[Update, 4/19: I include a link to a site raising questions about a double standard in mandate enforcement with churches and mosques. A commenter points to this article clearing one of the two mosques mentioned, even though the full parking lot understandably raised suspicions. According to the report, written a day before I wrote this blog, “Good COVID-19 protocols are in place and no warnings or orders have been issued. As attendees are not carpooling and are coming in separate... Read more
Growing up Anglican, I have never quite gotten over the oddity of the fact that we read through the Passion of Christ on Palm Sunday. It is a startling piece of liturgical foreshadowing. One moment, we are recalling the children who made sweet hosannas ring, proceeding to the altar to kiss and receive our own palms as tokens of the ones they waved, in the wild erratic way of children. Next moment, a cloud is passing over the sun of... Read more
Coming up on a month ago, I read a piece that bugged me. Had I been holding myself to a more rigorous writing schedule at the time, I would have banged out a response piece quickly. But perhaps it’s just as well that I didn’t, because experience has taught me one rarely does one’s best work on impulse, especially with sensitive questions such as those raised in this piece. I’m speaking of this essay by James K. A. Smith for... Read more
Like most people following the Ravi Zacharias scandal, I knew the full report of his misconduct would be bad when it came. The only question was how bad. Now that it’s dropped, we have the whole ugly picture. Calculated side deals, manipulation, Inception-like layers of deception. A man who publicly preached the vital importance of private virtue, yet ostracized anyone who dared to scratch the facade. For those on the outside of the scandal looking in, the story may not seem... Read more
After last week’s madness, I had some thought of banging out a Take within a few days. That plan went by the wayside as more data came out and more dominoes continued to fall. Now a single week out from January 6th, it feels like we’ve already run through multiple weeks’ worth of news cycles. I, for one, am tired. Literally, physically tired. More than ever, I feel the hyper-accelerated pace of news in the digital age, the exhaustion of... Read more
Like many people in my circles, I’ve been watching with a sinking sadness in recent days as credible revelations about Ravi Zacharias’s sexually predatory behavior continue to mount. Not that I’ve been too shocked. Earlier last year, I sat down with a friend to review the publicly available primary source material related to the Lori Anne Thompson case. At that time, I was already troubled by what seemed like damning marks of credibility in the texture of the documentation, which... Read more
Unlike some of you, I had the good fortune to attend a church service this Christmas Eve. I had the further good fortune to enjoy the service while being able to see the faces of the other attendees, freely singing with no mask of my own. Of course, there were about 3.5 of us, my church being the wonderful dying little one-room Continuing Anglican affair that it is, so the rebelliousness factor was limited. Still, we enjoyed making our way... Read more
For many people, Thanksgiving was a very different thing this year from what it has been, what it should be, and what God willing it will be again. Some, like my own family, have been privileged to weather this year with little griefs and minor inconveniences. Others have been less privileged. As I write, my heart is heavy for those who have lost—lost family, lost livelihoods, lost sanity. I look to a future that is uncertain for me, in some... Read more
As usual, I am coming late to the take game on this topic, perhaps the one where Yet Another Take is least sought. And yet, here I go, writing My Election Take, even though it will be outdated in three days, because some people seem to want it and because I can’t not. So let’s crack on, shall we? In my defense, among the proliferation of Takes that have been littering the interwebs in past weeks, a good take has... Read more
Picture this: Your wife of two decades has just filed for divorce. You’ve battled lifelong clinical depression. Your family is dysfunctional and impossible to talk to. You have no close friends to confide in. You’re on the edge of a crisis. Now, let us suppose, for our purposes, that you are not a churchgoing man. Let’s suppose that you don’t know how to act in church, you don’t know how to talk to church people, and you worry about feeling... Read more
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