Deliver me, O LORD from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue -Ps. 120:2 Words have meaning. About twenty years ago, I took a year-long statistics and experimental design course that changed how I viewed truth forever. The instructor not only showed us through real-world examples how the same set of data could lead to multiple conflicting conclusions, but also how the way we frame questions—the words we use—can change a respondent’s answer completely. A lot more... Read more
“ReOpen” protests seem to be all over the news. Guntoting activists storming state capitals. Thugs in SUVs blocking ambulance access to hospitals. Nooses and swastikas. Shootings. Assaults. Who are they? Where did they come from? How did they organize so quickly? The answer, it turns out, is completely unsurprising. First, we know these are not oppressed workers rising up in a grassroots effort to return to their jobs. These people drive late-model pickups and SUVs, buy up expensive firearms and... Read more
A few years back, I attended a sermon by Reverend Mark Stringer, a Unitarian Universalist minister who later became the Executive Director of the Iowa ACLU. He was talking about community organizing. More specifically, he was talking about the tendency of those who identify as “progressive” to apply political/theological litmus tests, and refuse to ally themselves with anyone who fails. This was before “cancel culture” and the Facebook “unfriend me now” fad we’ve all since come to know, but even... Read more
I Snopesed it. I wasn’t looking for facts, because the facts were so unbelievable I knew it couldn’t be true. I was looking for confirmation. Validation. Some sign that there is some sanity left in the world. But that is not what I found. I Snopesed it, and Snopes verified. Under a new initiative by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, American health care providers may now refuse services to LGBTQ (especially trans) patients for religious reasons.... Read more
It’s not news that the Evangelical church and America’s political right wing were wed long ago. It’s not news that both gather followers through virulent attacks on “the government,” or “the system,” or “fake news media.” It’s not news that—from climate change to contagion vectors to carbon dating the Earth—they are both rabidly anti-science. I doubt anyone was truly surprised, then, when right wing pastors across the country continued holding services, even in the middle of a global pandemic spread... Read more
Imagine for a moment you were born into the one of the first few years after World War II. America was victorious. The troops were home. Your mom had worn your dad’s letter sweater the entire time he was away. Suddenly a “boom” of new babies swept the land as a nation tried to pick up the pieces and live their way into their new role of global superpower. But both your parents had been born into the Depression, and... Read more
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. -Jesus (Mt 10:34, NRSV) Progressive Christians like me tend to focus on Christian love. On grace. On forgiveness. On inclusion and charity. After all, Isaiah called the Christ to come the “Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6), and Paul wrote that Jesus “came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were... Read more
Today, I opened my news app to a story about California churches suing state officials over the right to hold regular religious services despite the imminent threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar lawsuits have been filed or are brewing in several other states. The object is not to win. Constitutional Right The power of states to place reasonable limits on the First Amendment rights to freedom of religion and assembly has long been a settled question. As early as 1940,... Read more
I was once promoted to three-star general in the Australian Army, and Lord Viceroy of Sydney. I was once consigned to the pits of Hell. I have been Jesus, Hitler, a sex trafficker, a proctologist and the Kurgan. Once, I was told I knew and was unfairly withholding the kabbalistic secrets of the Gospel of Thomas that could bring about peace on Earth. And that’s all just this past year. When you work in behavioral health, you become intimately familiar... Read more
You are in a courtroom. The defense attorney is grilling the victim’s friend. Apparently, at least four other people have heard her tell the story over the years, and she can’t seem to get it straight. How many people were with you? Was the door open or closed when you got there? Where were the guards? Whom did you speak to at the scene? It’s not looking good for the prosecution. The witness can’t keep her story straight. First it... Read more
The New Paraclete
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