1. Vocational and cultural discipleship
Gideon Strauss has a great post at the Redeemer City to City blog about re-envisioning the meaning of work, including a reflection on the first annual Gospel & Culture Conference held late last year in New York:
Listening to Chelsea Chen perform on the organ of beautiful St. Bart’s church, and to Tim Keller and Richard Mouw outline an inspiring theology of culture, redolent with the gospel; hearing Fiona Diefenbacher’s heart break for the fashion industry, and Max Anderson offering a vision of hope for MBA programs; I thought to myself: this is the stuff of a cultural reformation. This is not just another fad, soon to blow over. This is not some utopian vision of heaven dragged down to earth by human hands, no matter the price. These people are committed to the slow, hard, nuanced work of bearing hope into every corner of their world, by living their everyday work out of motives shaped by the gospel.
2. The stewardship of transcendence
David Greusel is an architect specializing in places where people gather, including a couple of MLB stadiums. He’s also a theologically astute wordsmith. Here, he writes about architecture and art in a culture in which the church is “no longer the most important building in town”:
The big question for the church in the West is this: Can its stewardship of transcendence be recovered? To answer this question requires predictive skills that I lack. However, I can predict with confidence that the attitudes of the church toward art of the last 150 years will only drive it further from the mainstream and from the centre of cultural influence. To move back toward the centre of culture will require that we befriend (and become) museum curators, art history professors, critics, journalists, and publishers. This will require a generation of wise, spiritually grounded and theologically nimble missionaries.
3. Crossing borders within our own
In last week’s Repaso I included a post by David Kirkpatrick about seeing life through Latino eyes. Here’s a follow-up:
Few Christians would disagree with Samuel Escobar when he says, “The heart of ‘mission’ is the drive to share the good news with all, to cross every border with the gospel.” But when pressed with the need to cross ethnic borders within our own national borders, many are perplexed. They have a burden without a vision.
4. How fast is Usain Bolt?
Yes, Usain Bolt is fast. Really fast. But this video puts his speed in historical perspective, and it makes him seem even faster.
5. Guatemala wins its first Olympic medal
Guatemala won its first ever Olympic medal last Saturday, thanks to Erick Barrondo’s second place finish in the men’s 20 kilometer walk. As you can imagine, Guatemalans are pretty excited and proud. Honestly, though, I’m not sure which is bigger news — that this is Guatemala’s first medal, or that walking is an actual Olympic sport. Apparently, racewalking is quite popular in Latin America.
6. Comparing the continents
Some creative folks have created a series of infographics using the ubiquitous Olympic rings, which represent each of the world’s continents, to portray inequality of various kinds around the world. Here they are in video form:
Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!
[Photo credit: Andrew Rodriguez via nytimes.com]
