If you spend any time at all on social media (and if you are reading this, you probably do), you’ve been bombarded with stories about Josh Duggar, one of the “stars” of the popular reality television show 19 Kids and Counting, having sexually assaulted and abused his younger sisters. Everything about this scandal bothers me. From the abuse to the way that his parents handled it to the way the press has portrayed it, it stinks like month-old trash. In... Read more
The much ballyhooed report from Pew Research shows an ever shrinking population of Americans who identify themselves as Christian; and, this has a lot of people (Christian and atheist alike) shining a spotlight on those leaving the Church and touting just how “not Christian” they are. Many who continue to identify as Christian are suggesting those leaving the Church were never very good Christians anyway, while atheists are trying to show there is a momentum of growth amongst non-believers. Strangely,... Read more
With the latest Pew Research report, we’ve seen lots of bloggers either wringing their hands over it or trying to prove it doesn’t signal the end of the Church. I think it is clearly a sign of a dying Church – and I think that’s a good thing. To the Dying Church, I hardly know what to say. Watching someone you love, who helped raise you, who cared for you when you weren’t well, who partially defined who you would... Read more
It’s weird. We Christians believe that, in one way or another, God created everything. We even believe that God called all this created stuff “good,” going as far as saying the stuff about humanity was “exceedingly good.” Which means God created sex and called it exceedingly good. (I am definitely on “Team God” on that one). Yet the Church has a long drawn out history of insisting that sex is exceedingly bad. (That just seems like such a hard sell... Read more
Good and gracious God, You know our hearts and you know that today some of our hearts ache. As others rightfully celebrate the joy and love of the mothers in their lives, this day, for some of us, is a somber reminder of the absence in our lives. For some of us, if we buy flowers today, it will only be in order to place them by a graveside. For some of us, if we buy a card today, it... Read more
Corporate coffers are stuffed full. Their piggy banks runneth over. Since the mid-70s all real income growth has happened for the 10% of earners: top managers, owners and CEOs. But, strangely, businesses continue to lay off workers. And, they demand more work from those ‘lucky’ enough to keep their jobs (even though US workers already work more and get less time off than the workers of all the other industrialized nations). Us – the workers? We complain. We post our... Read more
My wife and I have a wonderful garden in our side yard and a number of flower beds around the house. They are beautiful. We have to work diligently if we want to keep them that way. You see, like most gardeners, we have this little problem. Every time we turn around there are weeds trying to edge out our flowers and veggies. Now, we could just grab them and pull up what will come up and pretty quickly the... Read more
It was 1990 and I was taking my first graduate level classes. Having grown up as a Southern Baptist, I was in my customary back row seat. Out of nowhere my right eye started twitching and it wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t long before it was driving me mad. It wasn’t only slightly physically uncomfortable, but it became socially uncomfortable, too. Trust me, you don’t want complete strangers thinking you’re constantly winking at them, particularly in public bathrooms. Awkward. After a... Read more
(Part 2 of my two part series on poverty in America. Read Part 1 here). Most of us want things to be better for all of us. The problem is the greed of the few in whom most of the power rests. America’s rich and powerful have positioned themselves to create a system in which the government provides charity (“handouts”) instead of justice (legislating a living wage). As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We are still called upon to... Read more
It was graduation day. I was receiving my first college diploma. I was quite pleased with myself, and it was sort of a big deal in my family. They were all coming to see me receive my diploma. Even my grandmother, who was my last surviving grandparent at that point, made the long trip from the coast to the mountains of North Carolina for the big event. Oddly enough, in the end, they did not get to see what they... Read more
The God Article with Mark Sandlin
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