Holyoffice offers a glossary of Christian terms to help clear up confusion. He helpfully defines the Emerging Church, for example, as “churches attended exclusively by white people in their 20s and 30s who have at least one tattoo or body piercing. Their distinguishing characteristics are a refreshing, ‘up to date’ interpretation of Christianity, and a reluctance to directly answer questions.” (Hat tip to Tommy Tanaka.)

As promised, a response to Tim Boucher’s “Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory” (in three parts):

Boucher is looking for a new gnosticism. I’ve always found gnosticism bewildering, if metaphysically ambitious. It has its own peculiar beauty, but as I studied it in a mystical theology class in college, I couldn’t help but think that gnosis and neoplatonism were one and the same. And who needs neoplatonism?

When you cut through all the archons, demiurges, and aeons, what gnosticism starts with, at root, is a deep sense of unease in the world. This unease is so radical that it imagines that we are not of this world, that our true home lies elsewhere, that we are trapped here in what Philip K. Dick called the “Black Iron Prison.”

Gnosis, then, is the realization of this radical truth and the story that goes with it. The story usually includes the following elements: Click to continue reading “A new gnosticism?”

Are there such things? Fonts that, say, 75% of users have? Or 66%? The current list of web safe fonts hasn’t grown for years. What about fonts like Arial Narrow or Optima? Any stats out there?

After ten months of job nirvana being just two months away, things have started to pick up. I picked up a mostly full time tutoring gig, and it’s been fun playing youth director again, if only with three kids at a time.

More to the point, I had two phone interview this week for jobs I would actually like to have long term. Next week there’s a formal interview for another. Huge sigh of relief. I’m probably jinxing it all by writing this post, but meh.

Freelancing sucks. I hate selling myself. I count my chickens before they hatch, as well as putting all my eggs in one basket. Not good habits for a freelancer.

But soon there will be milk and honey, and fruit baskets, and little fuzzy mints next to the dish of peanuts you scoop out with a spoon, and other things of a celebratory nature. Like free beer. I can feel it. Especially the beer.

Pray the blog gods grant me not-wore-outness. I’m a tired boy.

A study speculates that over 7% of Americans are afflicted with a new disorder where anger goes “from zero to 100” in an instant. Now, that 7% seems to include anyone who’s had as few as three outbursts a year, so apparently my cat has a new mental illness. Who knew Jackie Gleason and Red Forman were the picture of mental illness?

Atlanta Unitarian would like your help mapping out a new take on liberal values that is spiritual, political, and effective: “What we need to offer people is liberal religious perspective that allows them to live meaningful lives, and yes, resist the temptations of the larger secular culture. We need to give people a full and sacred definition of what it is to be human, one that respects the needs of their soul as much as the needs of their body.”