Alex Ford

Ellis:
"It is difficult to see how an injunction ordering the government to comply with the Constitution can be harmful."

A Christianity that makes the ultra wealthy and powerful feel safe and supported while making the poor and powerless feel unsafe and unsupported is a Christianity that is following someone other than Jesus.

Not sure if it’s rule #1, but it’s close to the top:

As a pastor, never evaluate Sunday before Tuesday.

Monday is brutal.

The way things are going, they're going to succeed in getting God back, but it'll be in the "great and terrible Day of the Lord" sense, and they'll be the ones trying to hide under mountains...

I'm beginning a Sunday School series on the Lord's Prayer this Sunday. Tempted to use this as an example of "Yeah, this ain't it."

"Blasphemy" isn't nearly strong enough for this bull-[censored].

I agree - though I'm not sure "today" is necessary to the veracity of the statement.

It's almost like Wilson has been skeevy from the jump, avoided any accountability for it, and actually has ramped it up the longer he's gone without meaningful challenge.

Thus, his current skeevy-ness is...entirely in character, a case study in the "sinfulness of sin."

This is how you get Jurassic Park. And Planet of the Apes. And 12 Monkeys. And Terminator. And The Matrix. And Soylent Green. And The Stand. And...

The reason I don’t want a “Christian nation” isn’t because I’m against Christianity.

It’s because I’ve studied church history and learned about the horrors caused by the church crawling into bed with the empire.

The separation of church and state helps keep Christianity Christian.

“Russia thinks the orcs are the good guys.”

Yeah, that totally tracks.

The work of the church is not the call to ministry. Our true work is that of manifesting likeness to Christ in all things, whether in success or failure, criticism or praise. If numbers, growth, and fame were God’s measures, then Jesus would be deemed a failure.

I say this as someone who grew up in South Carolina, and went to college in Charleston. The heroism and innate goodness of the Confederates is assumed and pervasive. Peeling off those spectacles was hard and took a long time. Gen. Seidule's reflection is good and necessary corrective.

This is an amazing quote from Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, proud son of Virginia.

"Robert E. Lee and Me" by BG Ty Seidule (ret.) is an excellent reflection on the effects of growing up in the cult of Lee and then learning to see the truth. (www.pritzkermilitary.org/resources/bo...)

The national stain of chattel slavery wasn’t sufficiently shameful, apparently. The Trumpets think we needed to emulate the worst parts of the Third Reich, too…

But truthfully, I’ve never read anything of his I didn’t enjoy.

If you’re looking for a series, start with Old Man’s War.

Light one-off: Redshirts, Agent to the Stars, or The Kaiju Preservation Society are all fun. (I’ve heard good things about Starter Villain, but haven’t had the time to read it yet.)

Most anything Scalzi is good (though probably wouldn't qualify as “literature”).

If you liked Star Trek (especially TOS), you should read “Redshirts”.

Owning Merica Originally published at Real Clear Politics on July 24, 2020 I don’t know what I was looking for when I started researching my ancestry, but what I found was Merica. Merica, short for America, w...

5 years ago, after doing some genealogy work where I discovered enslavement in my family’s past, I wrote this reflection on the Declaration of Independence that shaped the destiny of our nation and the wills that shaped the destiny of enslaved persons.

therodandstaff.com/2020/12/04/o...

Clearly not a Presbyterian...

I like this and agree in principle.

But I don't have to have been a heretic to know that heresy is bad. I can confidently denounce both Arianism and Aryanism (among others) without having held to either.

...I mean, he would know about “pushing the world to a dangerous line”...

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed...

Man, “Sleepytime” is one of the best episodes of anything ever.

“War does not determine who is right. Only who is left.”
— Anonymous

“You do not drift into peace: you drift into war.”
— Jessie W. Sayre

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." 

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

5. Wars are easy to start and hard to stop

And worshiping false gods, and “worshiping” him however they think best, and violating the sabbath, and killing people, and…

Well, you get the point.

It's probably a good thing I am on break from my church work right now. Who knows what I might say tomorrow morning. One thing I know, we must pray for peace.