With every mass shooting that forces us all, yet again, to think of the gravity and severity of this problem, both sides become increasingly frustrated with the other's stubborn refusal to swing around to embrace their preferred solution. Our opposite responses make compromise impossible. Or, in a sense, they make the status quo a perpetual, inevitable form of compromise. We say fewer guns, they say more guns. So here we are. Read more
"God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." Read more
It's not always easy to classify a false statement as a lie. Lying requires the intent to deceive, which is a difficult thing to prove. Journalists, therefore, are extremely cautious about using the L-word. Yes, they argue, President Bush is, indisputably, on record as saying hundreds of things that are not true. But these hundreds of false statements are not sufficient proof that he is a "liar," only that he is someone who is very, very often mistaken, misinformed or deluded. Read more
It went on like that for a bit, like something from Abbot and Costello, with both of us getting more frustrated as she quoted Bible verse after Bible verse about the authority of the Bible and me not doing a very good job of expressing that someone who doesn't believe in Bible verses won't be convinced by a Bible verse that tells them to believe in Bible verses. Read more
Buck Williams is sailing up the Jordan River under cover of night, when suddenly the engine stops and the captain confronts him with a series of questions ... and a loaded gun! True or False? Answer carefully, Buck, because you're playing a deadly game of Twenty Questions ... with a killer! Read more
Chief Justice John Roberts should be the next commissioner of baseball. Does Guido Barilla's math add up? Atlanta family takes Jesus' advice about wedding banquets. Archbishop Tim Broglio enjoys cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Confused Greek Christians name church after a villainous buffoon from the Bible. If we don't defend our freedom to sell guns and rocket launchers to governments engaged in genocide, then the terrorists have already won. Read more
This wasn't a case of poor Alabamans voting to stop abortion and then receiving a regressive tax structure. It was a case of poor Alabamans voting to increase their own tax burdens and to reduce those of industry and wealthy landowners. They received exactly what they knew they were voting for. Given a choice, they chose a feudal horror-show, a playing field raked steeply against the interests of their own families. Read more
I'm not trying to write a TV review here. What I'm interested in here is not the way that a TV show like "Sleepy Hollow" reprocesses the raw material of literature, scripture and history, but rather the way that our understanding of literature, scripture and history can be reshaped even by a weird little TV show like "Sleepy Hollow." Read more
Gary Bauer is doing very well for himself in the "values voter" racket. George H.W. Bush promotes a kinder, gentler America. Three more votes against the book of Jude (if you had to pick one). Football team bullies student. Coach suspends football team. So this bear walks into a bar ... Alleged stock fraud by makers of Left Behind video game far more interesting than Left Behind video game. Read more
Europe knew how to solve the problem of sanitation and then, fairly suddenly, it stopped knowing how to solve that problem. And it took more than a thousand years of filth, stench and disease before they would figure it out again. We seem to be doing the same thing right now. Read more
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