Saturday morning, and we lead off with a joke:

One sunny day in 2009, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Ave, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the US Marine standing guard and said, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The old man said, “Okay” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The man thanked him and, again just walked away

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same US Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, “See you tomorrow, Sir.”

(source, via)

Alright, and on to the linkage. The past week has featured some pretty good posts, too.

1. Scot McKnight has an excellent piece in CT on The Ironic Faith of Emergents, which gives a good overview of emergent as opposed to evangelical theology.
2. Gordon Atkinson posts his conversation with Marcus Borg, following his preamble which outlines the realization that though controversial, Marcus Borg is not so scary after all. Some Christians, says Gordon, are threatened by his views of the Gospels, for example, and notes that “Jung describes such people as living fully within their myth.” I like this description, which for me immediately brought to mind those people who cannot break out of an overly literal interpretation of Scripture, to the extent that they must deny any scientific discoveries which threaten their view.
3. David Fitch The Idol Hath Fallen — the Financial Crisis and the Reshaping of the Landscape for Mission: “The change in the financial landscape of our country in just the last two years is staggering and it has changed the focus of millions of people over night. I contend it could be changing the culture for a new openness to Mission as well. As a result – for those who can live simply, beneath their means, with no debt -the opportunity for Mission is unparalleled.”
4. Scot McKnight: Why I am not a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox — catch this not just for the subject matter of the title, but also for his description of the “wiki” way of reading the Bible.
5. Andrew Jones: Francis DuBose on “Missional” Video
6. Lesslie Newbigin on Election, and “the missionary character of the doctrine of election.”
7. 5 Things We Got Right in the Emerging Missional Church… a counterbalance to the 5(+2) things we got wrong in the emerging church.
8. Google — In Quotes (via Pat Loughery). Neat; will be really cool if/when they replace the selectable list with a searchbox for who you want to read quotes from.
9. Two peas in a pod? Sheesh. Oh yes, it’s stranger than fiction.
10. Bill Reichart: 5 reasons pastors should blog
11. The effect of emotion in finances… demonstrating how the poor spend more on lottery tickets and how credit cards anesthetize the pain of spending money. And you thought financial decisions were based in logic?
12. Sarah Palin’s Facebook
13. You never know when you’ll need to know how to know if someone is tailing you, and how to shake them.
14. ASBO Jesus does it again
15. I hate Jesus junk and I like Dan’s post about the business end of Christian Bookstores
16. Jordon Cooper pressures Out of Ur and elicits an announcement that they’re redoing the blog. Good, because what Jordon said was right.
17. A green Bible?
18. Barb does an interesting word study on the Kingdom
19. This graph hurts my brain
20. Bob Hyatt: 2 parts disturbing. You’ve been warned.
21. Why do you blog? Or why don’t you?
22. This is a cool idea for gathering a neighbourhood.
23. Barb the Former Leader reconsiders what good news to the poor really means.
24. Interesting… Andy Warhol as a “hidden Christian”?