By Stan Friedman
CHICAGO, IL (September 26, 2014) — Many Covenanters routinely share links to social media articles and videos with one another that Covenant News Service believes may be of interest to others. Each Friday we post five of them. Following is a sample of those submissions—their inclusion does not represent an endorsement of any views expressed.
What Bipolar Disorder Really Feels Like
As a person with bipolar disorder, I can vouch for the accuracy of this piece—which includes cartoons from a graphic memoir by an artist with bipolar disorder. If you want to get a good introduction to this mental illness or help someone else to understand it, click the link. Very good stuff.
The Sexual Threats against Emma Watson Are an Attack on All Women
I would not have made the connection between the threats against Watson and sexual violence perpetrated against women around the world. But it’s a strong one. Meanwhile, it’s important for us—and I mean men and women—that, “When we tell women that the threats and attacks they experience are their own fault, for failing to be sufficiently chaste or failing to take ‘responsible’ precautions, we are telling them that they are on their own: that they cannot rely on society’s protection against those crimes.” That has to change.
The Real Boobs on the Ground Are All Speaking on Fox News
When we don’t suspend people for making sexist comments on the air, especially when they make them repeatedly, then we’re also telling women, “Don’t expect to be treated with respect.” I am not a regular Fox News basher, but c’mon. Although it took Eric Bolling a full day to apologize, he did eventually. His co-anchor Greg Gutfeld did not.
Models and Authorizations: An Interview with Walter Brueggemann
When Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann speaks, people should listen, whether or not they ultimately agree with him. In this interview, he discusses communal lament. How can you not appreciate statements such as, “We live in a bourgeois cocoon of niceness,” “We can’t expect everybody to be in the same place of radicality, but we can expect the people to be engaged as they are able,” and “The Scriptures are important because they both model that kind of speech and they authorize that kind of speech.”
Eugene Peterson’s Advice to Seminary Students
Peterson says, “I’d tell them that pastoring is not a very glamorous job. It’s a very taking-out-the-laundry and changing-the-diapers kind of job.”
No wonder I’m writing instead of still doing congregational ministry. I’m horrible with the former, and my one hard and fast rule as a grandfather is I don’t do the latter. Perhaps part of the discernment process when churches interview pastoral candidates should be to ask whether they do laundry and change diapers.
