I was moved by this collection of 10 “last pictures taken” of the subjects prior to their death.

Some of those included are Will Rogers, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Anne Frank, Abraham Lincoln, and Lady Diana. Also included is John and Jackie Knill, who were among the several thousand who perished in the Christmas tsunamis of 2004.

From the description of the Knills photograph:

On January 13, 2005 the bodies of Canadian couple John and Jackie Knill were discovered on a Thailand beach resort. They were two of the many victims killed from the December 26 2004 tsunami. Weeks later a Seattle man doing relief work found a damaged camera and discarded it but kept the memory card in the camera. After downloading the images he discovered pictures of the Knill’s enjoying their vacation, as well as shots of a huge wave approaching the shore. With each picture it shows the wave getting closer and closer to shore. The last picture taken of them before the wave hit (shown above) was shot just after 8.30 am on December 26.

Interesting Fact: The Seattle man that discovered the images recognized the Knills from a missing person’s web site and contacted the couple’s two sons in Vancouver Canada. The man then drove from Seattle to Vancouver to give the sons their parent’s last images.

The Lady Diana image is also fascinating to me, and there’s one of photojournalist Bill Biggart, who died at ground zero on September 11, 2001. I thought I’d pass it along.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

My friend B emailed to me a link to Tropfest NY this morning. Tropfest is an outdoor festival showing short films, and this year’s winner is Mankind is No Island…. This 210 second film, shot entirely on cell phone, pairs New York and Sydney on community, empathy, and homelessness. Its moving and powerful:

Michael Kruse has a link to a good interview with Rob Bell on Premier.tv. (NB: the interview link has caused some people some difficulty; see Kruse’s blog for suggestions if you have problems).

Bell is the one who has put out those Nooma videos I wrote about earlier. Good stuff. Good comments, too, about Bell over at krusekronicle.

For those Presbyterians who are following the portrayal in the popular press of the publication by Westminster John Knox of David Ray Griffin’s Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11, I’d commend Bill Tammeus’ commentary “Christian Publishers, Beware” in today’s Kansas City Star. Tammeus is the Star’s Faith columnist, a Presbyterian, and a rather astute observer of religion and public life. (His Typepad blog is called Faith Matters)

Tammeus’ money quote:

But the book, which I’ve now read, does not measure up. In fact it’s just a mess. It’s a volume of spurious scholarship by an emeritus philosophy professor who says the Bush administration planned and orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks to further its goal of world domination by America.

The book’s many failings call into question the decision to publish it. Indeed, the controversy over that decision prompted the Presbyterian Publishing Corp., which oversees Westminster John Knox, to issue a statement saying the denomination does not endorse the book.

And while that’s true, it’s also true that the decision to print this poisonous book may have done damage to the idea that religious publishing houses should sponsor books by authors who offer credible, if often harsh, critiques of the world.

…

Griffin, however, tries to tie his discussion of empire in biblical times to his idea that the American empire, as he calls it, is “evil” and “even demonic.” Again, it’s scholarship indentured to serve polemical purposes.

The Bush administration deserves much criticism of its post-9/11 actions and policies. But it was a baffling error of judgment for the publishing arm of my denomination to release a volume caught up in unsubstantiated, wild-eyed accusations. It now will be more difficult for books containing legitimate critical religious scholarship to be seen as serious.

The Presbyterian Publishing Corporation continues to push this book hard. I’m not sure why, really. Its on the front of their main webpage today as their featured book. Look, I’ve spent a lot of time in the academic community. I value the free exchange of ideas, and think we really really need to protect it and even defend the existence of unpopular books of scholarship, or those that we disagree with. The light of day, the power of reason and argument, is strong enough to withstand even this screed.

So if Tammeus is right, its a shame. Religious communities, and others who are contibuting to the public discourse, should trust their ability to provide strong critique, even of books that they decide to publish. So Tammeus’ concern that “it now will be more difficult for books containing legitimate critical religious scholarship to be seen as serious” to me speaks much more about our comfort at doing the hard work of critique and differentiation between good scholarship and bad scholarship, whether it is religious scholarship or secular.

And I think that this point needs to be considered in the quite justified critiques of the PPC to publish Griffin’s loony argument. Ultimately, I’ll support this texts publication by the PPC, because the argument needs to be made to be refuted. This is their argument for why they published it: that it is scholarship that deserves a public hearing. (I’m not sure from these statements whether they think the arguments are boneheaded or spurious, or if they actually think they have good merit). The fact of the matter is that the consipracy theory is out there, and it needs to be exposed to the light of day to be debunked. I wouldn’t have decided to publish it, but ultimately I don’t mind that a publishing house sharing the name Presbyterian has done so, though it has many quite hot under the collar (and there’s a long history behind that, to be sure: see good posts here, here, here and here).

Books are books; I worry about the currency of the ideas, who holds them and what purchase they have in the wider world. I’d much rather have more books with controversial thought than fewer books with the same thought. Orthodoxy, if it is robust and rooted in the grace and truth of God, can withstand this and other texts. We might even be stronger after doing so…

What I don’t get is why the PPC is pushing this as its featured book. Its one thing to publish a text that is boneheaded. Its another to push it hard as the beacon of the publishing house’s works. That is just plain stupid.

Sunday I used Rob Bell’s NOOMA Bullhorn video with our youth group. To be honest, I’ve not had a lot of exposure to Bell. Word of his whirlwind preaching tour–with its concert like crowds–reached even to the New York Times this summer, and frankly that article was my first glimpse into his ministry. I read a few blog comments (Such as Andrew‘s), but it wasn’t until I visited my Presbytery’s church resource center that I checked these resources out.

Bullhorn is Bell’s argument that the core religious message of Christianity isn’t hell and damnation to those who fail to repent, but treating all others with love and respect. As we love others, so we love God, Bell argues. And God loves everyone: you, me, the ax murderer, the child molester. Everyone. And so ought we. Loving doesn’t mean approving of what people do, necessarily; it means treating everyone with respect and acknowledging that God loves them as one of God’s creation.

The video is nicely packaged, fairly short (this one is 12 minutes), and worked well with this age group. I previewed three others (Luggage, Dust, and Matthew), and I’m not so sure they’d work for our youth group (given that we are both middle and high school aged youth).

I really like these resources, at least for discussion starters and getting into some foundational topics of the faith. I’ve read some critique of the NOOMA videos, with the core argument (so far as I can tell) that Bell doesn’t go all that deep. That’s true, but the intention doesn’t seem to be an academic lecture. From the four or so that I saw, there’s actually a lot going on in them, and a good discussion leader can mine these pretty deeply. Another critique is on style, suggesting that Bell is inauthentic, pretending in the video to be speaking extemporaneously when, in fact, the videos are highly scripted. But this doesn’t seem to bother me very much. Our youth picked up on this immediately, and I doubt any critical watcher would be seriously fooled.

So I’m pleased, and I plan to use the other videos in other venues. I suspect that a few of my church members will have their guard up regarding anything put out by Zondervan (which in my mind has some great and some awful publications to its credit, but is particularly strong on the emergent front), and if they found out that these videos were shown at a recent Promise Keepers event they’d probably have a strong guilt by association reflex, but so far I’ve not seen anything theologically that I find questionable. On the contrary, they’re compelling.

My church was gracious enough to grant me six weeks paternity leave. With twins, I’m convinced now that, by the end of that leave, I’ll have needed every second of it. I’m grateful to be employed by such a generous Christian community, not just for this leave, but for all the support they’ve offered Ms. Kairos and me over these last five weeks. As I prepare to go back to work a week from Monday, some have already lined up to come in and help with laundry, meal prep, light cleaning, etc. Its just plain hard to watch two infants by yourself and do all those other things. And as Ms. Kairos prepares to go back to work herself six weeks after that, we’ll be trying to figure out how to do all this with daycare.

Ms. Kairos is a bit concerned with sharing pictures of our family on the net, so you’ll have to make due with one final shot of the girls (for now):

We asked the girls which picture was their favorite, and these are the pictures that each chose. I’m not sure what that says about their personalities yet. We’ll have to see.

Regarding blogging: I’m going to ease back into it over the next few weeks. I don’t know what my time will be like before going back to work. Maybe Toby is right and I’ll have plenty of time at 3am this week. Or maybe not.

What caught my eye today was James’ post today on Think Christian about Rosie O’Donnell. Here it is:

The American Family Association is all worked up by Rosie O’Donnell telling “The View” viewers, “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.”

Founder Donald Wildman wrote, in a mass email, “O’Donnell was saying there is no difference between the radical Muslims who kill in the name of Allah and Bible-believing Christians who follow the teachings of Jesus.” He urged Christians to email “ABC that O’Donnell’s comments
deserve an apology and a reprimand.”

I’m not sure that’s the right attitude. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11).

So like Baalam’s curse of the Israelites turning into a blessing, isn’t O’Donnell blessing followers of Jesus and providing a great reward in heaven? The truly “radical Christian” thing to do, might just be to email O’Donnell a thank you note.

What do you think? There’s this attitude among so many Christians that any slight to Christenedom needs be countered by strength. James has a point here. And I think Rosie is wrong in her characterization of “radical Christianity,” which doesn’t equal fundamentalist or what I’d call “Christianist” Christianity. But I thought I’d pass James’ post along…

NPH has a great open letter to Kathleen Parker regarding her column about the PC(USA)’s receiving “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing”. Parker isn’t the first to misrepresent the actions of a denomination’s national assembly, but as NPH argues, it would have helped to have read the actual document before opining about it.

… Hmm. The letter isn’t there for some reason. I’ll check into it…

…Its been reposted, and the links are updated.