“Iranian Pastor Could Be Sentenced to Death if He Doesn’t Recant, Says Verdict”:

Iran’s Supreme Court says an evangelical pastor charged with apostasy can be executed if he does not recant his faith, according to a copy of the verdict obtained by a religious rights activist group.

Christian Solidarity World says Iranian-born Yousef Nadarkhani, who was arrested in 2009 and given the death sentence late last year, could have his sentence suspended on the grounds that he renounce his faith.

Pray for Yousef Nadakhani.

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In light of the danger faced by Christian leaders in Iran and several other Muslim-majority countries, the title of this article seems overwrought in light of its content: “The Most Risky Profession.” Still, it’s a good read.

It’s refreshing news to hear of pastors taking a leave of absence not over sexual or financial misconduct, but over pride. Such was the case with John Piper last year, and this week with C. J. Mahaney. Mahaney has been president of the church planting network Sovereign Grace Ministries, which according to its website now includes “about 95 churches,” mostly on the East Coast. He is the founder of the megachurch Covenant Life Church, which he handed over to Joshua Harris after pastoring there for 27 years. He is also one of the leaders of the Together for the Gospel Conferences, and one of the most popular speakers in the neo-Reformed circuit.

The story behind his leave of absence is still unraveling. But he has publically acknowledged that he has succumbed to “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and hypocrisy.”

It’s an interesting list of sins—ones that pastors all over America commit week in and week out. This is not to excuse Mahaney or to take such sins lightly. It is to suggest that the state of the modern American pastorate has been shaped so that these sins—especially pride and hypocrisy—are impossible to escape. For this reason, our pastors need not our condemnation, but our prayers. They are in a profession that is about as morally risky as they come.

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“The Problem With Preaching”:

A Lilly-endowed study of more than 10,000 Christian laypeople revealed that while 78 percent of them have never discussed a sermon with their preacher, church members do have strong opinions and deep hopes for their pastor’s preaching. The study found that:

• Laypeople listen to a sermon expecting inspiration to encourage spiritual growth.
• Laypeople look to preaching for spiritual leadership, especially as it relates to current life and societal issues.
• Laypeople rely on preaching for serious spiritual content about the Bible and not good advice that can be found in a self-help book.
• Laypeople listen to preaching expecting a long-lasting impact. When this happens, listeners are motivated to return for another church service.
• Laypeople come to church hoping for a sermon that will make a difference in their hearts and an impact on their lives. Unfortunately too often they spend the sermon passing their time by doling out lifesavers to their children, doodling on the bulletin insert or making a mental “to do” list for the upcoming week.

And yet, the truth is I have never met a pastor who wanted to preach a bad sermon. Most preachers are genuinely devoted to their craft, striving to compose meaningful and life changing messages week after week. But this desire must be paired with the reality of congregational life. Clergy stand on the frontline of life in its harshest form. In any given week, a death, an unexpected illness, a parishioner crisis or community disaster can simultaneously fall upon one or several members of a congregation. The critical time a pastor has carved out for sermon preparation is quickly filled with their important calling to be present and offer much-needed pastoral ministry. Caregivers often put themselves last. Clergy are no exception.

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“Employment and Social Justice”: The whole article is good, but the opening paragraph especially so. When we debate public policy, what precisely are we debating, and do we leave room for reasonable disagreement?

One hears a lot these days about “civil discourse” and the dangers of partisanship. After years of enjoying good arguments with close friends and colleagues, I’ve found that both sides are best off when they understand precisely what they are contesting. In any argument, one must understand whether one disagrees with the other about basic principles or goals, or whether both members of the discussion wish to settle on the means to an agreed-upon end. When it comes to basic principles or goals, it is hard, if not impossible, to compromise. None of us wants to “compromise our principles.” But when it comes to means, there should be room for discussion.

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Apropos of this, Jim Wallis implores politicians, “Listen to Your Pastors.” This open letter clearly establishes the principles or goals of public policy, but is it inflexible about the means?

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“Out of Poverty, Family-Style”:

[Maurice] Lim Miller had come to believe that the American social welfare system focused too much on poor people’s needs and deficits, while overlooking — and even inhibiting — their strengths. A safety net is crucial when people are in crisis, he said. But most poor families are not in free fall. They don’t need nets to catch them so much as they need springboards to jump higher. In a conversation with Oakland’s mayor Jerry Brown (now California’s governor), Brown challenged Lim Miller to try something different and gave him broad scope to be creative.

I’ve bolded the important part. Pastors, take note of this. Does your church benevolence program merely keep people from falling behind, or does it also help them get ahead?

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“The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s choice is beyond belief”:

But what these cases illustrate is that in certain areas compromise is not possible because the rights of different minorities are mutually exclusive. When one group refuses to fulfil its job description because it disapproves of another group, there is no middle ground, no give and take. Those responsible for judging the behaviour have to back one or the other. This is the roulette of human rights. You can’t put your chips on the black and the red.

In context, this article argues that the right of homosexuals not to be discriminated against takes precedence over the right of religious people to act according to their conscience. This is taking place in Europe, but it will be coming to America soon enough, as the debate over religious exemptions to New York’s same-sex marriage law illustrated.

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“Child’s grisly murder shocks Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood.” Understandably so. Murder in the Orthodox Jewish community is exceedingly rare, especially when both the victim and the perpetrator are Orthodox. Nonetheless, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reminds us, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

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“Most Significant Religion Case in 20 Years”:

At stake: How far a rule known as “ministerial exception” will go in matters of employment within churches and religious groups. Lower courts have stayed out of employment disputes between clergy and churches based upon this exception. What’s unclear is how widely the rule can apply to nonordained staff members. The Supreme Court’s decision to intervene likely will answer that question.

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“Harry Potter and the Death Hallows: Part II” gets a rave review from Christianity Today. I plan on seeing it, hopefully this weekend.

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 “The Trouble with Harry (Potter): Religious Conservatives Do Have Something to Fear”:

Rowling’s great genius was to so thoroughly imbricate the magical world and our own that she invited children of all ages to imagine that magic was not so other-worldly after all, but was right here, albeit beneath our notice. Yet Potter’s world is still a total re-visioning of the world we know, and as such comprises a complete, self-contained mythic universe. And the forces that govern that universe are entirely this-worldly, non-theistic, and basically material.

From the medieval period through the modern and postmodern eras, European “secret societies” codified their beliefs in a similar way. What for religious traditions are sacred sites and sacred objects became understood as secret sources of power: the Temple in Jerusalem, the Shroud of Turin. Detached from their contextual religious significance, such objects became regarded as magical sources of power. Like Harry Potter’s world, their true power was concealed from the uninitiated, but was available esoterically to a select few. Such societies were often branded as heretical, other times co-opted by church authorities.

The very notion that the world is not one of ordinary objects supervised by a supernatural deity, but rather a world of ordinary and extraordinary objects that doesn’t seem to be supervised by anything, has more in common with Enlightenment rationalism than with traditional religion. We may get distracted by the superstitions and doctrines, but really, such philosophies are resolutely secular—all the more so for being esoteric and magical.

I loved the eighth Potter movie, and nearly shed a tear when it ended. But I think part of why I loved it, and the series as a whole, is the same reason that religious conservatives mistrusted it: because Rowling’s world is a magical, pagan universe in which chthonic beings duke it out without any hint of a Supervisor in Chief. Its Christ figure is a human boy who lives, dies and is reborn, thanks to a magical stone. Its Satan is a human wizard gone awry, drunk with his own power. It’s a magical, wonderful world—and, in conventional terms, a godless one.

That pretty much harshed my mellow about the movie.

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“Hammertime with Martin Luther”: In which Martin Luther’s life is transformed into a graphic novel. Ugh.