Christians have fought Christians throughout history. Rome v Constantinople…Catholic v Protestant…Presbyterians v The Church of England…German Lutheran provinces v German Catholic provinces – the list is interminable. More often than not these were political fights wrapped in church clothing. People don’t usually go to war over theology unless one theology comes with a bunch of territory that the other theology wants. The American experiment has been a bold effort to bring such things to an end by separating church and government, not only bringing peace where little was known, but preserving religious expression that would otherwise have been crushed as it lost some battle. It is supposed to be a win-win. But alas….. . .
It’s MLK day. I cannot think of a more moving bit of oratory than his “I Have A Dream” speech. Some of Churchill in the war comes up to that level, but nothing exceeds it that I have ever encountered. His dream called all of us to be people of good character (“not judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character,”) but alas this nation has fallen well, well short of the mark Dr. King set for us. Making a mockery Dr. King’s assassination and this day grievously sad. Prime example – Tim Walz.. . .
So it seems that in Minnesota a church is organizing a general strike against I.C.E. That article contains a list of participating businesses that is, to my mind, pathetically short. For such a strike to be truly effective this list would have to be so long as to defy publication. But snark aside, my soul aches for this church – I think they have missed the point.. . .
Tim Walz has declared war on the federal government. Clearly the man has no understanding of the history of the Civil War or of just how the Constitution works. This seems to be common in Blue States.. . .
Good guys versus bad guys – that’s a story – especially when the good guys win even with the odds overwhelmingly against them. But the stories we get anymore are not so structured. Our good guys are flawed (think drunken, fat Thor in the the Avengers movies) and our bad guys are victims somehow (think Darth Vader or the Scarlet Witch in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.) Anymore no one is good, no one is bad, circumstances just put two parties at odds with each other and we are supposed to enjoy the fight. I wrote the other day that Our Myths Matter because they should reinforce what is good, but anymore our myths are not about right and wrong, probably only better or worse. Apparently the news media thinks the same way….. . .
Twelve thousand killed…12,000 Iranians killed by Iranian forces. The scenes out of that country are horrific. (Warning, warning, warning) Look, I know the other guys I mentioned in the headlines killed by the millions and this number is tiny in comparison, but this is just getting started, and this is just in the course of a few days – those monsters had years. We stand horrified by guys like Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer that killed by the dozens, but somehow when the numbers start to get this big, we are numbed to some extent. It is as if the evil is simply beyond our comprehension.. . .
If we learned anything from the pandemic it is that science is not our savior. It can be wrong. Moreover, science does not consider everything. While it projected deaths and disaster, it failed to account for what would come from the social upheavals created by our efforts to stave off its projections. We learned that science is but one tool in the leadership arsenal and we learned that somethings are simply beyond science’s ability to get right. Putting man on the moon or nuclear weaponry are relatively easy problems compared to the science necessary to deal with things like epidemiology or climatology. Big data statistically analyzed is not the same thing as the physical certainty of a pitched baseball. But some, it seems, have not learned these lessons.. . .
Before his death, I had a sporadic, long-standing debate with friend of the show, and literature professor, David Allen White about comic books. I had heard David lecture on the great historical epics and argued that comic books sat in the same place in American culture as The Odyssey did in ancient Greece or The Iliad in Rome. That these stories embodied and passed forward the basic values of the culture. David was dismissive. His dismissiveness was understandable as for every great comic book there are hundreds of pure entertainment dredge. Nonetheless, when comics are gotten right they really do rise to the level of art. New evidence has appeared that just might make my case for me.. . .
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