Evolved?
Celibacy, especially religious celibacy, has puzzled social scientists for centuries.
Writes one group of scientists (from University College London, UK, and Lanzhou University, China):
Why some individuals commit to sexual abstinence is unclear.”
Well ….
I am heterosexual in orientation but celibate in practice. I call it “ecclesiological singleness”: by choice, for life, unto Christ, in community. At least to me, it is pretty clear.
But how did celibacy “evolve”
Installation!
Quick note: For those interested in watching a livestream of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Convocation Chapel tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23, at 10:00 am US Eastern Time, make your way to this site.
Your faithful blogger is going to be invited up on stage to sign (with a quill pen, no less!) the Seminary’s 150-year-old doctrinal statement, The Abstract of Principles, as well as to be installed as the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching.
Loud
Cold!
Coolers are in, nowadays. But not your grandpa’s cooler, that had poorly sealed lids, that didn’t have wheels, that cracked in your trunk after a few trips. Nope! The coolers that are in these days are fancy, as described in a recent Wall Street Journal column!
There is, for example RovR RollR 80 that can keep your ice solid for over 10 days, with tubular wheels (optional) that can roll quite easily on sand. (That is, if you plan to trek in the Sahara for 2 weeks.)
Said
Midnight?
It’s dark. It’s night. In fact, it’s midnight. And I’m still awake. Wrapping things up, getting this blog up, but still awake. I still have to get my customary drink of water, floss and brush my teeth, etc. At midnight.
Connection!
The COVID-19 pandemic was (and still is) a human tragedy on a global scale. But ecologists utilized it as an unparalleled opportunity to study the natural world and what happens there when humans abruptly step back from it.
“Anthropause,” they call it, the slowdown of human activity affecting the environment. 4–5 billion people, or 57 percent of the planet, were under some sort of movement restriction. Indeed, even driving decreased by more than 40 percent, while
Judges 4:1–24
Fearless faith in God results in blessing.
The Israelites have not learnt a whole lot—they are “continuing” to do evil in Yahweh’s sight (Jdg 4:1). And so Yahweh sells them into the hand of Jabin, the Canaanite king (4:2), and the Israelites cry in desperation (4:3). Same old story.
But the next few elements of the standard paradigm are missing in the Barak narrative. Instead, we have a relentless echo of feminine nouns and suffixes: “Deborah [a feminine
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.