It’s Wandering Web Wednesday, the Thursday edition! Here are some links that caught my eye while wandering the web over the past few days:
Bible/Theology
If you need a Romans re-cap, watch the video by Richard Bell, Professor of Theology at the University of Nottingham, which addresses the question Why Study St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans? (Youtube).
A couple of years ago, I was excited to learn that there was a book for those of us who are Christians and introverts (Introverts in the Church). This week, I discovered that there is a book for those Christians who are of a more cynical temperament: Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint. Joel Willitts has a review (Euangelion).
A series of assignments by a teacher of a World Religions course at a community college revealed the experiences of his students with religion, their assumptions about religious claims, and how they viewed the role of religion in their lives.
The Religious Views of 20-Somethings, Part 1 (Out of Ur).
General/Other
Apparently the tradition that the captain goes down with the ship or, at the very least, is last to abandon ship, is of fairly recent origin and has no basis in maritime law. This may be of interest to many in light of the grounding last week of the passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia.
Abandoning Ship: an Etiquette Guide (Slate).
The prevailing wisdom in education has been that high self-esteem leads to high achievement. But, psychology and brain research has led some teachers to question the conventional wisdom in favour of finer-tuned praise that pushes students to work thrtough mistakes and take on more challenging assignments.
In schools, self-esteem boosting losing favor to finer-tuned praise (Washington Post).
The recent media attention on same-sex marriage for foreign tourists was “one of the more disgraceful episodes in the long history of phoney controversies” in Canada. That’s the opinion of the National Post’s Andrew Coyne. It was, he writes in a recent column, “a toxic mix of shrewd lawyering, shoddy reporting and partisan opportunism, all without the slightest reference to the relevant, and easily obtainable, facts.”
Full Comment: Andrew Coyne on Gay Marriage (National Post).
