Category Archives: Worldview and Culture

Do Not Throw Away Your Confidence

Posted on January 7, 2023 by salooper57

In our day, when so many people are “deconstructing” their faith, this warning to the Hebrews seems very contemporary. If faith can be deconstructed, it should be, and the clutter – the pietistic flotsam and jetsam carried on the tide of faith – thrown out. But the rash way in which some people are going about it almost guarantees that beliefs that warrant keeping will be discarded. Continue reading →

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International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church

Posted on November 20, 2022 by salooper57

On Sunday, November 13th, our church commemorated IDOP Sunday with special guests Otoniel Martinez and our long-time friend Joe Milioni. What they have to share will excite you and encourage your faith. Remarkable advances are even now happening in the … Continue reading →

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Why Abortion Is So Intractable

Posted on November 5, 2022 by salooper57

Thirty years ago, Bill Clinton stated that “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” The issue of its legality is still up in the air, but abortion has never been safe – especially for the developing fetus – and no … Continue reading →

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Election Year: It Is Hard Not to Be Cynical

Posted on October 22, 2022 by salooper57

It’s hard not to be cynical in an election year. My wife just brought in the mail, which includes two political messages, one produced by conservatives the other by progressives. Both are irritating. The piece produced by conservatives is a … Continue reading →

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Scientists Long for Meaning Too

Posted on October 15, 2022 by salooper57

(Approximate reading time: four minutes.) If I understand him correctly, the theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, who teaches at Stanford, contends that matter entering a black hole is preserved in the form of data. Should a black hole consume our world, … Continue reading →

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Communities of Love and Belonging

Posted on October 1, 2022 by salooper57

The people of this generation are living through a sea change but as is often the case, those on the sea are liable not to notice it until it is too late. The term “sea change” has had two primary … Continue reading →

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No Angst Over Declining Political Clout

Posted on September 24, 2022 by salooper57

What changes would the Republican Party make if Christians, who have been a key bloc within their base, could no longer deliver enough votes to compete with Democrats for national offices? How would the party react to a 12 percent … Continue reading →

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How Did Jesus Treat Women?

Posted on September 10, 2022 by salooper57

To read some Bible scholars, one would think that Jesus viewed women through a twenty-first century feminist lens. Other equally-well regarded scholars, seem to think that Jesus looked at women through a pre-Nineteenth Amendment lens. It seems to me that … Continue reading →

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News Consumption May Be Affecting You Adversely

Posted on September 3, 2022 by salooper57

During the last few years, I have seen people break off relationships with family and church because they had been transported into pandemic-related stories, election stories, and war stories. This has happened among both liberal and conservative media consumers.

A critic might contend that something similar occurs among consumers of the Christian gospel. Continue reading →

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Abortion Is an Important, but not an Ultimate, Issue

Posted on July 23, 2022 by salooper57

With humans displaced from God (and, therefore, from each other), secondary errors are unavoidable. In the absence of God, humans invest penultimate things – many good and necessary in themselves – with ultimate standing, to their own detriment. As G. K. Chesterton noted long ago, “When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing; he believes anything.” Continue reading →

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