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The MAGA evangelican and the dog-eating Haitian

THE MAGA EVANGELICAL AND THE DOG-EATING HAITIAN

Those of you who have read the New Testament even casually have likely heard the parable Jesus mentioned between the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisees (and the Sadducees) were the two main religious groups in Judea back then. Of the two, the Pharisees were the more conservative, taking the Law of Moses literally and representing the more rural parts of Israel. These are the ones who gave Jesus grief. The Sadducees were more liberal, because they tended to...

Diamonds

DIAMONDS

There have been several important men as far as my faith is concerned.  One was Chaplain Carl T. Hawkins who mentored me when the “scales dropped from my eyes” as St. Luke describes the conversion of St. Paul. Another was also a Baptist minister, Arthur Blessitt, best known for dragging a twelve-foot cross around the planet.  That sounds extreme, especially to my liturgical friends, yet alone people who have not yet come to faith.  It is sort of like the seemingly odd prophets of...

Apartheid by any other name

APARTHEID BY ANY OTHER NAME

The term Apartheid was first used in 1948 in South Africa to describe a separate, if not equal, segregation of the races, including these four categories: Whites, Bantu (black African), Mixed races and Asian.  The term was a new compound of words from different languages.  The first segment of the word (“apart”) is clear enough in its meaning.  It refers to some sort of collection “by itself, away from others.”  From the word “hood” which refers to “head,” “manner,” “state” or “condition,” we get the “heid.” The Whites...

GENDER AND DRESS IN THE PARIS OLYMPICS

I wanted to add my two cents (currently 0.018 Euros) to the Olympic controversies that have arisen. First of all, I did not watch more than twenty minutes of the opening ceremonies, so I did not see the provocative skit that was alleged to be a sacrilegious takeoff on the Last Supper.  I’ve heard both sides of the controversy, but as I did not see it, I cannot personally weigh in on this issue.  What I did see in the opening ceremonies had little...

IMAGINATION VERSUS MYTH

Some of you may have been aware of the controversy when Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”  The author of the original story, itself, Hans Christian Andersen, described Ariel by saying “. . . her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea.”  How does this description fit Ms. Bailey?  And were the outraged fans simply literalists who insisted that the director and producers of the movie follow Andersen’s plotline...

The Easter Promise

THE EASTER PROMISE

I would be remiss for not mentioning Easter on a blog dealing in part with faith.  When people today think of Easter, they might think of rabbits, baby chicks, new clothing, jelly beans, colored eggs and a family meal together.  But this is not the true meaning of Easter. The true meaning of Easter deals with a promise of hope, of life after death, and of God’s intention to keep His promise. The Easter promise. When you look at the Holy days...

The look of love

THE LOOK OF LOVE

There is a seismic shift happening at the moment in the area of human relationships.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) to a greater extent and robotics to a lesser extent are starting to encroach in person-to-person relationships and warning bells are starting to go off. One recent such bell was published on The Hill, an e-journal focused on political events in Washington, D.C. and called “AI girlfriends are ruining an entire generation of men.” The company Replika has two million subscribers in various...

Escape the zombie apocalypse

ESCAPE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

The notion of the Zombie Apocalypse has been around (more or less) for over half a century. Movies came out called “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead.” There was the growing genre of supernatural films and television series such as a “Teenage Werewolf in London,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Z Nation” and “The Walking Dead” to name just a few. Then there was “Twilight.” Not all of these and others deal with raising the dead, however....

Life in the Spirit

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

Most people in the world are familiar with fish.  We learn about fish and aquatic life in school and many of us eat fish as part of our diet.  Some people raise fish as a hobby.  Others actually fish, themselves, either on lakes, ponds or in rivers or in the ocean, as several of Jesus’ disciples did over two thousand years ago and even other communities two thousand years before that.  Probably all of us know that with the exception of three or four species...

Frog in boiling water

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

One of the more overused terms in the U.S. today is “slippery slope.” It refers to a decision a person might make that has unintended consequences. And, while many consider the term to be fallacious, it is not necessarily so. Missing a day of school because you overslept does not mean you’ll eventually wind up in prison if you extrapolate the likely consequences. But a failing grade for academic dishonesty such as cheating may mean you won’t graduate if your...

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