A Rock of Ages
On Indigenous Peoples Day, I must wonder if it is true that “this land was made for you and me.”
Questions To Ask Vaccine-Hesitant Friends
Here are a few useful questions to ask friends who have avoided getting a COVID vaccination, along with source links for the information.
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How I Learned Empathy
A number of evangelical personalities are now calling empathy a sin and advocating that sympathy is the only Scripturally-appropriate way to deal with other people’s difficulties. Over the last couple years, the Lord has been reworking my heart to restore an ability to empathize, so I share that testimony and challenge this unscriptural position.
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Estimated Effects of Voter COVID Deaths on US Party Politics
A simple model of COVID death rates and voter demographics indicates that voter ratios will probably shift in favor of the Democrat party, due purely to more Republican deaths due to COVID.
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A Collective Identity
I’ve been reading a book titled “Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World.” It has me thinking about the dynamics of people that think primarily in terms of groups versus individuals, and about the patterns in American culture and society of the use of authority – and especially about
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Party Affiliation and COVID Rates: The Effects of COVID Vaccination Refusal as a Function of Political Persuasion
Recently the New York Times, as mirrored by the Seattle Times and other websites, posted an article titled “Red COVID.” https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/red-covid-in-u-s-the-coronavirus-partisan-pattern-is-growing-more-extreme/ (I choose to share the Seattle Times version here, because the New York Times version is paywalled.) The article notes the deeply partisan divide in COVID statistics, and considers the reasons for this difference
Safe Places and Untouchables
When the church does not provide a “safe place” for the hurting and confused, it effectively eliminates itself as a source of counsel and wisdom, not to mention a place of sanctuary and healing. But “safe places” and a shame-based discipline system are incompatible with each other. My History with Shame For all of my
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COVID Contradictions
The COVID epidemic has clearly exposed a number of contradictions in the thought process and the actions of many American Christians. The very group that is the most vocal about stopping abortion, preventing euthanasia, and denying “my body, my choice” is also the group agitating the loudest against masking and vaccination and activity restrictions. Isaiah 1 has some strong words for God’s people in the face of their failure to look out for the vulnerable among them.
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Scattered by the Sower
Jesus predicted His death in the midst of a rather curious situation, in John 12. 20 Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21 these people then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and were making a request of him, saying, “Sir, we
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Statistics and the Bully Pulpit
Did you ever have a moment when you discovered that something you knew all your life was just plain wrong? For all of my voting life, I’ve believed that welfare caused more births outside of marriage, and thus contributed to the moral decline of America and its critically important family structures. I was repeatedly told,
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