage years in the church and I'd probably consider myself "recovering" now if anything. I've usually got nothing but negative things to say about the religion, but I still find Jesus' words fascinating and spend my days trying to follow those teachings. That's just me and where I'm at.

When you say you despise almost everything he stands for, are you talking about Christianity in general? or specific things about Boyd's views? Just curious.

Yep, same feed and everything, just changed the domain url.

Isn't this terribly disturbing? And then they defended it? Crazy.
I'm loving the ID plugin by the way. reply by email is awesome.
Also, I changed my domain to TryingToFollow.com
mind changing it in your blogroll?

Great thoughts, Lori. And thanks for sharing that story. I did not know that about Good Will. It definitely solidifies the need to rethink this donation/clothing drive mentality.

I wonder if there are other more productive venues through which we could give clothes? I know I've heard of folks needing donations overseas, but coordinating donations with when people take trips is a bit more difficult. That might be a valuable resource...
Imagine an initiative that connected overseas trips with Good Will's overstock and was able to send folks off with boxes of clothes and shoes. That would be cool.

Were you interested in reading mine still?

Michael,

I appreciate your response, that it's up to us to "apply to your life individually." That said, in the example in the post Ramsey was clearly giving individual advice to one person, and I'm just giving alternative specific advice. I don't see a problem there.

However, I would ask this: When did we ever come to the conclusion in the church that financial decisions are "individual" choices? We've got all kinds of strong opinions (many bad, some good) about who people can date, what they can drink, what we should watch, but for some reason how we spend our money is off-limits? I don't get it.

Were you interested in reading mine still?

Well said. There are plenty of laws that will be difficult to change regarding this sort of blight.
I found it terribly surprising though that we actually have laws in place that aren't being followed regarding billboards.

IndyChristian: I did end up writing the novel and I think it came out okay.
http://blog.iamnotashamed.net/2008/03/20/giving-u...

Brian,
Thanks for hanging out tonight. You know, my other readers are gonna wonder about you. Who is this crazy nut who reads Ariah's blog?

Only say this once.

Sorry, I changed my comment system (trying this thing called Intense Debate).
Anyways, I'm having some hang-ups getting all the old comments imported. They aren't lost, just haven't been able to get them into the new system.
Hopefully it doesn't disrupt the conversation too much.

@Rosy,
Thanks for the dialog. I agree "we should do what the Bible says", but I've been very shocked and disappointed by how many people seem to think that looks like in daily life. I guess I'm curious what you mean by it. If the Bible is our manual, what does your daily life look like? How does it apply?

Regarding the music, you said 'Christian' Music is music that glorifies God. Regarding the artist I mentioned, would you consider Kanye's song Jesus Walks a Christian song?
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kanyewest/jesusw...

And U2 has tons of clearly lyrically faith related songs, here's one:
http://www.macphisto.net/u2lyrics/Gloria.html

So, what do you think? Are those Christian?

Blake, so do you like the IntenseDebate? I was thinking of adding it. Mainly for the email reply feature. Let me know what you think.

@Rosy: Thanks for humoring me Rosy. I really appreciate you being willing to dialog. Yet, I still find your answer a bit vague. "committed 100% to God" is a strong statement, but what does it look like in day to day life? If it is simply people clasping hands in prayer, I'm extremely skeptical. "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. " James 2:18
I hope you browse around my site and read some of my posts. I think you'll find that, though I consider myself 100% committed, I talk very little about prayer and a lot about action. I hope you wouldn't write me off as uncommitted simply because you won't find me standing around in a group holding hands in prayer.

As to the Christian music question, would you consider artist like Derek Webb, U2, or Kanye West as Christian music as well?