Wisdom For Your Weekend: your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web.
Free Book of the Week
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Butterfield. You’ll have to sign up for the email subscription for Christianaudio.com to get the book. But otherwise, this really is a free audiobook. And, we should add, a really good free audiobook. Rosaria’s “train wreck conversion” (her words) has a lot to teach us about the nature of grace and the way we interact with those outside the church—particularly with those of the LGBT community.
Articles of the Week
What Can Christians Do about Planned Parenthood? Justin Taylor. The Planned Parenthood exposé videos keep coming, each one showing yet another sordid angle on the practice of abortion in the United States. Taylor provides some a bevy of resources as the curtain continues to be drawn back—including links to all five videos, a discussion of what is happening in Congress, and suggestions for what Christians can do to think clearly about the question of abortion. (Also, be sure to check here for Taylor’s advice on how to contact your local congressional representative.)
There Is No Pro-Life Case For Planned Parenthood, Ross Douthat. At the risk of piling on, this was just too strong not to share. “Let’s be clear about what’s really going on here. It is not the pro-life movement that’s forced Planned Parenthood to unite actual family planning and mass feticide under one institutional umbrella. It is not the Catholic Church or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or the Southern Baptist Convention or the Republican Party that have bundled pap smears and pregnancy tests and HPV vaccines with the kind of grisly business being conducted on those videos. This is Planned Parenthood’s choice … telling pro-life and pro-choice Americans alike that contraceptive access and fetal dismemberment are just a package deal, that if you want to fund an institution that makes contraception widely available then you just have to live with those “it’s another boy!” fetal corpses in said institution’s freezer, that’s just the price of women’s health care and contraceptive access.”
The Five Different Types of Work That Fill Your Day, Scott Belsky. This is an intriguing notion, and seems applicable to most (not all) work roles. Belsky even offers several tips for “auditing” your own work to get the right things done. I’m (Chris) curious to do an informal audit myself, to see what kind of work sucks up most of my time. I’d like to say I’m doing a lot of the problem-solving type…but I have a sneaking suspicion that I drift into “planning work” and “insecurity work” far more often than I should.
Why Christians Should Have a “Firm Core” but “Soft Edges,” Bryan Loritts. It’s sad that kindness so often gets confused with niceness. They’re actually, as Loritts points out, pretty close to opposites. Niceness has a soft, conviction-less core, but when pressed can often manifest in abrasiveness and aggression. In other words, niceness is one step on the road to meanness. Kindness, on the other hand, has a “firm core, filled with courage and conviction.” But that firm core is surrounded by soft edges as we interact with others graciously. As we process volatile events in our nation, let’s trade our pale niceness for the real deal—convictional kindness.
On The Lighter Side
We’re the Timmy Brothers, and We Make Water, Paul Riccio. If you’re a huge fan of artisanal products, you might want to just ignore this one. But if, perchance, you find hipster culture amusing/confusing/infuriating, this may your most enjoyable five minutes today.
Wisdom For Your Weekend is presented to you by Chris Pappalardo, with occasional guidance from J.D. Greear. This is our attempt to reflect Proverbs 9:9: “Give instruction to
