“Sure he tells lies,” he said, “but he is a good guy and on the team.” So I was told when worried about Ben Carson’s “autobiography” and the errors it contains. Dr. Carson has done great work for the Kingdom of Heaven. Folks are right to keep his problems with veracity in perspective and I would: If he had ever been sorry. His book lies about his time at Yale. That’s a fact, but nobody cared about that fact. Why? No... Read more

Atheists sometimes pretend that if we all just followed “science,” bigotry and intolerance would cease. American treatment of First Nation (“Indians”) shows this is false. Religious people sometimes imagine that if we all became more religious then bigotry and intolerance would cease. American treatment of First Nations shows this is false. Most Americans have been Christian from the colonial period to now. American non-Indian Christian treatment of First Nations, including brothers and sisters in Christ in those nations, has ranged from paternalism... Read more

There is nothing worse than when people come to “help.” By now Christians are aware that much of our missionary “charity” was by missions and not charitable. Less well known is the destruction caused by “science” and the “facts” of anthropology being applied to help. No motivation is so noble that our stupidity and sheer ignorance cannot make our good deeds bad. The greater our “knowledge,” the greater the harm. We don’t have to look over there for examples, these... Read more

When times get tough, the tough get tender or at least that is what they should do if they are Christians. We battle the times, we battle lies, but we always fundamentally love individuals. The temptation is never to say anything hard, but we must if we think it true. Otherwise, we have fallen into a false charity that is fundamentally a lie: we disagree, but will not speak. What is the difference between a hard word that is good and just being hard?... Read more

At some point in my childhood, Star Trek in reruns made “tranya”  my favorite drink. While Diet Coke surpassed it in college, tranya remains the drink of dreams: good dreams. What is tranya? I do not know, but it looks delicious, and futuristic, and Captain Kirk drank it. The way the weird alien child (played by Clint Howard!) said the name (“tranya”) sold me. What more did a kid need to know? Tranya is out there waiting to be imbibed after we invent... Read more

It is uncouth to be happy in difficult times and clever to be sad, but forget the wise of this age and be happy. There is always something terrible happening and that is bad. There is always something joyful happening and that is better. Sometimes we act as if even a moment’s rest and we will have let down the Cause. The good news is that God has given us a day of rest each week and while he delights... Read more

We live in discouraging times . . . and the temptation is to give up. Instead, we must stop, think about it, and hear what God might say to us. I do not believe that traditional, orthodox Christians are weak in the United States of America because of atheism, “the gay agenda,” or politics. We are weak because we have embraced lies. A man who lived in worse times and who loved a messed up people said: “Beware of your... Read more

We have a marvelous, though imperfect, Constitution and unlike most politicians, the Constitution has gotten better with age. This document is so inspired and has worked so well for so long that a few are tempted to give the document superpowers. The Constitution has a not-so-secret weakness: it has no power not given to it by men. Someone once said to me that the Constitution was a secular document because it makes no mention of God. While it is signed... Read more

Hard times make for tough politics, but good times followed by not-great times create horrid politics. At the bottom, people are struggling to eat. Let things improve under a Louis XVI and expectations start rising. People notice when the good times stop and then grow surly. Raised expectations dashed are the mother of revolutions. Ask Nicholas II. Beware the day of crushed dreams. The times may not be so (actually) horrid, but they feel that way and feelings matter in... Read more

Are we in a neo-Fascist moment? Is a demagogue in the Democratic or Republican Party running for office? This is an alarm sounded every decade and it is easy to become numb to it. The “boy who cried wolf” was naughty and deserved what he got. The town who ignored him was foolish and lost sheep. We must answer the warning cry regardless of how many times it may have been made in vain and let’s face it: we are... Read more