Wandering Elder

Okay.  I found myself in a really dark place mentally after watching a very dark satirical movie at 2 am this past week that was billed as a comedy but instead made my head and heart hurt.  That dark place was exacerbated by the fact that with shooting after shooting and disaster after disaster I find myself amazed at how quickly we tip past the point of working for change and instead go back to our regular lives - unless we were directly affected by the events. It did seem for a while that we were going to see some social change.  There were sit-ins by senators  to make changes in gun laws and to promote dialogue.  Racial issues were coming to the fore in national conversation.  But then another  shooting happened.  Another person got killed.  Another mass shooting.  Another insightful and carefully thought out sound bite from the wise and selfless persons running for president.  And before we know it, we have moved on.  It ...

Perhaps you might have read about Matt Bevin, the governor of Kentucky who this past week suggested...well, said  that bloodshed might be required to defend conservative ideologies from liberal ones, in particular those of Hilary Clinton - especially if she is elected. He had also just been awarded the Distinguished Christian Statesman Award from the D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship. I wonder exactly how those two go together. Actually, I have a pretty good idea.  It is called "civil religion."  Civil religion, particularly American Civil Religion is defined by sociologist Robert Bellah as "a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things [...] This religion, while not antithetical to and indeed sharing much in common with Christianity, [is] neither sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian."  (Robert Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus (Winter, 1967) p. 8) In other words, as Julia Corbett...

I recently read the opening lines of an article in a preacher's magazine in which the question was being raised about Jesus and knowledge of the end times.  Given the fact that in Matthew Jesus says that even the Son doesn't know the hour, the question being raised was this: does this deny Jesus' omniscience and/or divinity? My initial reaction was to sigh, roll my eyes, and put the magazine down.  That's because this is an old argument...like centuries  old.  While I don't mind hearing these debates or reading about their initial formulation (usually between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD), I find the need to re-argue or re-hash them to be a bit tiresome. That has to do with the fact that there is the need felt by some to keep defending particular theological ideas (this is called apologetics ).  In and of itself, no big deal.  I am certainly an apologist for the traditions of the United Methodist Church.  But even being a supporter of Wesleyan theo...