[N.B. This post was started but never finished.]<\/p>\n
So the Alpha course I’m helping to facilitate down at the church is almost done. Last nigh was the penultimate session. We skip next week (Holy Week), and then wrap things up on 1 April (April Fools jokes not necessary).<\/p>\n
The topic last night was evangelism, “spreading the Good News.” It’s a topic that has a bad rap about it in our American culture. Probably because there have been way too many people, past and present, who have mistaken the idea of talking about their faith, and inviting others to share in it, with shaming others into conversion, harrassing them until they join, or imposing their faith on others by even more violent or coercive means (take, for example, the teachers prayer group mentioned a few posts down).<\/p>\n
It’s interesting. Religion is just not something that’s talked much about in my circle of friends and acquaintences. There are indirect hints, here or there, but it just isn’t something we discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[N.B. This post was started but never finished.] So the Alpha course I’m helping to facilitate down at the church is almost done. Last nigh was the penultimate session. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28550,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/12\/declining-faith-in-organized-religion-in-the-us.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":0},"title":"Declining faith in organized religion in the US","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Jul-12 1:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not necessarily in religion \/ spirituality, though, as those numbers remain pretty steady. \u00a0But when it comes to organized faiths, Americans are increasingly disenchanted.One\u00a0factor is that overall confidence in a number of societal institutions is down. That's probably not helping organized religions, but it doesn't seem to be the only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51752,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/15\/harassing-me-for-my-harassment-is-harassment.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":1},"title":""Harassing me for my harassment is harassment!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Jul-15 3:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Mr. Banks (and your legal team at Liberty Institute): If Ford fired you because you said, \"I'm a Christian,\" then, yes, you'd be fired for for your religious beliefs and, in nearly all situations, you'd have a case under EEO laws, the Civil Rights Act, etc.But that's not what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12682,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/26\/faith_snapshot.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":2},"title":"Faith snapshot","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-Feb-08 10:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Les points to a new, massive Pew Research report on the state of religion in the US. Bottom line: it's a diverse picture, and getting moreso over time. A...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/pew-religion.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":137817,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/14\/the-dire-menace-of-the-lgbtq-religion.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":3},"title":"The Dire Menace of the LGBTQ Religion","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Feb-19 9:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The article is somewhat lengthy, but it's simultaneously hilarious and appalling, detailing a bill in the Kansas state legislature that basically asserts that LGBTQ is a \"religion\" (a subset of secular humanism, which was deemed a religious faith by SCOTUS in the early 60s), and therefore state law cannot favor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132824,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/10\/defining-who-is-a-true-christian-just-what-we-want-the-government-to-do.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":4},"title":"Defining Who Is A True Christian — just what we want the government to do!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 10-Feb-17 3:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump's promise to favor Christian refugees from majority-Muslim countries[1] carries with it an ironic challenge: figuring out who the Christians are. Is it enough to just claim to be Christian? Well, that's pretty crappy, security-wise. But if self-identification is not enough, what is? Testimony from other Christians? A signed letter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13275,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/01\/book_review_founding_fait.html","url_meta":{"origin":2062,"position":5},"title":"Book Review: Founding Faith by Steven Waldman","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Feb-09 12:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America by Steven Waldman (2008) Overall Writing Info Re-Readability Audio Waldman studies the issues around...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}