What were they thinking?

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported on a new trend--adding links to personal websites on resumes. Great idea--that is unless your site features NAKED PICTURES of yourself--as one candidate the Journal reported on did.

In the same kind of what-were-they-thinking mode, the NY Times ran a story on Outsourced Prayers.

I am not lying.

This is the lead from the Times, not the Onion.


With Roman Catholic clergy in short supply in the United States, Indian priests are picking up some of their work, saying Mass for special intentions, in a sacred if unusual version of outsourcing.

American, as well as Canadian and European churches, are sending Mass intentions, or requests for services like those to remember deceased relatives and thanksgiving prayers, to clergy in India.


Suprisingly, the only critic the Times could find came from Amicus, a British labor unions.


In a news release, David Fleming, national secretary for finance of Amicus said the assignment of prayers "shows that no aspect of life in the West is sacred.''

"The very fabric of the nation is changing,'' he said. "We need to have a long, hard think about what the future is going to look like."


If this kind of practice doesn'tke priests into sacramental magicians , I don't know what does.

No wonder why Catholics stay away from mass in droves.

Savior, Redeemer, Friend, ... Product??

To wash down the Culting of Brands , Get Religion presents "Got Jesus," a look at Jesus as product, in a story from the St. Petersburg Times.

"Can a minister become so consumed with putting on a good Sunday show that he loses sight of God?" Sharon Tubbs of the Times asks.

Then she asks Randy White, pastor of Without Walls International Church, a megachurch in Tampa: "So is this ministry or marketing?"


"I believe everyone needs to believe in their product," White said. "Well, what is my product? My product is Jesus."


So much for bearing the cross.