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When Things Get Crazy on Social Media: Responding Biblically to Firestorms
Over the weekend, a firestorm erupted over some viral videos of some high school students allegedly harassing a Native American veteran who was chanting and banging a drum. In a frenzy of name calling, people quickly ascribed disrespect, racism, and hatred to the students. The veteran made statements about the event that were also shared virally. Some media figures and a lot of Twitter users blew up the internet, condemning the students for their interpretation of what they saw. But then, more and longer videos showing the true picture of what happened became available online, and the student at the center of the original viral video released an articulate statement…
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Celebrating Christmas Wrongly?
Today is Christmas. Happy Jesus’ Birthday! But not everyone is on board with celebrating Christmas. I was recently in an online conversation with someone who asserts that “true” Christians would never celebrate the birth of the Savior because the scripture doesn’t command us to remember it, as we are told to do with Christ’s death. Luke 22:19 records Jesus’ instructions to celebrate the Lord’s supper: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” But the Bible bears no such instruction concerning His birth. So it must be wrong . . . right? I couldn’t disagree more. One of the things I most love about being a Christ-follower and a student of the…
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Pods, Aliens, and the Incarnation
There is a moment in the 1985 sci-fi movie Cocoon that has haunted me for 25 years now. Senior citizens discover that the water in the pool they’ve been swimming in has a marvelously rejuvenating effect on them. Aliens have stashed the cocoon pods of their cohorts in the bottom of the pool of a rented house, awaiting return to the mother ship. These aliens are light-filled, radiant creatures who cover themselves in human skin to pass as one of us. The moment in the film that has stayed with me all this time is when the lead alien, played by Brian Dennehy, checks his human disguise in the mirror.…
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Reincarnation: The Christmas Counterfeit
24% of American Christians believe in reincarnation, the idea from Eastern religions that there is a merry-go-round of birth/life/death/rebirth, over and over again. This has spawned a fad of “past lives regression,” discovering aspects of previous incarnations. Wiki-how even offers instructions on “How to Remember Your Past Lives.” There’s a book called Past Lives of the Rich and Famous. Supposedly, Whitney Houston’s strong attachment to the gospel came from a moment in a previous life where she saw Jesus hanging on the cross. Liz Taylor used to be a Benedictine abbess in medieval Switzerland. Michael Jackson was the son of a royal courtesan in 100 B.C. Burma. And Marilyn Monroe…
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Lessons From a Hospital Bed
In the last several months, both of my severely arthritic hips were replaced. In addition to the wonderful blessing that I am out of pain, the surgeries and recoveries were full of lessons pointing me to spiritual truths I am so very thankful for: For a long time, I needed help getting in and out of my car. To be blunt, it was always noisy with involuntary gasps and screams of pain. And while my family and friends were so very glad to be of assistance, it was hard on them to witness me hurting so badly. Now that the pain is behind me, I keep hearing comments like, “Wow!…
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Fighting the Burden of Mental Illness Through Prayer
Our wise, experienced family doctor asked me an unexpected question during a wellness checkup: “You live with two depressed men (my husband and my son, both of whom have been open about their struggle with depression). What are you doing to protect yourself? Depression is contagious.” I told her, “Well, actually, not long ago I got off a cruise ship with my joy-filled sister where we had five days together with nothing but fun and laughter, and it completely filled my tank.” “Great!” she nodded. You need to do that more often.” As soon as I left her office, I called my sister. “You’ll never believe what my doctor just…
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Raising Gender Healthy Kids
Emotionally healthy children who grow up to be emotionally healthy adults are comfortable in their own skin, in the gender God chose for them. These days, when a child shows non-stereotypical gender behavior, people start to freak out, afraid that their child is actually the opposite sex on the inside. Good news! There are things parents can do to raise gender healthy kids, girls who are content to be girls and boys who are glad to be boys. Without resorting to artificial stereotypes, either. First, loosen up your expectations of what boys and girls should be like. A friend of mine now in college was recently exasperated when the instructor…
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What Do You Regret?
Years ago I encountered a word of wisdom: “At the end of our lives, what we will regret is far more about what we didn’t do, than what we did.” And then recently, in a conversation about what “youngers” want to learn from “olders,” a colleague said he wanted to know what we regret so he can learn from our lessons the wiser way (observation) instead of the hard way (personal experience). So I’ve been asking. The answers fell in these categories: Missed Time and Opportunities I regret not spending more time with my parents and immediate family when I could. I regret not asking enough questions of my parents…
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All the Single Ladies
Two single friends recently attended a teaching about an independent study of biblical femininity. Most of what they heard was fine, but the presenter was apparently so enthused about God’s design for the female body that she elevated the roles of wife and mother beyond what was appropriate. My single friends, one of whom is old enough that she will probably never marry and will definitely never have children, were shocked and angered. The over-enthusiasm for marriage and family meant that as single women, they both felt the shame of being “lesser-than.” I knew what they were experiencing. For many years, much of the teaching in the church has (unintentionally,…
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Feelings: A Lousy Idol
It’s so easy to look down our 21st-century noses at the “primitive” peoples of biblical times, especially Israel’s problems with idolatry in the Old Testament. “WE don’t bow down before idols and false gods,” we think. “That was when people were less evolved intellectually and spiritually, but we modern people are so much better than that.” I’m wondering if God agrees. I don’t think so. I think that idolatry is at least as rampant in our society, but it’s more pervasive because it’s so subtle; the idols we worship aren’t physical, tangible items. We could create a long list of the abstractions we worship, but today I just want to…