Why do we resist telling stories? Why do we think amateur model hat if it’s a “formal” presentation, we must be stale, stuffy, rigid and boring? There were more than 100 decision-makers in the audience. Bankers and financial advisors. Builders, architects and contractors. Business owners and corporate policy makers. The presenter's topic was emerging trends for improved efficiency in the building design and construction trades. He was a knowledgeable advocate for something he believed in strenuously. In private conversation, his obvious enthusiasm for the subject would command your attention. Now he had a chance to turn a few heads among those very likely to be making some big-dollar construction decisions in the foreseeable future. Did they hear wonderful, inspiring, stimulating accounts of real people dealing with real concerns? A compelling narrative about matters of consequence to their own lives and fortunes? No. They received a data dump. The heard a presenter drone on about statistics while watching a script of banal marketing language projected lifelessly, endlessly on a huge screen in another part of the room. No drama. No passion. No stories. A pity. I cheated. Rather than watch the speaker or the screen, I watched the room. What I saw was an audience that was fidgety and disengaged. They didn’t know where this presentation was going. And few seemed to care. It didn’t concern them, after all. It was about his agenda, not theirs.

My colleague Professor Stone characterizes, in his recent post , the five Justices -- who are Roman Catholics -- who were in the majority data backup systems n Gonzales v. Carhart as "Faith-Based Justices." The claim, as I understand it, is that by failing to invalidate the federal partial-birth-abortion ban -- which, in Professor Stone's view, is clearly invalid under the Constitution, correctly understood -- the Justices are best seen as imposing sectarian beliefs on those who do not share those beliefs. In my view, though -- as I have suggested elsewhere -- this charge misses the mark. As Professor Stone observes, the five Justices in the majority concluded (as did Congress) that there are sound moral reasons for prohibiting partial-birth abortions even though, as he states, the law in question "does not prohibit any abortions." Congress endorsed former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's view that abortions done via this method are just "too close to infanticide" and that this proximity / resemblance morally justifies a prohibition on the procedure, and the Court declined to hold that this view was inadequate to justify the law. Now, let's put aside the merits of the "Moynihan view." Professor Stone's claim is, I think, that to follow Sen. Moynihan in this regard is to "fail[] to respect the fundamental difference between religious belief and morality. To be sure," he says, "this can be an elusive distinction, but in a society that values the separation of church and state, it is fundamental.

My colleague Professor Stone characterizes, in his recent post , the five Justices -- who are Roman Catholics -- who were in the majority in Gonzales v. Carhart as "Faith-Based Justices." The claim, as I understand it, is that by failing to invalidate the federal partial-birth-abortion ban -- which, in Professor Stone's view, is clearly invalid under the Constitution, correctly understood -- the Justices are best seen as imposing sectarian beliefs on those who do not share those beliefs. In my view, though -- as I have suggested elsewhere -- this charge misses the mark. As Professor Stone observes, the five Justices in the majority concluded (as did Congress) that there are sound moral reasons for prohibiting partial-birth abortions even though, as he states, the law in question "does not prohibit any abortions." Congress endorsed former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's view that abortions done via this method are just "too balance transfer credit cards lose to infanticide" and that this proximity / resemblance morally justifies a prohibition on the procedure, and the Court declined to hold that this view was inadequate to justify the law. Now, let's put aside the merits of the "Moynihan view." Professor Stone's claim is, I think, that to follow Sen. Moynihan in this regard is to "fail[] to respect the fundamental difference between religious belief and morality. To be sure," he says, "this can be an elusive distinction, but in a society that values the separation of church and state, it is fundamental.

Why do we resist telling stories? Why do we think that if it’s a “formal” presentation, we must be stale, stuffy, rigid and boring? There were more than 100 decision-makers in the audience. Bankers and financial advisors. browser hijacked uilders, architects and contractors. Business owners and corporate policy makers. The presenter's topic was emerging trends for improved efficiency in the building design and construction trades. He was a knowledgeable advocate for something he believed in strenuously. In private conversation, his obvious enthusiasm for the subject would command your attention. Now he had a chance to turn a few heads among those very likely to be making some big-dollar construction decisions in the foreseeable future. Did they hear wonderful, inspiring, stimulating accounts of real people dealing with real concerns? A compelling narrative about matters of consequence to their own lives and fortunes? No. They received a data dump. The heard a presenter drone on about statistics while watching a script of banal marketing language projected lifelessly, endlessly on a huge screen in another part of the room. No drama. No passion. No stories. A pity. I cheated. Rather than watch the speaker or the screen, I watched the room. What I saw was an audience that was fidgety and disengaged. They didn’t know where this presentation was going. And few seemed to care. It didn’t concern them, after all. It was about his agenda, not theirs.

Well that was fast. Unless you were in a coma last week you will remember that most of Imus in the Morning 's big name advertisers access kurs GM, AmEx, Sprint, etc.) had pulled their sponsorship of his show in protest over his "nappy headed ho" comment, which was directed at stand-out student athletes on the Rutgers women's basketball team. While these companies appeared to be taking the moral high road, AdRants reports that several sponsors have stated that they would be willing to re-evaluate sponsorship of a future Imus program. As per usual, these companies, that were so quick to flee, were also so quick to caveat their exits with wishy washy statements about not ruling out future opportunities. We all KNOW that most advertisers scared away will eventually come back to a lucrative show (they did after the ImClone Martha Stewart incident, and the race controversy surrounding Survivor: Cook Island , etc. etc.), I just find it surprising that some spokespeople are dumb enough to be so blatant about a return that it becomes a story in itself. Exhibit A, GM spokesperson Ryndee Carney, who stated that GM's comments on re-evaluation should "indicate that we were open to revisiting at some point down the road," and further stated that, "We obviously don't condone his statements, but we have found value advertising on Imus in the past.

In my last post I mentioned that our small group was doing a study on Galatians, using Tim Keller’s material. And, by the way, since Tim made a comment on my last post on this subject and I am hoping he’ll read this one, I want to point out up front that I’ll be jumping off from his material into my own ruminations and applications. What I say will be largely based on his material but I want to make sure he doesn’t get the blame if I stray from his own thoughts. In our study we came to an excursus on the story of the prodigal son and we saw how the story is really that of two lost brothers. We saw that the elder brother and the younger brother represent two different kinds of lostness. The younger brother represents the irreligious person and the elder represents the religious person. The outcome of both religion and irreligion are the same – lostness. The gospel is a “third way” of salvation muscle and fitness online hat is neither through religion or irreligion. As our small group discussed this story, one passage from Keller’s study stood out in particular. The point? When the message of the gospel is clear, moral people tend to dislike it, while irreligious people are intrigued and attracted. The way to know that you are communicating and living the same gospel message as Jesus is that “younger brothers” are more attracted to you than elder brothers. This is a very searching test, because almost always, our churches are not like that.