Congress Is Way More Christian Than The Rest Of America
Congress Is Way More Christian Than The Rest Of America
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>> IMPLOSION ALERT: ‘U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece’ How are you deciding whom to vote for today? Personality, or principle? I realize that we live in an imperfect world, and in a democracy we have to choose between imperfect alternatives. That said, here are the 7 principles I use […]
Here are some totally interesting and fun facts you probably didn't know about Georgia.
Richard Harries, former Anglican Bishop of Oxford (U.K.), wrote a book some years ago entitled Art and the Beauty of God, which has become something of a classic. Hidden away in the book is one of the best (if incomplete) summaries I know of the problem of suffering and how the Christian can deal with the matter and live through it. Harries begins by saying, “The almost overwhelming objection to believing that there is a wise and living power behind the universe is the existence of so much pain and anguish in the world.” Christians can live with this objection by recognizing that the problem of suffering can never be answered in this life. But, for non-believers the problem is insurmountable. Harries’ first explanation of suffering is that God has given humanity genuine independence. “We are genuinely free, within limits, however narrow, to shape our destiny; and that means being free to choose what is harmful to others and oneself, as well as what is beneficial.” Given God’s overall purpose in creation to bring about free, rational beings like us, it could not be otherwise. Think about it: If all of a sudden, human beings were to change fundamentally for the good, exercising their freedom for good purposes only, how radically different the world would be. Harries’ second explanation concerning suffering is that “in the person of Jesus, God himself has come among us and shares our anguish to the full, even in the darkness of the Cross.” This is why the image of Christ on the Cross is so consoling to Christians. “Christ,” said French philosopher Blaise Pascal, “dies until the end of the world.” God is not absent in the experience of suffering; he is in the midst of it. God is not distant, in a remote heaven, apathetic to human suffering. He is the God who, in Christ, carries the Cross through history. Harries’ third explanation is that “in the Resurrection of Christ we have a sign and promise that in the end God’s purpose of love will prevail; will overcome all that is destructive and evil, all suffering and death. There will be a “glorious consummation” of the whole creation. The whole human and physical world will find its proper fulfilment. Harries quotes Romans 8:21, the fullest biblical statement about the end of the whole created order: “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” All will be “transfigured and irradiated by the glory of God in Christ; all will be translucent to the divine beauty.” I add my own additional “explanations” to Bishop Harries’ list. First is the truth that God is present in suffering and illness through doctors, nurses, healthcare personnel, and hospice workers. Their healing power is the creation and gift of God. The sacrament of Anointing before surgery is profoundly connected to the gift of medicine; it complements it. When a person dies in or after surgery, we should not imagine that God’s gift in the Anointing rite has failed. It has to be placed in the context of God’s gift of eternal life offered to the deceased person. A final principle: God is present and active in the sickness and dying of a friend or relative through us, through our being at the sick or dying person’s bedside. We are participants in God’s gift by being with the sick person, not primarily by talking or offering explanations of sickness and dying, but simply “being there” in loving compassion and solidarity.
Civility is in decline in America. Fear and certitude are paralyzing our country. With Congress in gridlock, more Americans are leaning toward authoritarian political figures and the courts for answers to unaddressed legislative questions. Social media seems like an endless landscape of echo chambers and battle bunkers, contributing to dehumanization in our culture and polarization in our politics. Many over-engage, while many more don't engage at all. The rest wonder, \"Will we survive these great challenges?\"Author Jim Brown believes there's a way up. After reading a simple bumper sticker \"Don't believe everything you think,\" Brown details how his self-examination opened his eyes to new ways of thinking about \"settled matters.\" He invites readers on a similar journey aboard a beautiful, spacious airplane, well above today's ground turbulence. Brown has one condition. Each reader must check his political baggage, turn off his smartphone, and gulp, choose a seatmate who is either a political foe, someone who frustrates him to no end, or his sworn enemy.Each reader and seatmate realize their arrangement isn't unusual, as they ride with other passengers with very different views. A Muslim and a Jew, a Christian and an atheist, an environmentalist and an unemployed coal miner, a CEO with five houses and a dishwasher making minimum wage, and so on. Above the turbulence, all begin to recognize they have much more in common than not.The journey starts with Brown's humbling awakening of how regular service of the homeless changed his life. He recounts inspiring stories of \"service in love\" that have saved and changed many lives. Passengers see clearly committing to regular service tempers desensitizing social media. They explore how to counter growing certitude and fear, process increasingly negative, one-sided media stories, and participate in the noble cause to protect free speech on and off college campuses. They see ways to work together to enact badly needed bipartisan political reforms to restore functionality in government. They come away with a specific plan to revitalize our national spirit and broken systems.Sound promising? Check-in is only a click away. When you check out, you may not believe everything you think, either.
The main web site behind Planned Parenthood’s attempt to lure students with a sex educational campaign that leads to abortion now points those teenagers to a web site promoting pornography. The pro-life group Iowa Right to Life discovered the change and how the Planned Parenthood Teenwire web site — which is linked to by thousands […]
From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War comes \"a historical spellbinder\" (The Christian Science Monitor) about a trio of political giants in nineteenth-century America--and their battle to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy. In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery. Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, \"the immortal trio\" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart. Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.
