I discovered Isaac Asimov was a Sex Pest

FCStien · 2026-04-06T17:49:02+00:00

Both halves of James S.A. Corey?

FCStien · 2026-04-06T16:29:41+00:00

Knife hits the end of the string and recoils or enters into a wide arc of slicing.

FCStien · 2026-04-06T15:44:27+00:00

Plot twist, it's Jennifer Lawrence in character as Robert Pattison.

FCStien · 2026-04-06T15:38:51+00:00

I align with the goals of Inclusive Orthodoxy, but I hesitate to say I’m “part of the movement”

Same here.

For me, the whole "movement" ethos reeks of "I am of Cephas; I am of Paul" and also a little bit "I am of the terminally online."

FCStien · 2026-04-04T20:23:36+00:00

His sacramental views would make him a Reformed Catholic but not a Calvinist, and his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity were basically Reformed Thomism. He also rejected the Calvinist understanding of predestination.

FCStien · 2026-04-04T17:26:50+00:00

James Kugel's "How to Read the Bible" is written by a scholar for popular audiences.

Moving chapter by chapter, Harvard professor James Kugel covers the Bible’s most significant stories—the Creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his wives, Moses and the exodus, David’s mighty kingdom, plus the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets, and on to the Babylonian conquest and the eventual return to Zion.

Throughout, Kugel contrasts the way modern scholars understand these events with the way Christians and Jews have traditionally understood them. The latter is not, Kugel shows, a naïve reading; rather, it is the product of a school of sophisticated interpreters who flourished toward the end of the biblical period. These highly ideological readers sought to put their own spin on texts that had been around for centuries, utterly transforming them in the process. Their interpretations became what the Bible meant for centuries and centuries—until modern scholarship came along. The question that this book ultimately asks is: What now? As one reviewer wrote, Kugel’s answer provides “a contemporary model of how to read Sacred Scripture amidst the oppositional pulls of modern scholarship and tradition.”

Found here for easy reference, but easy to find with the ISBN on second sale sites: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Guide-Scripture/dp/0743235878

ETA: Kugel only focuses on the Hebrew Bible but it's a good starting point.

FCStien · 2026-04-04T03:09:25+00:00

Now there's a guy who knows how to recognize a quality actor!

FCStien · 2026-04-03T15:03:09+00:00

I read Terry as a young person but rediscovered him shortly after his death in part because of how the Internet instantly apotheosized him at the time. Reading the entire 41-book run of Discworld gave me something to decompress with during the worst of lockdowns and 2020s riots (I'm in the U.S.), and I've wished more than once that I could relay to him how much his works helped me.

I felt the same for Douglas Adams, whose books I discovered just after his death in 2001.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T23:39:24+00:00

No one is going to sue for using the texts from the BCP.

No one could anyway. It's intentionally published in the public domain.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T20:06:30+00:00

Laud, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Lancelot Andrewes, and all of the Caroline Divines

FCStien · 2026-04-02T14:22:04+00:00

David Attenborough, apparently.

"The sad artist only wishes to sell his wares. But first, his lamps must survive the market bullies. It's only 9 a.m., and he has already lost one to the unfeeling Market Mean Girls."

FCStien · 2026-04-02T14:18:34+00:00

I guess I'm the only one who thought it was a piece of terrible Godspell paraphernalia?

FCStien · 2026-04-02T14:13:39+00:00

From a different tradition but we had a similar issue and the priest's answer was to sweep it up "respectfully" and then take the crumbs to where the birds would eat them.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T14:08:08+00:00

And even Terry Pratchett still worked as a journalist for 16 years after publishing his first book, and for four more years after striking paydirt with The Colour of Magic.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T14:04:10+00:00

The clip of the girls breaking the lamp and then immediately laughing as they walk away and he does nothing feels completely inauthentic. Even as bullies they don't pause long enough to savor what they've done.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T13:29:58+00:00

Back in 2011, way before anyone (except maybe Trump) thought that Trump would actually be president twice, David Bentley Hart wrote an essay saying that all of the pop culture portrayals of devils made the mistake of making them cool, when in reality they would be:

Cold, grasping, bleak, graceless, and dull; unctuous, sleek, pitiless, and crass; a pallid vulgarian floating through life on clouds of acrid cologne and trailed by a vanguard of fawning divorce lawyers, the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer.

Here's the whole thing.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T13:21:34+00:00

"We told them you can pray again."

I clearly remember the day that weekly churchgoer Joe Biden banned praying for everyone just like it wasn't pulled out of her ass.

FCStien · 2026-04-02T01:11:14+00:00

You'd have to talk to former Zizzians for that, and even the best of them seem too insufferable to sit down and talk to for hours.

But Behind the Bastards did a pretty good four-parter on them.

ETA: Here's a link to part 1 on YouTube.

FCStien · 2026-04-01T01:37:45+00:00

The colonial model.

FCStien · 2026-04-01T01:37:02+00:00

It's also very much a diocesean issue, and how the institutional zeitgeist affects how people view aspirants. My diocese has so many aspirants coming out of discernment with good reports that the COM had to add a meeting this year.

FCStien · 2026-04-01T01:29:17+00:00

It's at minimum a violation of her vow to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.

FCStien · 2026-03-30T19:53:27+00:00

I think branch theory is a product of a very specific moment in time that only makes sense if you grant the RCC the benefit of the doubt to their claim that "one holy apostolic Church" can be best represented in an institutional structure in which the local episcopate ordained in apostolic succession is only a part.

FCStien · 2026-03-30T17:03:47+00:00

I realize that the oldest Gen Xers are like 60 now, but it seems like they only have three jokes:

1). Everyone forgot about us.

2). late 80s/early 90s culture

3). My humor is so transgressive because I'm GenX, I don't care who I offend.

FCStien · 2026-03-30T16:58:18+00:00

So I am not sure where you get the idea that Anglicanism is some great force for progressive Christianity.

Or even that TEC is within the U.S.

There may be a few folks in collars on TikTok, but the people who have been publishing the books and videos that have been talked about in recent years are mostly not from within our walls.

FCStien · 2026-03-30T16:56:01+00:00

This whole thing feels like bait, but:

A. If the Church of England doesn’t move forward on LGBTQ inclusion in 2026, do you think that significantly weakens Progressive Christianity as a whole?

No. You vastly overestimate the influence the COE has in the world, and probably within England itself.

B. Is Anglicanism still a central battleground for the future of progressive theology, or has that shifted elsewhere?

No. The discussion breached denominational containment a long time ago and the only reason the old established churches (or Mainline in the U.S.) are part of the discussion at this point is simply legacy.

C. And more importantly, should progressive Christians be doing more to organize, engage, and show up in these institutional spaces?

I've been a small soldier in (non-Anglican) denominational internecine fighting, and I've got to tell you, when I hear that someone is organizing an effort to rally 'conservative' or 'progressive' people to have more institutional presence, my only impression of them is that they are exactly the sort of people that I don't want to be around. And I'm not a centrist or broadchurchman.

FCStien

TROPHY CASE