It’s not about statues. It’s about America. It isn’t about the dark past of slavery, treason, rebellion, segregation, and dominance symbolized by racist statues and flags. It’s about the present and the future–how do we see America? What do we want it to be? Racists demand “Blood and Soil.” Your ancestors and where you were…

In preparation for a couple of lectures I’m giving for a class this fall on evangelism, I was asked to read Elmer John Thiessen, The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defense of Proselytizing and Persuasion. Some in chaplaincy want to distinguish between “evangelism” and “proselytizing.” Thiessen refuses, saying, “Let’s accept that these terms mean the…

(pace Campbell)1 The primal myth stirs. Ancient sagas, Pagan rites, Warrior heroes Converge, Kindling a fire which shatters The restraining chains of the centuries: Science Religion Civilization. The god-hero mounts the altar Beneath the eagle’s wings. Torches burn in the darkness Reflected in the hopefilled eyes Of the regathered tribes. And the twisted black arms…

It has been a mind-numbing few days.  White supremacists have marched with torches in scenes reminiscent of the Nuremberg rallies. Some political and religious leaders condemned them, and others issued a blanket condemnation of “all sides” (as if “all sides” were equal). We can’t equivocate.  I will not be party to any feigned neutrality or…