We’ve got your Monday morning with news highlights from goofy to grim and back again. It’s early so we’ll start with a touch of the silly.
McSweeney’s checked the original “tablets” and found God texted the Ten Commandments. My faves:
#1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
#3. no omg
Where no one is laughing…
- Islamic State fighters are getting pushback from Kurdish forces, which are now getting U.S. arms.
- The U.S. has been bombing Islamic State fighters and airlifted supplies to terrified Yazidis, stranded on a remote mountain. Some Yazidis — those with the strength to flee — have used the air cover to escape to safer ground in Kurdistan.
- Photos and heartbreaking tales emerged, detailing slaughter, desperation and even starvation among Christians and the Yazidis left behind.
- Pope Francis is sending an envoy to northern Iraq with a message of support, praye and financial aid to the Christian community.
- Iraqis in the U.S. fear for Christians under fire.
Tick tick tick…
Israel and Hamas began a three day truce Sunday (Aug. 10) and as of Monday morning it appeared to be holding. Palestinians say they’re exhausted, yet steadfast. Having suffered so much, one woman said, “We should come out with a result.”
Summer Implosion Digest, Chapter II
This shaping up like a running feature tracking folks who hit the public image self-destruct button.
Chapter 1: Richard Dawkins, interviewed at the weekend’s World Humanist Congress, unloaded more mystifying comments qualifying degrees of rape. And he invented the phrase “mild pedophilia.”
Chapter 2: Pastor Mark Driscoll’s decade of serial misdeeds and apologies caught up to him. The board of Acts 29 dumped him and his Mars Hill, Seattle, megachurch out of the church planting network Driscoll co-founded, citing him for “ungodly and disqualifying behavior.” Then, the retail arm of Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay stores and LifeWay.com, suspended sales of his books “while we assess the developments regarding his ministry.”
“Every face…”
Kent Brantly of Samaritan’s Purse, right, gives orders for medication to administer to the Ebola patients through the doorway of the isolation unit in Liberia. Dr. Brantly spent almost four hours in a Tyvek suit in order to care for the three patients in the unit.
Dr. Kent Brantly, still isolated in an Atlanta hospital recovering from Eblola, touched the world with a statement of compassion. “I witnessed the horror firsthand, and I can still remember every face and name.” As a Samaritan’s Purse physician mindful of his purpose, he asked for prayer for fellow Ebola-stricken missionary Nancy Whitebol and for himself “that we would be faithful to God’s call…”
Jesus satire
Hey, wait, is it kosher to put Jesus and satire in the same sentence? Kimberly Winston’s latest edition of The ‘Splainer explains how the new Cartoon Network show “Black Jesus” is not the first such irreverent sendup with a spiritual core.
Change the subject, please
Rachel Marie Stone does not, repeat not, want one more list of stuff people can’t say. Language police – and tender listeners – can we get a little grace here?
Culture Wars go south – literally
U.S, evangelicals are encouraging socially conservative pastors in Latin America to be more politically active to combat gay rights activism.
Misunderstood
The researchers whose work was widely touted as showing the religious kids can’t tell fact from fairy tale fiction say neither can mass media. Kathleen Corriveau of Boston University and her co-authors straighten out the story: “Religious children are encouraged to think that miracles are possible — and so for them, a story that includes a miracle is not obviously fictional.”
Unfunny
Oops, no linking gambling and sex, says the UK’s official advertising watchdog, banning an ad for a betting firm. It showed Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue clutching a bikini-clad woman in one hand and a champagne bottle in the other. Offensive to Christians? Oh yeah, that, too.
Back to funny
Quick! Where is this line from: “I’m aching, no past, nowhere to hide.” Is it Taylor Swift or the Book of Lamentations? Blogger Jana Riess, who aced the quiz, has an eye for humor. McSweeney’s may have texted the 10Cs but Riess has the whole Bible on Twitter. Check The Twible.