Blogaround

1. What About Divorce? (posted September 29) A thorough analysis on what Jesus/ the bible has to say about divorce. "Divorce, in and of itself, is not inherently evil"- for one thing, the bible often uses the metaphor of God divorcing Israel because of their rebellion. This post is totally worth reading- it brought up a lot of ideas I'd never thought about.

2. Niger's hunger brides- in pictures (posted September 28) Girls as young as 11 getting married because their family can't support them and needs the dowry money.

3. Ask a stay-at-home dad... (response) (posted October 2) "We could not have picked a 'better' church to visit on our first Sunday, as the pastor was speaking that week – scratch that; he was shouting – about 'biblical' gender roles, referencing stay-at-home dads as 'abnormal' and it being against God’s will for a wife to have a larger income than her husband. Needless to say, we failed to fill out a visitor’s card." To be honest, I'm SHOCKED to hear this.

4. Ikea's Saudi Arabia catalog erases women; company expresses regret (posted October 1) Some examples here. Not cool.

5. Is ambition a sin? (posted October 3) In which Rachel Held Evans challenges the thinking that says it's wrong for Christians (particularly women) to promote their own work (blogs, writing, etc) because it's selfish ambition. AMEN TO THIS!

6. First World Problems Are Real Problems (posted September 28) This is a really interesting perspective.

7. The hardest day, or, Your life matters (posted October 2) "From the time we walked up to the nutrition area to the time we walked away, no one had come to help him. I didn’t help him. I couldn’t. I walked away with weak knees and a weaker promise. I will remember you. Your life matters."

8. Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate (posted October 3)

9. Why the Church needs to stop reaching out (posted October 5)

10. Idolatry of the Family (posted September 11) "When I read the Bible, I get the distinct sense that Jesus wasn’t interested in saving the nuclear family from a windy onslaught of liberal opinions. I rather get the impression that he was concerned with diving headfirst into the unvarnished messiness of the human condition and saving us— as individuals, as families, as communities, as people— from our own unhinged self-absorption and festering lovelessness."

11. Five Ways Christains Must Stop Failing the Poor (posted October 1)