Wednesday, May 18, 2005

2:05 PM Recently Patricia Heaton, one of the stars of the hit series “Everybody Loves Raymond” appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor.” She is outspoken about being a Christian and being pro-life. Click here to read her interview with Bill O’Reilly. 1:17 PM This week’s edition of the Christian Carnival is now online. It contains entries from all parts of the Christian blogosphere, including an article I wrote a few days ago. 10:15 AM Here are three new entries on the Crosswalk weblog: Catholics 75, Anglicans 0 Deep Clarity Wise Words About Evangelism 9:16 AM A big Wednesday shout-out to Christa Sudhakar, Natalie Belisle, Wilbur Elsworth, Gary Cardot in Willimantic, CT, Linda Pendleton, Bobby Jolly at Mills Tower, Ashley Albright, Teresa Evenson, Laur Schaberg in Muskegon, MI, Leah Thayer, and a special hello to Dave and Debbie Mills in Morocco, and to Danielle Moseley who will be returning from Morocco in the next few weeks. 8:24 AM News and notes from our two local newspapers: Good News! More bike racks in Oak Park. Scotty Jones revived the marching band at Oak Park-River Forest High School six years ago. Now he is leaving Oak Park to take a new position in Atlanta. Thanks for a job well done. This week’s Ken Trainor column deals with corrections and complaints regarding the just-released 2005 version of “The Answer Book,” a handy guide to everything you need to know about Oak Park. Ken talks about a few minor inaccuracies that crept into the final version. Nothing earthshaking. I was amused to read this near the end of his column:

And finally, one of the ministers in town (not connected with Calvary) thought we were unfair to Calvary by including a photo (page 113) of gay and lesbian protesters in front of that church. He thought we should only include positive images and features in what is, admittedly, a largely positive publication. I would answer that criticism roughly the same way I answered the cover critique (substituting “often,” bordering on “mostly”), but I’m not sure Calvary wouldn’t be delighted to publicize the fact that gays and lesbians disagree with them on crucial issues. Pastor Ray Pritchard, who, fortunately, has a good sense of humor and has been extremely tolerant with us, may have felt more uneasy having his headshot attached to a small feature (page 111) on “What do ministers think of worshipers in shorts?” You just can’t please everybody, I guess.

I laughed when I read that. Actually I hadn’t noticed the picture of the protesters in front of the church. When they showed up last September, it was big news so I can’t complain and I wouldn’t anyway. I don’t even mind my picture being attached to the burning question of worshipers wearing shorts to church. I’ve always been happy with how the Wednesday Journal has covered Calvary, even when we’ve disagreed on various issues. Their job is to cover the news, and from time to time we’ve given them some news to cover. It’s worked out pretty well, I’d say.