In the self-promotion department, a REVIEW: DARK FAITH, EDITED BY MAURICE BROADDUS AND JERRY GORDON by Dylan Fox.  Here is a Booklist Webinar – Selecting and Recommending Inspirational Fiction (where me, King Maker and Dark Faith may have been name dropped a few times).

General:

Why Our Generation Doesn’t Care About Prop 8 – “One demographic strangely absent from this debate is younger Christians. Though we don’t normally shy away from advocacy—see Darfur, clean water projects, orphan care, poverty and missions—our generation seems unwilling to fight this battle.”  Wonder why?

Racialicious:

I grew up watching Charlie Chan movies with my dad, which made sense as I was his number one son.  I love the idea of RE-ENTER CHARLIE CHAN?

Spiritual:

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral Step by Step 5 (by T) – “what role scripture plays in each of our thinking, and ask what does it mean for scripture to have “primacy” among the members of the Quadrilateral, not just for Matt and myself, but for anyone.  Or does this conversation show that “prima scriptura” is either a mistake, or, as I’ve said about “sola scriptura,” a mirage we cannot ever reach?  Does the existence and/or frequency of explicit teachings and examples in the scripture matter for how much primacy we give to scripture in a given theological issue?  (It’s harder to give primacy on issues where scripture is silent, for instance, or is it?)  Does location and role in the NT vs. OT matter?  How do we let the forest of scripture (the larger narrative) as well as the trees (specific examples and commands) have appropriate sway?  When should tradition, reason, and/or experience play the primary role in building our thinking about God?”

The Internet Monk revisits the topic of The Emerging Movement: Getting the Big Picture and Where Is “Emerging” Now, and Where Is It Going? I can’t help but wonder how many church plants followed in Mars Hill’s footsteps and “had become a big institution that wounded people in similar ways as the churches many Gen-Xers swore they would not mimic.”  The more things change …

Matt Cardin, long time friend to this blog, hits us with two posts which give a lot to chew on:  This I Believe: An uber-agnostic on religion, psychology, consciousness, the paranormal, and the meaning of life and Lovecraft, Christian Horror, and Weird Fiction, both of which reminded me of my piece on Horror and the Fear of the Lord.  All of which comes back to Mike Duran’s piece On “Christian Horror” and Atheist Dread.

Q & A: Anne Rice on Following Christ Without Christianity – “The tipping points behind the novelist’s departure from the institutional church, and why she still reads D.A. Carson, Craig Keener, and N.T. Wright instead of ‘Twilight.’”  Scot McKnight reminds us that Anne Rice is Not Alone.

Evangelicalism’s Radical Diversity 7 – “Question: How has evangelicalism been co-opted by the Republican party? Or, slightly different, how has the Republican party accommodated itself to evangelicalism?”

Writing:

Looking for some good reads?  Try the Top 10 Forgotten Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novels.

Jason Sanford hits us with a couple of great blogs this week:  first, For students: A few words on genre and literary fiction; and then Our science fiction isn’t your father’s SF.  And he gives us a some good reads with The online SciFi Strange anthology.

Author and Character – a fascinating piece on separating the author from their work.

Tobias Buckell gives us a few Chapter thoughts.

Since I did a blog on whether or not I should do a book tour, along come Mary Robinette Kowal with some Debut Author lessons: Signing stock for bookstores.

The topic of Writing the Other II – Race gets revisited over on the Apex blog.  I think people take it for granted that whenever I write a white character, I am writing the other.  However, I have great resources at my disposal, like Stuff White People Like.

Tananarive Due on Why I created a social network for writers.  And Tom Piccirilli writes about why he writes.

One fascinating phenomena about signing a book deal is how many people think I’ve become rich.  Well, here’s a list of the highest paid authors over the last year.  You’ll note that I’m not on the list, nor would I appear on this list if it was extended by several hundred thousand.

Local:

I recently ran across a new blog called Julie’s Mind Edge which talks about a lot of restaurants local to Indianapolis.  It’s great stuff.

Artist Carrie Rapp will be participating in the 2010 OCB Mr/Ms Natural Indiana on Sept 11 at Lutheran High School.

With September’s First Friday quickly coming up, the Harrison Center has: “In the Harrison Gallery – Harlow and the Raven King – new work by Mab Graves; In the Gymnasium – The 3rd Annual Urban Times Neighborhood Fair; In Gallery No. 2 – Sparkles, Sprinklers and Bad Seeds – new work by Erin K. Drew and NERS; In Hank & Dolly’s Gallery – paintings and woodcuts by Ross Wagner.”