Date: September 14, 2021
The Problem of Valuing Freedom More than Love
Love, not freedom, is the highest Christian virtue. We are set free in order to love. We are not supposed to be chiefly in love with freedom. Love is expressed […]
Category: Blog Posts
Date: September 6, 2021
Post 9-11 Lessons from my Humbling Garden
We bought our current house seven years ago. We were attracted by the idea of working nearly 2/3 of an acre of yard into gardens of edible delights—for us humans. […]
Date: August 31, 2021
Elimination Diet for the Bible in Public Life
Can the Bible be used to interpret American public life at all without abusing scripture? Sure, I know that is a loaded question, with the two words “without abusing” the […]
Date: August 24, 2021
Irresponsible Claims
My erstwhile mother-in-law was a heavy smoker and adamantly cared more for her freedom to smoke than for accepting responsibility for the ill-effects of her second-hand smoke. A powerful memory […]
Date: August 9, 2021
That Twinkie Wrapper from 1972
You know that allegedly science-based parable about the frog in slowly heated water that will boil to death, not knowing what is gradually happening to it, rather than leap out […]
Date: August 3, 2021
The Immorality of Politics as War
One might think the world should have learned from the so-called Crusades, from the religious wars that devastated swaths of 16th and 17th century Europe, from genocidal acts of the […]
Date: July 27, 2021
Pandemic of Loneliness
About a century ago, there was an Edenic community in Roseto, Pennsylvania. No crime. Little heart disease despite the fact that residents ate fried meats, smoked stogies, and drank wine […]
Date: July 21, 2021
Change the Culture
Some years ago, there was a social media phenomenon that was centered on people holding up signs that were responses to the question, short-handed as “WDYDWYD?” Why do you do […]
Date: July 13, 2021
Split Realities
We live in weird times. Really weird, akin to alternative or split reality shows. When dyed-in-the-wool United Methodist Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, her religion—was clearly (I thought) […]
Date: July 6, 2021
Change Is Possible
The 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year. The congregation I attend, the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, has a tradition of making July a “revival” […]