The acronym DACA is short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It’s administrative relief from deportation. It protects eligible immigrant youth who came to the United States when they were youth, offering them protection from deportation and a work permit. Hundreds of thousands of the most productive Millenials in our nation are here because of the wisdom of DACA. Ideally, our nation would sort out and improve its immigration process, offering a path to citizenship for all those currently protected by... Read more

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The Real Deal… Your choice at the beginning to be a Pastor or a politician needs to be examined. It is the same advice a marriage counselor gives. WHY did you decide to marry one another in the first place? Being True to yourself and pleasing others is the balancing act for sure and keeping your oath under God. For you and Politicians I imagine you choose this career to simply bring more goodness to the world. Thanks for being... Read more

Many politicians, or at least the ones I’ve been lobbying lately, seem completely immune to moral persuasion.  These politicians lie routinely while claiming to be Christian. Virtually the entire field of national politicians (Trump chief among them) appear unaware lying is considered in Christian tradition one of the gravest sins of all. Then as a pastor, I think to myself: How did we get here? How have these politicians drifted so far from any kind of moral center? Why won’t they operate... Read more

I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. An infant who has just learned to hold up his head has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn’t the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to find out. In a couple of years, what he will have learned instead is how to fake it: he’ll have the cocksure air of a squatter who has come to feel he owns the place. Some unwonted,... Read more

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Let’s start off with a simple premise. No Christian, especially a Christian holding public office, can in good faith and with moral integrity support a health care act that offers significant economic relief to the wealthy while at the same time stripping health coverage from the poorest. The Bible has no patience with immense wealth disparity, and calls it out time and again as one of the greatest moral failures of a society. So we can add: a Christian community... Read more

Stand With Refugees Campaign, June 12-16  Join the movement.  In coalition with Refugee Council USA, LIRS is participating in a call-in week leading up to World Refugee Day. We encourage you to post this on your website, social media, and share with your networks including volunteers and supporters. We are trying to get over 100,000 people to call in support of refugees. World Refugee Day is on June 20. So, in the lead up to this important date, from June... Read more

Early in my call to Arkansas, I walked the neighborhood around our church and met the neighbors. One morning I stepped into an organic paint store. The clerk was curious about Lutheranism. As a Pentecostal, she had visited a couple of Lutheran churches, but hadn’t observed any of the dramatic manifestations of the Spirit typical in Pentecostal communities. So she asked, “When the Spirit visits churches, does it look down and see that a church is Lutheran, and just pass... Read more