Interesting links

Lost of them this week, especially if you follow the bicycling safety scene. Here's two of them, both from Bicycling:
The Actual Reasons More Cyclists Are Dying on the Streets: And, No. It’s not Really about Helmets.

1. Vehicles Are Bigger
2. Smartphone Use Is on the Rise
3. People Drive More Than Ever
4. There Are More Cyclists on the Roads
5. Vision Zero Has Stalled

And Turns Out, Mandatory Helmet Laws Make Cyclists Less Safe: Requiring All Riders to Wear a Helmet Has Proven Negative Effects.

We have seen over and over again that the following outcomes result from even the best-intentioned mandatory helmet laws:

A reduction in the number of cyclists on streets;
Financial struggle for popular bike sharing systems; and
More exposure among vulnerable populations to unnecessary interactions with police.

I can't resist; here is another one.

Here's a feel-good story about Mr. Rogers:

As for Fred: It’s true that he lost, and that the digitization of all human endeavor has devoured his legacy as eagerly as it has devoured everything else. But that he stands at the height of his reputation 16 years after his death shows the persistence of a certain kind of human hunger—the hunger for goodness. He had faith in us, and even if his faith turns out to have been misplaced, even if we have abandoned him, he somehow endures, standing between us and our electrified antipathies and recriminations like the Tank Man of Tiananmen Square in a red sweater. He is a warrior, all right, because he is not just unarmed, outgunned, outnumbered; he is long gone, and yet he keeps up the fight.

How about a compromise in the laptops in the classroom wars?

And Pete Enns on Antiexpertism: "Anti-Expertism: I Sort of Get It but I Don’t." And, here's a theologian I've never heard of, but should read: How a 20th century theologian became a quiet prophet for our distracted age." While Roger Olson asks "Who Needs a God Who Looks Like Us?":

I do not believe we need God to be like us. We need to be like God. And God has given us something of himself in the imago dei and offers us partial participation in his own life by grace.

Wanting God to be like me would be idolatry. There is nothing wrong with wanting God to be my companion, in solidarity with me, helping me to be more like him and to love others and to be the very best human in his image possible. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about here is the common desire, especially in some contemporary forms of theology, for a God who is like “us” (with “us” meaning some particular group of people).

Let me be blunt. God is not an American. God is not white. God is not male. God is not a capitalist. God is not a consumer. God is not literally father or mother. God is our parent and we are his offspring, but that is an analogy and in it he is the perfect parent and we are poor copies at best. God is not black. God is not female. God is not a radical revolutionary. God is not an Englishman or a German or any human nationality. God is not a big man with a beard and crown glaring down on the creation (as in Monty Python’s “Search for the Holy Grail” movie). God is not my co-pilot or CEO or business partner. (Most of these are drawn from real books or images I have encountered over the years.)

Amen and amen! Let's follow that with Michael Bird's op-ed:

Christians should not imbibe their political convictions from charismatic ideologues who either stir up rage within them or who scare them into prejudice. Christians should instead be prayerfully and thoughtfully considering what it means to follow Jesus in their own nation and neighborhood. Then, together with our church family, seek after things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable (Philippians 4:8), and humbling asking God to give us the wisdom and courage to pursue them (James 1:5).

Indeed! Along those same lines, Missio Alliance talks about being liberated by perfect love. A good Wesleyan theme! Their version does seem a bit too self-centered for my blood, but the perfect love of Christ will fix that.

And another look at work from Stephen McAlpine, in the first of a two-part series: "Work: A means of identity production AND stress production: Part 1"

You’ll be sitting on the couch exhausted, with a pile of marking/legal documents in one hand, your iPhone in the other, and a second glass of red wine in that third hand, exhausted and ready to cry. Geoff [a physical laborer] won’t have worked harder than you that day, but he will have drawn a line under it, in a way that you can’t – because the job won’t let you, and in a way that you won’t, because your sense of identity won’t let you.

Let's switch gears here a bit. The Anxious Bench asks How to break down prejudice. Turns out it's pretty easy (and hard): make friends who are different from you. Get outside the echo chamber.

And, last item: Scot McKnight looks at a book on being a Nicene Christian [emphasis below is original].

Finally, Ayers’ words remind me as a preacher that preaching for encounter–something that my charismatic/pentecostal forebears did with great passion – is not out of step with the faith of the fathers and mothers of the Church. There is no inherent contradiction between being a good exegete, being a good theologian, and being a good old fashioned “call you to the altar” kind of preacher. Rather, those dynamics – exegesis, theology, and encounter–are part of the single, seamless garment that the preacher wears, and preaching that does not seek to lead the hearer to a sacramental and transformative encounter with the living God revealed in the Incarnate Christ is not preaching at all.

Insisting on encounter as an essential part of the preacher’s task does not make us wild pentecostals (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) or fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. It makes us Nicene Christians.

Let me encourage you, friend, to fall in love with the Bible again; to seek the living Christ revealed and revealing himself inside every page of the sacred text; to search for him as the treasure hidden in the field of Holy Writ; to seek him transfigured in every jot and tittle of the Law and Prophets.

Next week the Annual Meetings of ASOR/ETS/AAR/SBL are all happening. I'll at the AAR/SBL ones; if you're there, stop by and see me at the Eisenbrauns/PSU Press booth (638). Hopefully, I'll be posting before that, though : )