January 2021 – Rebuilding From The Ruins

The Problem With Absolute Civility

The world wants you to be “civil.” Don’t forget to first be truthful.

January 15, 2021

Smooth and deceptive words often wear the mask of civility. According to today’s “tone police,” incivility is the worse possible sin. But civility is like a knife. A surgeon and thief may both use it to cut you. But the purpose of one is to heal you, the purpose of the other is to threaten and kill you.

Christian Love? Or Pagan Decadence?

Don’t Throw Away The Gifts You Have Been Given

January 13, 2021

In our weekly church study, we are working through Bruce Shelley’s work, Church History in Plain Language. It is, as the title indicates, an accessible introduction to church history.

In a recent study, we considered the explosive growth of the early Church. In 300 years, the Christian faith went from Jewish sect to imperial religion. The nature of the expansion of the Church is a fascinating discussion and one that is beyond this article. One critical factor to point out, however, is the distinctive way the early Christians lived. Theirs was an ethic of love.

The Fifth Column

Behold the Rise of the Evangelical Quislings

January 8, 2020

In the tumultuous decades of the 1930s and 40s, as the world entered another set of military and political pangs that became known as World War II, it was introduced to the term “Fifth Column.” It is a short-hand way of describing citizens of a country that will be shortly invaded, but who secretly help the enemy invading force (and soon to be enemy occupying force) by preparing the country for its invasion.