Slowdown on Responding to Comments: My Apologies

My apologies to all of you who have left comments here in the past several days that I haven't been responding to and acknowledging your much-appreciated remarks. I am nursing a somewhat mangled right hand (nothing serious: the result of having my fingers carelessly wrapped in the dogs' leashes when one of them decided to lunge suddenly on our walk in the park several days ago). So typing is a bit difficult for me right now.

Quote for Day: Leah Mickens on "Benedict Option" and Need for Control on Part of (Straight) White Men

Leah Mickens on the "Benedict option" (countercultural, combative Christian withdrawal from mainstream society) and how this option (curiously) seems to appeal primarily to straight white men — so that it cannot be adequately evaluated without noticing its gendered and racialized roots:

Quote for Day: "What A Gift the Catholic Hierarchy Has Been Handed by the Irish"

Tom Fox in National Catholic Reporter on the opportunity that the Irish vote might (and should) offer the pastoral leaders of the Catholic church — if they'd be willing to seize this opportunity:

Chris Morley on John Anderson's Reality Check for Irish Catholicism: The Future of Irish Catholicism after the Marriage Equality Deluge

Chris Morley has sent me some commentary on the recent vote of Irish Catholics in support of LGBT equality. Chris's commentary focuses on a recent Catholic Herald article by John Anderson (linked below), which seeks to place this vote in its historical context. Chris's article interweaves excerpts of Anderson's commentary with his own valuable comments and links. Here's what Chris has written:

Congrats, You Have an All Male Panel: Recommending a New Tumblr Site

A number of days back, I began seeing links popping up in my newsfeed and in blogs I routinely read, pointing to a new Tumblr site with the alluring title "Congrats, you have an all male panel!" As I visited the site and read about it, I thought it was hilarious and timely and wonderful and absolutely necessary. The creator of the site, Finnish researcher Saara Särmä, is inviting people to submit pictures of and information about the many, many seminars and public discussions in every field possible that employ panels of experts that turn out — surprise! — to be all men. 

End-of-Week Commentary on Irish Rainbow Referendum: 5 Links

And since it's clearly impossible for me to go a day (on which I post) without saying something about the recent remarkable rainbow referendum in Ireland, here's a highly selective set of articles commenting on that historic event to which I want to draw your attention as this work week ends:

Critically Important to Analyzing Duggar Story: Stephanie Krehbiel and Ruth Krall Discussing Issues of Sexual Violence (and Cover-Up) in Churches

In the latest issue of Mennonite Life (issue 2015, vol. 69) (online here), Stephanie Krehbiel interviews Ruth Krall on the topic "Breaking Open the Structure of Sexual Violence." As she notes, Ruth's magisterial book The Elephants in God's Living Room, which Ruth published at her Enduring Space blog, has done a tremendous amount to publicize the sexual violence practiced by the noted Mennonite 20th-century theologian John Howard Yoder. Perhaps more than any other Mennonite scholar, Ruth has been responsible for organizing Mennonite women to force the male-dominated leadership structure of their church to face the Yoder story and do something about it.