Nintendo DS Lewis ✝️

is there nothing more apostolic than being sent by Jesus?!

i forget that this is what Christianity is for so many people

insofar as I have believed the Gospel, proclaimed it, and lived it, then I "have" apostolic succession, or rather, been drawn into it

i can comfortably lead liturgies, some of which I even designed myself. doesn't that make me a "worship leader"?

"worship leader" to mean "dude in charge of the CCM" is also so evangelical-coded

this is a nondenom thing for sure

hE mAdE ThE gOsPeL pOLiTicAlL

There's a bit of that going on with Chi-Rho, IHS, Icthus, and even INRI, but yeah really not much!

yeah that totally makes sense to me. it's interesting that there isn't an especially strong tradition of "textual iconography" in Christianity even though its history features two major iconoclastic movements

can relate to rough semesters where I didn't retain much!

an example of a gonhonzon.

Yes! Venerating sutras or snippets of them is a general feature of Buddhism. The Nichiren version of this tradition is the Gohonzon: a scroll of the central Lotus Sutra mantra written by Nichiren himself, used as an object of devotion!

probably the branch in Japan, but SGI USA split from its mother Japanese org in the early 90s

IIRC Zen Buddhism has also been a feature in Japanese nationalism

It always irks me when there's some kind of significant place name or name of a person in the Bible and liturgical leaders don't think of actually saying what it means when it's being read, i.e. last Sunday when "Meribah" and "Massah" in Exod 17 were not also called "Quarreling" and "Testing"

Unique to SGI compared to most Buddhist orgs: ☸️

– no professional monks/priests
– one central practice: chant the title of the Lotus Sutra
– meditation not a key practice
– only one scripture: the Lotus Sutra
– proselytizes

This kind adaptation of Buddhism feels very "nondenom" to me

☸️✝️

Was thinking about parallels between the success of Soka Gakkai International (SGI USA), the USA's biggest Buddhist organization, and nondenominational evangelicalism.

SGI comes from a 20th c Japanese org, itself based on the medieval reform movement of Nichiren Buddhism

Learning the hidden practicality of monasticism: yes, a great hook!

It's a lot of me building the ship as I sail it and feeling terrified about f'ing up. But lots of excuses to read about religions that I haven't studied in years and years!

I'm teaching a world religions class and the centrality of monasticism for Buddhism has made me think about the importance of highlighting this tradition once we reach the Christianity unit

Intrigued but scared! This is one of my favorite doctrinal loci – I even did my capstone essay on it in seminary – so whatever thoughts I have about it are probably implicated!

acknowledging the depths of this problem is one of the saddest realizations I have had about parish ministry

that dog got that dog in him (and her)

OMG they released the deposition videos where they revealed that these two DOGE bros were just feeding grants into ChatGPT and saying "tell me if this is DEI in less than 120 characters."

www.techdirt.com/2026/02/19/d...

It is a constant perplexing problem to me that the content of the Christian faith is very rarely taught or known in churches. I had a conversation with a pastor who was feeling beat up because people were leaving the church for not taking harder views on things that the church doesn’t teach. /

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

Batman: Bride of the Demon (870)

starting with chikorita was torture

Please do not send my sister death threats

Check your inbox, just sent you a death threat.

By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat;

I enjoyed this bit of the article the most! ⚓️