Something our pastor said in church yesterday threw into high relief what we mean by “Passion Week.” It isn’t about our passion. It’s about Christ’s passion. That is to say, His feeling and His suffering, His zeal to accomplish our salvation, His passion for us!

Today is another holiday that we should reclaim: St. Patrick’s Day.

Instead of just making it about Ireland, let’s make it about St. Patrick and what he did. Let’s take the opportunity to honor him by honoring all missionaries.

St. Patrick was one of many missionaries to what was then the dangerous mission field of Europe. Those of us of European heritage need to remember that our ancestors came to Christianity the same way “Third World” people did, through the dedicated work of missionaries.

Here is a good slogan for the day: “If your ancestors were Christians, thank a missionary.”

How else could we turn St. Patrick’s Day into a festival to celebrate the work of missionaries?

We posted questions some time ago about Trinity United Church of Christ, which Barack Obama attends, but it turns out his pastor Jeremiah Wright had the practice of cursing America, condemning white people as a race, honoring the anti-semitic Black Muslim Louis Farrakhan, blaming America for 9/11, and more. Obama repudiated these teachings. Rev. Wright stepped down as one of the advisors to his campaign. Is this controversy relevant? If your pastor preached that sort of thing, would you still be going to that church?

Mollie Ziegler pens a useful and learned survey of the history of atheism at Modern Reformation . The main point: There is nothing new or modern or enlightened about atheism, which has ALWAYS been contending against the faith.

HT: Anthony Scaramone at First Things.

The report that the Pope is set to rehabilitate Martin Luther, which we blogged about recently, turns out to have been greatly exaggerated; indeed, not true. M.Z. Hemingway reconstructs the shoddy journalism behind how the story got started.