Two reading assignments

No time to comment today because I have an early appointment and am at work.
Two pieces jump off the aggregator that have me thinking.

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First, Dr. Bob's sequel to his previous post, an apocalypitc vision that I linked earlier. The subsance of his remarks is too nuanced to summarize in a snip or two. Best you read the whole thing. At first reading I have three reactions. I am relieved that the good doctor isn't into the "end-times" meme that seems to have knocked a good many otherwise smart people off their nut. I am glad that someone else besides me still remembers that suicide warriors is nothing new in history. And I am still struggling with the temptation to paint all Islam with a broad brush.
(Discussions about apologies, regrets, denunciations and contradictions in thinking strike me as counterproductive, so I try hard not to take part. Christian reconciliation and forgiveness still holds for me the requirement that love and forgiveness is antecedent to, not dependent upon, any actions on the part of the enemy or forgivee.)

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Second, this comment at SOMA Review by John D. Spalding, editor, about a controversy concerning the new film “End of the Spear,” a new film about five American missionaries who were killed in 1956 by a local tribe in Ecuador. I haven't seen the film (and likely won't because I don't do that much) but I gather from email promos from Christian friends that it is being pumped in much the same way that Mel Gibson't film was promoted...networking via the Christian community.

There are days I’m embarrassed to think that, up until college, I actually considered myself an evangelical Christian. Like today. The New York Times reports that morethan 100 evangelical pastors have signed a letter protesting the casting of a gay actor in a film made by Every Tribe Entertainment—an evangelical film company.

[Okay, then, to the best part...]

Evangelicals who object to Chad Allen fear that a gay star in an evangelical film will influence young Christians to be more accepting of homosexuals—and, heaven forbid, less accepting of homophobia. And of course, a cute gay actor playing a missionary might even tempt hetero Christians to switch teams. Gays, of course, know this isn’t the way the world works. After all, did the gay community protest “Brokeback Mountain,” fearing that two straight actors portraying gay cowboys might entice homosexuals into the “heterosexual lifestyle”?