Ted Olsen

This is very news, especially the Communion part.

But I wish that the first spiritual care folks at Broadview get in months was something other than a priest telling them, "You're definitely going to die."

Book cover. Three triangles in corners have grass, a road, and a cityscape. Text on black background says: Abolition Ecclesiology: A Spatial Theology for a Church Against Prisons, Hannah Bowman

OK but this is too exciting to wait on sharing: my book! It has a cover! (Coming in November from Fortress Press, pre-orders will be available sooooooon)

Which book?

Why Are There Suddenly So Many Car Washes? Fueled by private equity and a subscription-based business model, the auto wash industry is flooding the US with new outlets. Some towns and cities have had enough.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

I miss Dwight.

References to being puppets References by the Muppets and other Jim Henson creations to actually being puppets, as well as times when those characters made references that suggest that they are not puppets. In the November 22, 1...

Posting this not in the spirit of "I'm a dude who must correct a woman," but rather to share my joy in the Muppet Wiki and this fun list of the rare moments where the Muppets break the second fourth wall.
muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Referen...

How to Actually Reform ICE Accountability, transparency, and trust must be centerpieces of “New ICE.”

Actual source:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

I'm beginning to suspect that your menu options haven't recently changed after all.

Top 10 recommendation.

Have you read Andrew Delbanco’s “The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War”? Highly recommended.

Gotta say that this audio Bible narrated by LeVar Burton (John) and Terry Crews (Luke-Acts), with Jeffrey Wright as John the Baptist, Samuel L. Jackson as the Voice of God, Forest Whitaker, Idris Elba, etc is WILD.
www.thebiblesource.com/assets/pdf/T...

No Bolish ICE!

I love my Rep.

Beware of any Christian movement that demands the government be an instrument of God's wrath but never a source of God's charity, mercy, or compassion.

I would like to march in protests too, but I can’t because I have arthritis in my knees. So I want my words to do my marching for me. Like everybody else, I am an inhabitant of this planet; and I am a member of many other smaller communities too. I am an American citizen, for example. I was made a citizen from birth retroactively by the US government after World War II when babies born to US servicemen and German women were declared citizens from birth. My German mother came with me to the US as an immigrant without English when I was four years old and had no English either. Now I am a philosopher and a Christian -- a Catholic, actually. I identify as a woman. And so on. I grieve the overwhelming evil that is impossible to ignore in every one of these communities. The sight of the suffering of desperate people trying to be immigrants to the US is unbearable. The inhumanity of separating their children from them, the viciousness of incarcerating small children alone, is unspeakable. And the cruelty we see on the daily news obscures but cannot hide the accelerating harm we are doing to the earth. The people who should take the lead in governing us are vile, and so many of those who vote relish the vileness. That group includes some prominent Christians. Christians are meant to be salt and light for the world; their lives are meant to help other people taste and see the goodness of God. These people make the God they worship seem so hateful. And so, like many other people, I mourn. But my mourning is without despondency, without the inward collapse of despair. The baseness of injustice highlights the majesty of justice, whose power to call to people cannot be defeated by evil. The cruelty of those who rule, their indifference to the cry of the poor, illuminates by contrast the splendor of goodness and love. The growing dread at the increasing destruction of the planet testifies to its beauty. There would be less distress over [...]

From the prominent Catholic philosopher Eleonore Stump.

www.facebook.com/eleonore.stu...

I have written a collect, for the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, in this year of Our Lord 2026. (It's a bit wordy, but it felt apt):

Almighty God,
You called St Paul to repentance for his threats and violence
And to bear witness to the power of your love revealed in weakness.
⚓✝️ 1/3

Good analogy

One of the best things I’ve read in a while:

The Golden Mean of Getting Insulted Thoughts on things I pray for.

"The real moral challenge [in reporting] is getting tough enough to ignore most [insults] and yet still staying sensitive enough to hear fair criticism. I don’t want to get to where I take all disagreement as personal attack. You see that happen a lot."
danielsilliman.substack.com/p/the-golden...

Oh, sad. But you're 100% right. It was inspiring to watch him work. In my experience, he was (like many reporters I encountered in my old RNA days) such a generous and collegial person, wanting religion reporting everywhere to thrive rather than treating other outlets as "the competition."

Picked up this book to read over MLK Day after Bouie mentioned it. Really appreciated Ricks's insights and observations. Highly recommended.

The Futile Campaign to Get People to Dress Better on Planes “Air rage” has become more common. The government thinks your outfit could change that.

True story: I had an axiom at @christianitytoday.com that once a columnist whined that "people don't dress up for flying anymore," it was time to find a new columnist. Crazy how often that rule got invoked.

The fruit of twisted interpretations Josh Howerton | The Somali fraud scandal and the misuse of the Bible to mislead Christians

World magazine on Minneapolis: "Don't be racist" is a "twisted interpretation" of Scripture. Race-based "pattern recognition" is a form of discernment. After all, the Apostle Paul called people from Crete "evil beasts."
wng.org/opinions/the...

Check out my new book! www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Tim...

Congrats, Kate. Welcome to the alumni club! You'll be amazing for Praxis. They’re so lucky to have you.

So many doves 🕊️🕊️🕊️

Congrats!!!

Made a playlist out of the ballot here:
open.spotify.com/playlist/01O...

Roys Report works in the meantime

Your list is great. I saw a crazy ton of puffins at Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach at very low tide. Astounding. Leopard was the only of the “Big 5” we never saw while briefly living in Kenya. But the wildebeest and ostrich were glorious (as were the myriad other African fauna.)