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Can the Portland Protests Actually Bring Change?–The answer from their own graffiti
America is hurting. Angry. Burning. As we watched George Floyd die under the knee of Officer Chauvin, the outrage in the Black community finally reached the tipping point. Demonstrations spread across the country. The outrage has been deeply felt in the White community too. In this unique moment of our cultural history, both sides seem united in empathy for George Floyd and a desire to see change. Powerful forces are trying to seize this moment to create lasting change. Saturday night was the Portland protesters’ 80th consecutive night of protest and riots. They demand justice for George Floyd and for the Black community. But why are they attacking the police…
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A Brief History of Worldviews or…How did things get so crazy so fast?
Why are we hearing a new vocabulary of “white fragility,” “whiteness,” “intersectionality,” etc? Why are we seeing peaceful protests continue weeks after George Floyd’s death, police and their precincts still targeted by rioters and looters, and people losing their jobs if they don’t adhere to a new race-based orthodoxy? The short answer is…because we are seeing a shift at the worldview level. A view of oppressors and victims that originated in, and has been percolating in the Academy, is reaching the tipping point. Rising into the mainstream with surprising speed. Worldviews explain the way the world works by answering the big questions of life like, Where do we come from?…
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Should We Celebrate Our Founders or Let Their Monuments Fall?
The wrenching death of George Floyd has energized the cancel culture to the tipping point. Statues of Confederate generals, even our Founding Fathers are tumbling down while police stand down from “sanctioned” protests. The leader of one grass-roots group, Take-em-Down NOLA, said after the Charlottesville protest, “We recognize the original sin was the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of the Africans. People bring up the fact that [slave masters] were Founding Fathers. That’s people’s opinions, but for us what disqualifies you is the slave-owning.” Now, after Floyd’s death, this claim is boiling into action and in blue states and cities critical masses are embracing this perspective: slavery and…
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Coping or Overcoming?
It’s easy to lose your mojo. It’s summer…when we normally downshift anyway. But more than that, we are weary of life with masks and distancing and non-stop news of the heart-breaking injustice, violence and loss in our cities. The stock market goes up and our hopes rise, only to plummet again. To make matters worse, our election-aggravated culture war is starting to ramp up for five long months of political assault on our hearts. Hopes of returning to an economic or daily “normal” are sinking and for many a feeling of low to high-grade anxiety is settling in. Or perhaps a roller coaster of both. There is much talk of…
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The One, Two Punch: Choosing Not to Fear
Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. How is your heart today? Seared by that slow motion snuff-film video? Rattled by the riots? Don’t they feel like a one, two gut punch? On top of the virus threat that lurks out there as we begin to venture out? My heart is grieved and angry over that video. And I’ve been ambushed by fear several times in the last few days. Maybe you have too. If you read my April 7th post, you may remember that because of my failure to wholeheartedly trust God during the Great Recession crisis of 2008, I determined…
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LGBT sexuality and persecution: What are you prepared to do?
Growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s and reading what the book of Revelation says about the persecution of Christians in the end times, I could only imagine that such apocalyptic scenarios must be way, way off in the future. Surely beyond my lifetime. We didn’t know anyone who didn’t go to church. I couldn’t fathom how our culture could change that deeply and rapidly. There was a little tension between Catholics and Protestants, but believing in God and going to church was not only acceptable, it was respectable. Even culturally expected in some parts of the U. S. If you didn’t, you kept it quiet. Except for Madeline Murray…
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“Christian cruelty in the face of Covid!” 5 ways to detect how the media messes with the truth
We are so used to fake news we usually simply sigh and move on. But every once in a while, the “news” is so egregious and the manipulation of the truth so blatant, that it’s worth sharpening our critical thinking to see exactly how logic and reason are being flayed and boiled in oil. Atlantic Monthly writers offer in-depth reporting that I often appreciate. But they jumped the shark when they published a piece by former evangelical Jonathan Merritt: Some of the Most Visible Christians in America Are Failing the Coronavirus Test: In place of love, they’re offering stark self-righteous judgment (April 23, 2020). Here is a simple summary of…
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“This book will make you feel better about your own life”
I’ve been feeling a bit like a prisoner in my own home lately. And you? Tired of reading article..article…article…article…, I knew I needed a shot of bigger perspective. So I picked up a book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time–One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Written by Russian Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn and based on his own experience in the Gulag, Siberia’s network of “corrective labor camps,” I thought it might afford me a bit of a reality check on what it really means to feel like a prisoner. And it has. But not by pounding me with horrific word pictures of torture, despair…
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Missing My Crowd: A Palm Sunday Lament (but can we really choose trust?)
It’s just wrong to spend Palm Sunday and Easter at home. I wished I’d been on my way to church yesterday instead of listening to a sermon on line. I so missed seeing our kids waving palm branches. Singing praises and hosannas in a room full of voices blending so strongly that my own is submerged in a sea of praise. My morning began with a silent reading about a day of praise. Jesus riding in, gently, peaceably down the Mount of Olives through the Beautiful gate and the streets of Jerusalem. What was missing yesterday was the crowds. Can you imagine lining up behind Jesus 6 ft. apart? Walking…
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Corona Virus and the Good, Loving Sovereignty of God
As I write this there’s a chance that Jack and I have been exposed to Covid-19. We were already starting to wind down non-essential outings, but when friends asked us to meet them for lunch last Wednesday, we agreed. They mentioned that their son had just returned from the Caribbean where he worked with a water purification project for a local ministry. When he left here there were no recorded cases in the Caribbean basin. Last Wednesday the country where he had visited reported their first five cases. A few days later our friends texted us from the hospital where they had taken their very sick son. He tested negative…
