Thursday Three For All
It’s Thursday, kiddies: the day when I roll out a few things I’ve been reading over the past week. Three of ‘em, to be exact. Enjoy. (Remember: click on the bold print to read the entire article.)
Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me.
(via @katecbowler, HT @bruceashford) This is a haunting, powerful testimony by a local professor. Lengthy, but well worth the read.
The prosperity gospel tries to solve the riddle of human suffering. It is an explanation for the problem of evil. It provides an answer to the question: Why me? For years I sat with prosperity churchgoers and asked them about how they drew conclusions about the good and the bad in their lives. Does God want you to get that promotion? Tell me what it’s like to believe in healing from that hospital bed. What do you hear God saying when it all falls apart?
The prosperity gospel popularized a Christian explanation for why some people make it and some do not. They revolutionized prayer as an instrument for getting God always to say “yes.” It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God will reward you, heal you, restore you. It’s also distressingly similar to the popular cartoon emojis for the iPhone, the ones that show you images of yourself in various poses. One of the standard cartoons shows me holding a #blessed sign. My world is conspiring to make me believe that I am special, that I am the exception whose character will save me from the grisly predictions and the CT scans in my inbox. I am blessed.
How Do You Respond When Cracker Barrel Fouls Up Your Breakfast?
(via @NYTimes) Okay, so that’s not the title of the article at all. But that’s the point of the part I want you to see. Read how Charles Schwab’s CEO decides who’ll make a good hire (hint: it involves soggy French Toast).
How do you hire?
I’m most concerned with the kind of person they are, their character. I’ll ask questions like, “Tell me about the greatest successes in your life.” What I’m looking for is whether their view of the world really revolves around others or whether it revolves around them. And I’ll ask them about their greatest failures in their life and see whether they own them or whether they were somebody else’s fault.
Man Skips Work for Six Years; No One Notices.
(via @ABC11) I ain’t even mad. Just impressed.
In a bizarre turn of events in Spain, a civil servant is being fined thousands of dollars after it was discovered he skipped work for at least six years.
How he was caught? That’s even more bizarre.
Joaquin Garcia, 69, was supposed to receive an award for his 20 years of service. It was only then discovered that he skipped work.
