Christ, The Word, The Church, The Republic
Is it just me or is it even more crazy than usual? Most of us sense the big streak of pure crazy at the heart of the world’s order — that vast pool of “plain wrong” billowing up like dangerous waters below us. Christianity makes it no less than a central dictate: “Do not love..
When I was a young teenager, I had the keen sense that you couldn’t make “Commie” jokes or register any alarm about the threat of Communism. In 1973, it wasn’t so much about McCarthyism as it was about your own reputation. The left had successfully characterized anyone justifiably worried about Communist totalitarianism as a goat-roping..
When people struggle to get close to God, to find a God they don’t feel is near, wise old men usually give counsel in this order: alms, scripture, and obedience. Alms: Try it one of these days. Do something wonderful for someone who can never pay you back. Do it in secret. Don’t tell a..
Am I reading this wrong? So I read and re-read the Bible, slowly, usually over about 18 months at a time. I like to consider the Word, post the Word on social media, discuss the Word, argue about the Word, read commentaries about the Word– and see if I understood the great Father God Creator..
Be a Berean, you coward.. I’ve come to believe that I’ve missed, and even dismissed, many of God’s greatest truths by virtue of how horribly they are taken hostage, with singular zeal–apart from the greater Biblical picture. A Christian can be very much like the Jesus-tempting Satan, brandishing a powerful scriptural dagger, sounding “holy” but..
You probably are one. No, I don’t mean the sort you might find renting a trailer on Uncle Dawson’s pea farm, after finishing a 10 year stretch at the Tucker, Arkansas Maximum Security Unit, or the sort you might find in a Hollywood “look how far we’ve come” flick. We all know those guys are..
..with a vengeance I borrowed my title from a meme I saw yesterday. It’s perfect. The same people who were worried about Commie Flu hot spots four days ago, the same ones who ridiculed first amendment protesters, the same ones who called church-goers potential Darwin Award winners, seem to have utterly forgotten the horrible danger..
“..you will refute every tongue that accuses you.” “..God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you..” (more…)
From time to time, a pastor who might have been a missionary to the third world will lament what he might call “American Christianity.” I think this a bad use of language. It runs the risk of throwing out the good with the bad. For the historically illiterate, it might just mean mega-church seeker-friendliness and..
Most thinking people care very little about the virus anymore. It appears to be a dud. If it were a bio-weapon, it would be singularly weak terrorism — a pellet gun against a half-ton Kodiak bear. The thick fur of herd immunity appears to have protected humanity as it has for thousands of years. What..
