Modernity is married to violence and pleads that it is all in a good cause.
Fr. Stephen Freeman
On October 22, 1925, Mahatma Gandhi published a list of what he called “Seven Social Sins” in his weekly newspaper Young India. Gandhi’s social sins:
Politics without principles.
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
In this moment
“This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation.”
Marilynne Robinson – Gilead
Victim
Whether someone is a ‘victim’ is a conclusion to be reached at the end of a fair process, not an assumption to be made at the beginning.
U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor
the big problem with religion
…the big problem with religion. It’s not faith, but certainty. Certainty destroys faith by crushing anything that challenges it. In our fallen state we crave certainty because with it we can grasp at control. But truth will not be controlled. It can only be embraced. Faith embraces truth, while certainty tries to pin it down. Is not this the great irony—these bastions of religious certainty, the ones with a lock on the truth—would ultimately pin Jesus, the truth, down. . . to a cross.
J D Walt
Fight for Justice
Christians believe that we can fight for justice in the knowledge that eventually God will put all things right, but until then we can never expect to fully fix the world. Christianity is not utopian.
Timothy Keller
Christian Identity
The secure identity of Christians does not require shaming, othering, and denouncing (which is always a part of a highly performative identity). Also, the new Christian identity—that we are simultaneously sinful and infinitely loved—changes and heals former oppressors (by telling them they are just sinners) as well as former oppressed (by assuring them of their value). See James 1:9.
Timothy Keller
It is what it is
A saying among management experts today is, “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting.” This is a profound though painful truth that must be respected by all who have an interest in Christian spiritual formation, whether for themselves as individuals or for groups or institutions.
Dallas Willard
Corporate sin
The reality of corporate sin does not swallow up individual moral responsibility, nor does individual responsibility disprove the reality of corporate evil. To deny (or largely deny) either is to adopt one of the secular views of justice rather than a biblical one.
Timothy Keller
For leaders
For leaders who need to be liked, they need to get a dog. Maybe two. They will always like you and are quick to forgive.
To all my friends in leadership of any kind, I have two pieces of advice. Number one, get a dog. I personally recommend a Teacup Poodle. My dog, Macy, jumps up to see me every time I come through the door. She does not grill me about masks. In fact, as far as I can tell, she has absolutely no opinion on masks. And she treats me the same, whether the sermon was the bomb or a bust.
—Chris Smith
Teaching
The two biggest lies about teaching are that one learns so much from one’s students and, so gratifying is it, one would do it for nothing. I had a number of bright and winning students, but if I learned anything from them, I seem long ago to have forgotten it. I always felt I was slightly overpaid as a teacher, but I wouldn’t have accepted a penny less. The one certain thing I learned about teaching is that you must never say or even think you are a good teacher. If you believe you are, like believing you are charming, you probably aren’t.
Joseph Epstein
Being a family
….a line from the Italian-American novelist Don DeLillo: “Being a family is an art … and the dinner table is the place it finds expression.”
What does your dinner table say about your family?
Michael Frost
Sign of the times
Some time ago, I was staying in the palatial home of a wealthy couple in California’s Orange County. They had all rushed off to work early that morning and left a note saying I could eat anything I wanted from their kitchen. I located the bread but I couldn’t find a toaster, so I thought I’d try grilling it. But when I opened the oven I found two or three expertly gift-wrapped presents in there.
I was a little taken aback and decided to cut my losses and buy breakfast out that day.
That evening I was talking to my host who asked whether I’d found everything okay, and I confessed that I’d been a little thrown by the gifts in the oven.|
“Oh, my gosh,” he erupted, “I totally forgot they were in there! I should have warned you.”
I reassured him I hadn’t cooked the presents, and he explained they were for his wife whose birthday was coming up.
“I hide them in there because we never use the oven,” he explained.
It turns out that never using the oven is becoming a more common thing for American families.
Up until Covid19 hit, Americans were spending more of their food budget on restaurants and food delivery services (50.3%) than they did on groceries (49.7%). It might be even higher since quarantines and lockdowns were instituted in various parts of the country.
For some perspective, back in 1970 only 26% of a family’s food budget was spent on eating out. In 2010 it was 41%.
In fact, the average American eats one in every five meals in her car; 25% of Americans eat at least one fast food meal every single day; and the majority of American families report eating a single meal together less than five days a week.
In fact, only 32% of American families typically have dinner together all seven nights per week.
Interestingly, when families do eat together the average dinnertime is 15 minutes. In the 1960, the average family dinnertime was 90 minutes.
Michael Frost
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