{"id":6,"date":"2010-05-21T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/what-im-reading-articles-and-essays.html"},"modified":"2010-05-21T14:06:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:06:00","slug":"what-im-reading-articles-and-essays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/what-im-reading-articles-and-essays.html","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: Articles and Essays"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Please forgive the formatting of this post–blogger is sometimes out of control, or at least out of my technical capabilities! Still some articles worth reading:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

“<\/span><\/span>Red Family, Blue Family<\/span><\/span><\/a>,” New York Times, May 9, 2010. This is a great op-ed exploring abortion, teen pregnancy, family values, and the sexual revolution. A quote:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
“<\/span><\/span>Liberals sometimes <\/span><\/span>argue<\/span><\/span><\/a> that their preferred approach to family life reduces the need for abortion. In reality, it may depend on abortion to succeed. The <\/span><\/span>teen pregnancy rate<\/span><\/span><\/a> in blue Connecticut, for instance, is roughly identical to the teen pregnancy rate in red Montana. But in Connecticut, those pregnancies are half as likely to be carried to term. Over all, the abortion rate is twice as high in <\/span><\/span>New York<\/span><\/span><\/a> as in <\/span><\/span>Texas<\/span><\/span><\/a> and three times as high in<\/span><\/span>Massachusetts<\/span><\/span><\/a> as in <\/span><\/span>Utah<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span>So it isn\u2019t just contraception that delays childbearing in liberal states, and it isn\u2019t just a foolish devotion to abstinence education that leads to teen births and hasty marriages in conservative America. It\u2019s also a matter of how plausible an option abortion seems, both morally and practically, depending on who and where you are.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Along related lines, “<\/span>Poverty and the Pill<\/span><\/a>” New York Times, May 20,2010. Nicholas Kristoff relates statistics about birth control around the world. A quotation that demonstrates the significance and complexity of the issue:”If contraception were broadly available in poor countries, the report said, more than 50 million unwanted pregnancies could be averted annually. One result would be 25 million fewer abortions per year. Another would be saving the lives of as many as 150,000 women who now die annually in childbirth.” <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“<\/span>What Did Jesus Do?<\/span><\/a>” The New Yorker, May 20, 2010<\/span><\/p>\n

This article provides a helpful summary of contemporary scholarship surrounding “the historical Jesus.” With that said, I disagree with the conclusions of many of those scholars and with this article. It is helpful to read it in conjunction with Scot McKnight’s “<\/span>The Jesus We’ll Never Know<\/span><\/a>” from Christianity Today’s April issue. McKnight argues that historical Jesus scholarship inevitably recreates the Jesus it wants to discover. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please forgive the formatting of this post–blogger is sometimes out of control, or at least out of my technical capabilities! Still some articles worth reading: “Red Family, Blue Family,” New York Times, May 9, 2010. This is a great op-ed exploring abortion, teen pregnancy, family values, and the sexual revolution. A quote: “Liberals sometimes argue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I'm Reading: Articles and Essays - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/what-im-reading-articles-and-essays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I'm Reading: Articles and Essays - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Please forgive the formatting of this post–blogger is sometimes out of control, or at least out of my technical capabilities! Still some articles worth reading: “Red Family, Blue Family,” New York Times, May 9, 2010. This is a great op-ed exploring abortion, teen pregnancy, family values, and the sexual revolution. A quote: “Liberals sometimes argue…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/what-im-reading-articles-and-essays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-21T14:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What I'm Reading: Articles and Essays - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/what-im-reading-articles-and-essays.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What I'm Reading: Articles and Essays - Thin Places","og_description":"Please forgive the formatting of this post–blogger is sometimes out of control, or at least out of my technical capabilities! 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}