Things I missed while I was away

In case you missed them, too:

The culture-war-victory-so-watered-down-it-seems-pretty-silly award goes to the Illinois legislature.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is now offering homemaking classes. "'My created purpose as a woman is to be a helper,' [student Emily] Felts said firmly. 'This is a college education that I can use.'" Kyrie eleison.

Unlike some folks, I'm fairly enthusiastic about much of what Christianity Today has to offer. But their short-form Web-only content has this annoying tendency to take a mocking tone as it describes (with varying fairness) the views of more liberal people of faith. Case in point: this little gem on Out in Scripture. "The approach has a certain appeal to those who respect Scripture but don't understand it." While I have mixed feelings about Human Rights Campaign, evangelicals need to acknowledge that this sort of smugness does precious little to help a situation in which large numbers of Christians are deeply suspicious of and hostile toward each other.

New study: outlawing abortion doesn't make it any less common. This should draw anti-abortion folks into consensus-driven movements to reduce the need for abortion w/o criminalization, right? Wrong.

Very interesting debate over at Cato Unbound called Politics and Religion, Home and Abroad. Features Mark Lilla, Philip Jenkins, and others.

This is unprecedented: a letter about peace from a whole bunch of Muslim leaders to a whole bunch of Christian leaders.

At Grist: a conversation between two of the most eloquent sustainable food writers I know of.