When it comes to moderates, GOP Ex-Specter-ates!

You may know that I love puns. I particularly love it when the entire media tries to use the same pun. So thanks to Marc Ambinder for compiling today's headlines regarding Sen. Arlen Specter's switching parties.

Finals week

I know I've been pretty quiet here for a while. I'm working hard, trying to wrap up the semester. Hard to believe that I am 2/3 of the way finished with seminary.

This semester I had the mixed blessing of studying the gospel of Mark under a professor who has written a two-volume commentary on Mark. I found it very difficult to put together a term paper that I felt okay turning in, knowing that he has published over 1200 pages about Mark (not counting all the articles he's written).

But, I did turn something in. Rather than telling you about my paper, I decided to give you a visual digest using Wordle:

I was not aware of that.

You really only need to watch the first 40 seconds of this to get a sense of what the whole speech is like. Shout out to Portland for Blumenauer's rebuttal at the end of the clip.

The foolish man bought an imported car...

I think it's fair to say that most of us, after Hurricane Katrina, would've been uncomfortable with someone using Jesus' words from Matthew 7:24-27 to chastise people for choosing to live in a flood-prone area. After all, the "rock" that Jesus describes is obedience to his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount; "sand" is disobedience. While it may be common sense to build your house in a safe location, doing so is not an injunction from Christ.

So what are we to think when the President compares our derivative-based economy to a house built upon sand, and calls on us to "build our house upon a rock" by saving more, consuming less, and exporting more? It may be a metaphor that makes sense to people, but it reminds me that making a metaphor out of Jesus' metaphor usually results in associating Jesus' authority with something he didn't say.

Methodist Manna

I was surprised to discover today that for some reason, Cokesbury is selling off volumes of the Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley for $15 apiece (they usually cost $50). These are the authoritative scholarly versions of Wesley's sermons (4 vols.), letters (2 vols.), journals & diaries (6 vols.), and other works. For more on the Wesley Works Project, see here.