Almost everyone has heard about the Atlanta Falcons NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s arrest, conviction, and imprisonment for federal dog fighting crimes. Vick served 18 months in a
federal prison and was released. The NFL has stated that Vick will be able to return to football with conditions. The media is speculating on which teams are interested and what Michael Vick will do next.
You might be asking yourself, “Why does all this matter?” Well, for the most part, the public opinion on animal abusers is strong. Naturally, people are mostly animal lovers. Sometimes, I think we love animals more than people. Clearly, abusing animals is wrong and setting up a dog fighting ring, making money off dog fighting, and treating dogs poorly is wrong. Yet, Vick has received more negative press and more public out cry than Cleveland Browns receiver Donte Stallworth, who was suspended by the NFL for driving drunk and killing a pedestrian in Miami. Or, singer Chris Brown, who beat/harmed girlfriend and singer Rihanna.
Here is the problem: People seem to be more upset at Vick than they should be at Stallworth or Brown. Stallworth got drunk and killed someone with his car and only served a 30 day sentence. Now, I am not saying you should feel sorry for Vick. Vick broke the law and hurt animals. Clearly, there is an inequity here. Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune echo these sediments:
There is a developing movement within literature to chronicle an outsider’s perspective on the strange land of Evangelical Christianity. It seems that the world sees all Evangelical Christians as fervent, ignorant, and misguided by a holy book. Being an Evangelical myself, I can see how the outside world can group all Evangelicals into this stereotype. The media tends to pick up on the extremes of any group, ideology, or religion and usually tries gives us the most radical angle. You would think that I would NOT recommend books about non-Christians views on Christianity, but there are two books that are worthy of your consideration about strangers in a strange land that yield some surprising insights.
Both Christians and secular news organizations alike have commented on the growing trend of Christians fleeing traditional churches. Some have even reported the growing trend of people becoming “less religious”, but “more spiritual”. Christians have lamented the trend of younger families fleeing churches. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a 
get me wrong here. The Democrats have had theirs too (Bill Clinton). Maureen Down from the New York Times 
I used to go on a lot of Habitat for Humanity trips, especially during college, and I frequently ended up on job sites where we had to build a house from the ground up. We framed walls, put trusses up, put the roof decking up, and shingled the roof. Over the years, I would learn a little more about building a house. Building a house is really tricky. If you are a half inch off on a line it could wreck the whole job. For a guy like me, a half inch does not seem like a whole lot, but in the building trade it can equate to disaster. I remember on one trip, we were following the directions of a volunteer on how to build the framing for the house and the gentlemen supervising the job did not really know what he was doing. We put in a half day of work on it and the real site supervisor came on the scene and told us to rip everything out! We were off two inches! Ahhhh! Needless to say, that guy was not directing anymore work for the rest of the week.
Christians away from the dangers of the fantasy world invoking wizards, creatures, magic, and spells. Why is it that other fiction stories like Cinderella, Aladdin, Pokemon, etc… do not invoke such a response? Nobody seemed to cry out against Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings… oh yeah, those books were written by Christian authors, so that makes it okay. Even though, those books contain the same fantasy elements as Harry Potter. Now, where are all the Christian nay-sayers?
. I was in Pasadena for the American Baptist Churches Biennial and I could not believe the outpouring of interested in MJ’s death. As I walked around the streets of Pasadena, I heard the restaurants, shops, and stores playing every Michael Jackson song her produced. Normally, people only played “Thriller” during Halloween, but in Pasadena I must have heard it about 96 times in 3 days. I was in a session at my conference where the speaker was using Twitter.com and it was not working because people were blogging about MJ on Twitter, which shut the site down. The internet slowed down the day MJ died. Everyone who was at a computer was googling MJ.
Have you ever gone back to your home town after being away for years? Did things change? Did they remain the same? I remember going back to my home church to be ordained in 2006. I was excited. I just finished seminary, got my first job as a pastor, and all my family came into town to attend my ordination. A lot of the people from my home church who guided me through my spiritual life were there: Sunday school teachers, youth workers, pastors, family, and friends. The ordination service was beautiful and touching for everyone. It was the culmination of years of preparation for ministry.
