Don’t Cry For Me, Santa Barbara I approach festivals — any community festival heavily managed by institutional types worried about their ESG/DEI ratings — with deep suspicion, since you never know when a congregational response will be required of you. (Priest: “May climate change worry be with you.” Worshippers: “And also with you!”) So I..
Even atheists should warm to the idea… Calm down. This will not be a defense of theocracy. My position here is fundamentally rooted in the American story itself, and the governing tools forged at Philadelphia in 1776. (“Christian Nationalism” is NOT “white nationalism,” by the way; people who make that claim don’t understand that Christianity..
Having been a combatant in more family and political squabbles than I dare count, I am finally beginning to understand Patrick Henry’s powerful lament about the trickery of “hope” itself. At the outset, here, make no mistake: I believe Christian “hope” is a good thing — because the hope there is based on solid ground. ..
The Wildly Popular Bible Teacher Lacks Depth.. There is much to be said for John MacArthur. He has a high view of scripture and he’s not afraid of being unpopular. After waffling a bit early on in the Covid crisis, he opened his church for worship and defied county and state mandates banning group worship. ..
Oh, Zion! Dear Zion! I have a lush novel planned–full of carnivals and music and beautiful girls slow dancing with their young men on moonlit patios. In the broader landscape described here, kindly old men will give sing-song sermons full of teary-eyed spiritual assurance. It will all be set to a big, swelling chorus, and..
As gentle as serpents and as wise as Dodo birds.. So imagine, just for the sake of the depressing mental challenge it represents, a fraternity of world leaders in positions of extraordinary power. These lions of state and corporate power share an ancient, superstitious fear: the world is too just too small and delicate for..
..Laughing, and blushing, into his locker Two things I should make clear at the outset: Number one: in my book Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earns a daily Maxine Waters award for unmitigated dimwittery in the execution of her congressional duties. Her “Green New Deal” would consign most of the world to abject poverty, and she appears to..
How Bad Does It Have to Get? If you aren’t at least a little troubled by Steve Kirsch’s most recent inventory of Covid absurdities or Dr. Pierre Kory’s frontline report indicating an increase in cardiac “crash cart” inventory along with a very disturbing tweet about increased demand for child sized caskets, then I’m guessing you, like most people,..
What Makes A Story Work? In the search for a really good, binge-worthy source of entertainment (I do a lot of elliptical these days), I have taken to re-watching stories that actually work — That Thing You Do, Blast From the Past, True Grit, Breaking Bad to name a few— over taking a chance on..
The Scary Thing.. I haven’t watched a great deal of Depp V. Heard, but I did stop in to see Amber’s moisture-less crying jag. I also watched a bit of Depp’s testimony. Amber’s grief was so singularly awkward a performance that I went from being a little amused by it to being more than a..
