The Sunday Refill – 7 Links for the Weekend (17/4/16)

Here we go, fresh from the oven. Seven links from the last seven days:

1) When Sharing Isn’t Caring – Social media revolves around sharing. That’s just how it works. Yet how often do we consider our motives when we share, or even the effects of doing so? Gervase Markham dares to look beyond the screen itself and suggests we also examine our own hearts.

2) Red Carpet Treatment – Esteemed rapper Lecrae, also a Christian, reflects upon his recent time at the Grammy awards, as well as offering some wisdom on what to do when following Jesus leaves you feeling like the odd one out.

3) Will I Be Single Forever? – A friend shared this, commenting that as a single person its challenging and often unheard perspective had been a blessing. That said, it’s certainly applicable whatever our ‘relational status’.

4) The New Catholic Truce – After Pope Francis’ recent letter on marriage and family, Ross Douthat offers some perceptive observations in his New York Times Op-Ed. As he points out, Roman Catholicism’s position of “deliberate ambiguity” is the only way it can find to straddle an increasing gulf between doctrine & practice, between its traditional teaching & the changing climate of late-modernity. Of course, Roman Catholicism is starting from a very different place to protestant Christianity, which deems God’s word, the Bible, alone to be its authority. And yet Reformed churches should still take note as to where this straddling takes you.

5) The gay Anglo-Saxon warrior – “Just be yourself,” is now just about the least controversial thing you can ever say to anyone. And it’s certainly a lot less controversial than asking how much our view of ourselves is actually a product of the culture around us. This Tim Keller paragraph attempts to illustrate and prod this state of affairs, and now the creative Adam4d has provided accompanying illustrations.

6) So what if Zac Goldsmith doesn’t know what comes next on the Central Line? – Grace Dent responds with a blast of fresh air and common sense to the recent furore over London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith’s failure to identify London tube stops. We often demand that our leaders are ‘real’, but what does this really mean and are we really prepared for it?

7) Stott Bowdlerized – John Stott’s little book Basic Christianity has deservedly earned the label of ‘classic’, seemingly playing a part in countless individuals’ journey to faith. And although Stott died in 2011, the book is still popular. But, as Barton Swaim has discovered, if you pick up a new edition of the book you’ll find something that’s quite different from the original – and Swaim thinks that’s worrying. An interesting piece.

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