The Dirty Northwest

With election season in high gear, it’s often too tempting to resist for some churches to obey the law and not participate in campaigns. This is, of course, illegal with respect to their tax-exempt status.
Should you come across this sort of activity, info to bookmark below…

Filing a Complaint with the IRS:

A referral of an exempt organization may be made by submitting Form 13909, Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form, downloadable from IRS.gov.

Form 13909 and any supporting documentation may be submitted in a variety of ways.  They can be sent via:
• Mail to IRS EO Classification, Mail Code 4910DAL, 1100 Commerce St., Dallas, TX 75242-1198,
• Fax to 214-413-5415, or
• Email to eoclass@irs.gov.
Submission of Form 13909 is voluntary.

Me: Good. I got a guilt trip from my parents.

You: Oh, because you’re a heathen?

Me: Yeah. “Did you miss going to church on Easter? I know you used to be so dilligent about it…”

You: Jeez.

Me: The candy is on sale. I’m filling my freezer with Cadbury Creme Eggs. Last year I saved 4 till October.

Regarding the recent dust-up surrounding the images of the Prophet Mahummad in Wikipedia, I’m confused about the principle that “it’s totally unacceptable to print the Prophet’s picture” (linked above).

Is it acceptable to create the Prophet’s picture?

There’s yer problem right thar.

“Falwell’s death is the biggest thing to happen in liberal rants since Reagan died!” — TDNW
Hitchens’ rant on Tucker (YouTube).

Hitchens puts it in writing.

If I was cynical I’d say he’s just trying to sell books.

Good thing I’m not cynical.

I’m super busy today but I though I’d let folks know that when I went to grab a latte with a coworker this morning a homeless guy came up to me in the bus mall, told me he was actually Jesus Christ and shared that he was striking down Falwell because he was tired of his bigotry.

I’m not sure if Jesus is telling everyone this or if he intended me to post it on my blog so I figured I’d best be safe and post it here.

More as it develops…

UDPATE: Turns out he appears to have died from being old, fat and angry. Yes, it can kill you.

A loyal TDNW reader (and former Wheatnick?) brought to my attention Misquoting Jesus by a fellow Wheaton alum.

Fresh Air nicely summarizes the book here and I dare say me interest be piqued!

Ehrman says the modern Bible was shaped by mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes who copied the texts. In the introduction to Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman writes that when he came to understand this process 30 years ago, it shifted his way of thinking about the Bible. He had been raised as an Evangelical Christian.

“Errors in transcription” (either deliberate or accidental) is a common criticism of the Bible. The Evangelicals’ counter argument — as it is for all things rationale which undermine the veracity — is faith*.

This book should prove an interesting read.

* Ah, faith. The ol’ “f” word. The ace up the sleeve. They’ll argue with you on rationale grounds. They’ll let you back them into a corner. But when you declare checkmate, they knock the board over, spilling the pieces, and say “yeah, you have to take in on faith.”

Great NYT article on morality in non-human primates.

But the nugget I like best: Religions give a narrative to a group or culture’s morality.

The “missions trip” (so called because it was similar in theme to the missions trip I heard about as an Evangelical child — bringing supplies of encouragement to stranded friends much in need) to the NE corner of Oregon was a great success.

That area is beautiful in the winter and I’ll be posting a bit on the little gems I discovered there through the rest of the week.

For now I leave with this shot:

I like the part where they took down 14 Christmas trees and then put them all back up again a few days later because they were short on time.

[However, I'm having trouble verifying that as the real reason and only Fox puts the count at 14 trees vs 8. Very interesting, Fox. Very interesting indeed...]

I’m not sure if piecemeal is the best way to go about studying Genesis, but Vast Left Wing Conspiracy is starting from the top with a (very long, I expect) series called Bible Study for Athiests.
IIRC Genesis came out of the oral tradition of the time before it was penned by others generations later.

I caught a great one-man-show in Chicago some years back (see the first link here) that was my best experience with the book. The themes are so much more clear when you listen to the whole story in one sitting.

And the nature of interpreting an interpretation (your hearing/watching of someone else’s understanding) lends itself to an experience quite unlike the scholarly approach to the Bible that I know and much more authentic for Genesis, given its history.

Regardless, stay tuned to that project as it’s sure to be interesting, though I think there are some bugs to work out yet (e.g. I tried leaving a comment and but app didn’t like me).