At a previous job I worked on a few digitization projects. They are painstaking. There’s so many variables to balance, and standards to enforce, not to mention the repetitive work they usually entail. And what I was doing didn’t even touch the importance of this project.
The New York Times reports:
half a dozen specialists embarked [...]

What will $5 get you around the world? There’s an interesting new photo project that collects images of things you can get for $5 around the world. As far as I can see, there’s no deep moral purpose behind the project, but there’s certainly fodder there for some good discussions about relative wealth in different [...]

A disturbing secret about Iraqi Christianity is emerging now that the violence in the country seems to be settling down: over the past several years, Iraqi Christians paid hefty ransoms to spare their families and congregations from murder by insurgents.
The issue first attracted attention when it became known that Archbishop Rahho, a respected and internationally-recognized [...]

If you’re at all interested in the Church in China you should make some time to watch this Frontline special Jesus in China.
From what little I know of Christianity in China, there’s a tenuous relationship between the government and the Church. And the official Chinese church isn’t quite cutting it for many in the [...]

An eyewitness account of the cyclone and its aftermath in Burma. It’s long, but hard to stop reading once you start. Via Metafilter.

The Atlantic has published an essay offering a disturbing glimpse at the cultural conflict between Christianity and Islam in Nigeria, where the two faiths are competing for adherents. With a long history of government corruption and religious conflict (and sometimes oppression), it’s a murky and unsettling picture. Now, many Christians are trying to win converts [...]

Persecution Blog points out that the Chinese government is going to start printing one million bibles a month.
The article they link to interviews Bob Fu, president of China Aid Association, who doesn’t find this development as rosy as it might seem:
But while Chinese officials have heralded the development, Bob Fu…says the communist government could do [...]

Here’s a controversy-loaded question to ponder this weekend: what explains the strange love/hate relationship between evangelicals and the Jewish community?
I get nervous even thinking about that question, given all the politics and history behind it. But in the above article, Pepperdine professor James Wilson asks a good question: why do evangelicals seem so positive about [...]

Mission Network News reports on the sickening amount of bibles we have laying around compared to other countries.
I’ve been using the same dark blue NIV for nigh on ten years. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve looked at those cool duotone NRSV’s with a small modicum of jealously. And then [...]

I attended the January series at Calvin College with William Garvelink today. He’s currently the U.S. ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He used to work for USAID and has spent most of his career in humanitarian efforts. If you’re interested you can read more about him, USAID and Congo at [...]