The wrap

The Wrap no longer seems to serve its purpose as well as it used to, and perhaps one day I might get one of those widget thingys which highlights links of interest in the sidebar, and just retire this. But for now the fajita wrap lives on!

If you're still starving for more Malaysian political commentary, you know better than to visit this blog. Here are some tidbits out of the goodness of my heart. :) Ong Kian Ming, who is a PhD student at Duke, contributor to Education Malaysia and occasional contributor to The Agora, has an excellent analysis worth reading. Same goes for Bridget Welsh's piece, Election post-mortem: 10 Top Factors. Welsh is a John Hopkins academic with a long-standing interest in Southeast Asian, especially Malaysian, politics. Wall Street Journal and The Economist both have short op-eds as well, here and here.

I really like Michael Patton - he's a very thoughtful blogger. He's done an absolutely fantastic series on the emerging church, and his delineation of how one might or might not "emerge" is the most helpful one I've seen yet.

I haven't really opined on the emerging church much recently on this blog - there's been no reason to - but one of the things that have been percolating in the back of my mind for some time now is the thought that the emerging church is actually the step-daughter of the charismatic movement. The two are obviously NOT the same, but I would love for someone to trace the continuities and/or parallels between the two. Both have laid particular stress on the kingdom of God. For John Wimber, for eg., signs and wonders were the big thing that demonstrated the arrival of the kingdom, whereas for say, Brian McLaren, the kingdom is associated with the reforming of unjust social structures, although of course both are not mutually exclusive. Both have segments which are extremely interested in renewing church structures (house church movement), eg. such as Bryn Jones in the UK in the 70s, and today, people like Alan Hirsch. Both seem to me to run the danger of an over-realised eschatology. (Of course the opposite is true for those that run in conservative circles!) Both have raised new, if different, questions, regarding the authority and sufficiency of the Bible. And so on. Historically, I wonder if the trajectory of both would be similar - the charismatic movement drew huge flak during its birthpangs, some justified, some not, and hopefully, the process of correction etc. will play itself out and result in maturity. This seems to have occurred with the UK charismatic movement.

He's also got another good post on orthodoxy.

What makes a church missional?

The Christ Files. Documentary. "In a captivating journey across the globe, Dr John Dickson examines ancient documents and consults the world’s most respected historians and scholars. Beginning with the Gnostic Gospels, he criss-crosses continents on a search back through time for the historical sources that reveal the real Jesus — a search for The Christ Files." There are previews on their website. The Christ Files will be broadcast in Australia, where John Dickson is from, on the Seven Network at noon on Good Friday, March 21, 2008, and DVDs will be available in time. There's also a little book with the same title, already out, that touches on these issues.

I think a lot of us want to show generosity and hospitability to those in need. We want to open our doors in the spirit of true Christian love. But it's difficult to balance that with wise choices. This is a great post by a pastor's wife, living in the inner city, who genuinely struggled to balance the two: Hospitablity and boundaries.

The Ultimate Student Resource List. Not a student anymore, but still useful to know of these online applications and tools.

The fun, definitive list of all of Pixar's in-jokes and self references.

14 Greatest Basketball Movies. I know White Men Can't Jump and Coach Carter, but that's it. What happened to Space Jam? (just kidding...)

So Marvel tried to completely erase over 20 years of the Spiderman-MJ marriage by having a villain erase their memory. Marvel were just trying to some freshness to Spidey, but it hasn't gone down too well. This story is a little old, so I'm not sure if anything has changed since then.

Speaking of which, Where have all the superheroes gone?


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