As a Leftist in the United States, it seems appropriate to disclose the Leftist agenda among Leftists in the United States. The Leftist Agenda Revealed At the top of the list is to get people to recognize that the Democratic Party is not “Leftist.” It may be to the left of the Republican party, but that’s precisely the point. Liberal and conservative, right and left, are terms of comparison. They don’t designate absolute stances. Whether educational institutions like Wheaton... Read more
Now that Tim Walz is the pick to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, the label “weird” is going to be getting even more attention. He is the one whose reference to Donald Trump as weird got so much attention and sparked the current movement. I have seen a lot of mixed reactions, as well as some amusing memes, related to the topic of Donald Trump as “weird.” Most of the negative reaction has come from people like me, the nerds,... Read more
Imane Khelif has become the center of a lot of news reporting, but not because of her Olympic victory. That someone got hurt during a boxing match should be no surprise and isn’t news. What should surprise us and cause us all to reflect is when random people think they can decide whether someone they do not know is a man or a woman. On the right is a photo of the woman is at the center of this. It... Read more
“Life begins at conception” is an attempt to make something simple that is in fact complex, and something unambiguous that is uncomfortably blurry. As I have pointed out before, on the one hand, life begins before conception. Sperm and egg cells are alive. It is not “life” that is the question. It is when we are dealing with human personhood. And the example of identical twins (and triplets and other multiple identical births) shows that it is not feasible to... Read more
President Biden’s performance in the 2024 presidential debate was disappointing, but I would like to suggest that that is not the issue that anyone should be focusing on right now. As Rev. Jacqueline Lewis writes, And I’m puzzled about how we got to a place in this nation’s story in which an 81- year-old president and a 78-year-old former president—a convicted felon—are on that debate stage together and we somehow did not expect what happened. I would have told Biden... Read more
I had some interaction with someone on Facebook about the subject of same-sex relationships in the context of Christianity and the Bible. I thought that it might be of interest to a wider audience. and thus am sharing it here. Since I haven’t asked my conversation partner for permission to name them, I have left them anonymous. Our interaction started with the following comment that I left on a post of theirs about recent developments in the Church of England... Read more
A lot of people are expressing dismay about AI, mainly in relation to how they fear it will impact churches and educational institutions. I think that it is important to highlight and explore precisely those parallels. Let’s look at ChatGPT as author of modern sermons and translator of ancient ones. ChatGPT and AI as Preacher? A Facebook friend shared this cartoon: The context was an expression of concern over how well ChatGPT can write a sermon. Here is how... Read more
In “Empire of Death” the Doctor and a host of others take on Sutekh. Yet before long there’s almost no one else left alive in the universe, just the Doctor, Ruby Sunday, and Mel. The obvious question is one that the Doctor poses to Sutekh. Why? Why is the Doctor allowed to continue living, along with these couple of others? The reason, we are told, is because Sutekh is even more curious than we are about the mystery of Ruby... Read more
First things first: Why study Religion or Religious Studies at a college or university at all? What even is Religious Studies? Don’t worry, that’s where we’ll start, after one key preliminary. This article isn’t about why you should study religion and nothing else. If you want to do that, by all means do so. In addition to the many careers that have an obvious connection to religion, the truth is that you can do almost anything with a degree in religious... Read more
The latest episode of Doctor Who, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” began to bring the season arc towards resolution with the mystery (okay, the legend) of Ruby Sunday, the mystery woman who appears in each episode, and more. The episode opens with the Doctor arriving at UNIT headquarters to ask for their help identifying a woman he has been encountering everywhere. It turns out they’ve been watching another woman matching that description, Susan Triad. S. Triad is an anagram of... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In