Everyone Needs Compassion

At the monthly meetings of the Board of Education of Caledonia Community School, members of the public are allowed to make three-minute addresses to the trustees. Here is what I said tonight. Two words from me tonight: compassion and sex. Compassion comes first. And last. I know a song: “Everyone needs compassion.” It’s true. LifeContinue reading “Everyone Needs Compassion”

Christian identity, the Ten Commandments, and the way of Jesus

To say “I am a Christian” is to say a lot, and saying it in the wrong setting, or with the wrong intention, or while in the wrong relationship to what (and whom) the term rightly refers to, is dangerous.

Angela Rigas and the “God-given right” to possess and use guns with no restrictions whatsoever

So Angela Rigas, Michigan state representative for the district in which I live, considers red-flag laws (extreme-risk protection orders), universal background checks, and requirements for safe storage of guns to be violations of the Second Amendment. Most Americans do not. Americans (and Michiganians) have differing opinions on all sorts of things. On some questions relatingContinue reading “Angela Rigas and the “God-given right” to possess and use guns with no restrictions whatsoever”

No, you do not have a right to your own opinion

Habitual insistence on the sovereignty of one’s own (or one’s own faction’s) opinion is incompatible with Christian discipleship and culpably destructive of Christian community.

Acquiescence is complicity; love requires truthtelling

Until we have agreed that we will speak truthfully and respectfully to and about each other, and that we will not choose as our representatives people who are unable to do either, we cannot hope for progress on anything else.

Keeping the Declaration of Equality

Another Independence Day rolls around. Heather Cox Richardson has written a brief essay for the occasion. You should read it. It refers, fittingly, to the Declaration of Independence. I want to say a little bit about the Declaration myself. Note that the document itself is not titled “Declaration of Independence.” We are in the habitContinue reading “Keeping the Declaration of Equality”