Also from Newsweek, here is their list of the Top Ten Most Overblown Fears of the first decade of the new millennium. There are some items on this list that can be used to show just how fearful we are. Long before swine flu, we trembled over SARS, Mad Cow, and bird flu. And who could forget the frenzy over Y2K? Of course, there are some items on this list that did/do require at least a bit of sober concern. Teen oral sex? I'd say casual sexual escapades among teenagers is an issue that warrants a bit of attention. Bloggers? A lot of damage has been done by folks serving e-cocktails of facts, half truths, opinions-as-facts, and full-out lies. Web predators? Probably overblown, yes, but they are out there. Good grief—how many episodes of To Catch a Predator did NBC air?

NPR recently ran a story on Ray Tomlinson. Don't know him? Bet you know his greatest invention. Communication—and in many ways, community—has never been the same…

The box office success of apocalyptic thriller 2012 (it made over $65 million in its opening weekend) has a lot of folks reflecting on our current obsession with the end of the world. It does seem like a slew of darker, end times movies are being unleashed right now (2012, Collapse, The Road, to name a few). Is it the economic crisis? Is it an especially tense Middle East? Is it the endless news of military post shootings, murdered children, and so forth?

The Atlantic asks, Did Christianity Cause the Crash? I'm not a big fan of this article for a few reasons. First of all, they seem to think Christianity and the "health and wealth gospel" are synonymous. But more than that, I'm pretty sure that in the final analysis, Christians and non-Christians alike share the blame for the mess that we're dealing with. It's pretty cheap to try and pin it on one group. However, I do think this could be used in an introduction to a sermon that examines how believers have possibly mirrored the world in many ways when it comes to money, saving, spending, borrowing, debt, materialism, and so forth.

When 24-year-old Trista Joy Lathern told folks she had breast cancer, they held a special benefit to raise money for her medical costs. The problem is that Trista didn't have breast cancer. She just wanted $10,000 so she could get breast implants. So many angles on this one: The lengths we'll go to change what we don't like about ourselves. The ugliness of our pursuit of beauty (as defined by culture). How far we're willing to go to be loved (note that Trista felt the implants would save her marriage).

For years, explorer Dan Buettner has traveled around the world to visit regions where folks are more than ten times more likely to live to 100 than those who live elsewhere. His latest report can be found here. What's the secret? Well, the answers vary. Some say it's diet. Some say it's a good nap. But all say it's the power of family and community at large. Pretty sure you can do something with that.

A heartbreaking statistic: Hunger in the U.S. is at a 14-year high. Forty-nine million people—forty-nine million people—lack consistent access to adequate food. That's unacceptable—and its call to action for the church, not just the government.

The folks behind the New Oxford American Dictionary have chosen "unfriend" as the word of the year. (We can thank social media giant Facebook for its popularity.) You know it's getting bad when we not only revel in the opportunity to give people the boot in the real world, but in the virtual world, too.

Here's a guest no one expected at Ademir Jorge Goncalves' funeral: Ademir Jorge Goncalves. I know it's not an exact parallel to the hope of resurrection, but the unexpected beauty and promise of life where one expects only death is definitely present in this story. Just be careful with it, and you've got a good one here. (A word of thanks to David Slagle, Atlanta, Georgia, for the heads up on this one!)

I would love to hear from you when you stumble upon something that you think has some real illustrative value concerning an intersection between the gospel and culture at large. All you need to do is shoot me an e-mail with a link to the article, a brief description of what the article tackles, and your name and place of residence. If I decide to post it in the weekly intersections, I'll do so with a little nod of thanks in your direction.