Author Archives: James Ernest

Where we are politically in the USA, and where I am

Trump lost the election, which has bought us some time. But Trump has not stopped claiming that he won, GOP senators and reps and apparatchiks have not repudiated him, and neither have the millions who voted for him. The lower-IQ Trumpists still speak of him as the best thing ever. The higher-IQ Trumpists still pretendContinue reading “Where we are politically in the USA, and where I am”

How to know if you are a demon (Luke 8:26–39)

It can be hard to know if you are a demon but you can watch for telltale signs. If the person you inhabit wears no clothes but goes about fully exposed—each body part or even more embarrassingly every soul and spirit part plainly visible to all around, unseen only by himself—then you might be aContinue reading “How to know if you are a demon (Luke 8:26–39)”

Why doesn’t reasoning (with people) work?

What is wrong with their (and our) heads? Why do truth and reason not persuade us?

Gestalt shift: Jesus and the woman in Simon’s house

Isn’t it funny how you can look at something, and look at it, and look at it, and see the same thing, and then again look at it and see something completely different? I guess we’ve all stared at drawings like Wittgenstein’s duck/rabbit, or the old woman/young maiden drawing, or the one that at oneContinue reading “Gestalt shift: Jesus and the woman in Simon’s house”

This is my story, this is my song: the story we enter when praying Psalms 95–97

In the book of Psalms, the entries in the 90s are grand, profound, and glorious. Is this because the reader who enters into them gets grand and glorious feelings, or because the aesthetic quality of their poesy is high, or because they refer to realities that are objectively awesome? (And I realize that “objectively awesome”Continue reading “This is my story, this is my song: the story we enter when praying Psalms 95–97”

For better or for worse, faith comes by hearing (thoughts on the silencing of a malignant voice)

The silencing of a voice that poisoned our nation and our churches reminds us that “faith comes by hearing” not only when we are listening to the word of Christ but also when we are listening to a different voice.