Happy New Year, Al-Qaeda
When we found out no WMDs in Iraq when U.S. intelligence assured otherwise, I was both disappointed and ashamed of my nation’s intelligence failure. You might say that we acted rather unintelligently. It was a humbling moment in our nation’s history.
Thankfully, America is not shattered by a single failure. Part of being American is this uncanny ability to bounce back, to get back on the horse, to keep on fighting. It is what got us through the Great Depression; it is what got us through Watergate; it is what is getting us through our history of racisim. Essential to the American spirit is to resist being defined by our failures, to persevere in working hard to do good.
What inspired these patriotic thoughts, you might ask? My inspiration happens to be the wonderful new years gift which the CIA presented to Al-Qaeda last week. This is not a minor story; this amounts to significant redemption (in one sense of the word) for American intelligence, as well as a significant victory over the terrorist organization which bombed our nation and opposes democracy everywhere.
It’s a great way to celebrate the new year, if you ask me.
The Psychologist and the Ad-Man: Saviors of the World?
David Wells, the historian and theologian, has pointed out that a number of transitions have occurred in our culture since the 19th century, including:
Virtues→Values
A move in conversation about the necessity and importance of Virtues (of character manifestations such as goodness, integrity, courage, fortitude) to Values (personal preference). (more…)
On Browning’s “Christmas Eve”
One of the interesting struggles I always faced at the holidays during my time back at college was the terrible collision between the new life and identity that I was discovering for myself away at school with the old, established and traditional way of life back home. I would walk through the doors of the old house with the joy of homecoming, only to quickly be knocked flat with the realization that I had changed, but life back home had not.
Now, I went to Biola University, basically a Bible college, and so one of the places where I felt this collision most was going to Church with my family again on Sunday morning. You see, I had just spent a whole semester expanding and broadening my mind as to how to think about who God is, how to read and interpret the bible, and how to worship. You name the topic, and you can bet that my new-found friends and I had spent hours pouring over all the possible ways of looking at the topic and, obviously, had found the only solution imaginable. (more…)
I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys-R-Us kid
Coming into this holiday season I’m reminded of one of my favorite child-hood memories. Every year when I was a kid, come Christmas time, my mom used to take my brothers and I out Christmas shopping. Now, I have three brothers, and my mom got us started at an early age buying Christmas gifts for each other. In order to do this and still keep it a surprise what gifts we had bought for our brothers, she would pick a Saturday, make sure that we had all saved up our thirty dollars from allowance money ($10 for each brother’s gift), and then take us out one by one to shop, and we always had to be in a different room of the house when they got back to the house so as not to catch a glimpse of the gifts. Well, my mom’s method meant that every year she made four subsequent trips to the local Toys-R-Us, and each of these trips almost invariably led to the Lego’s isle. (more…)
How to Contact Your Favorite Hollywood Big Shot (the right way)
Here’s a sobering thought for any Narnia enthusiasts. Dawn Treader’s budget has been already been slashed by 50 million as compared to its predessor and Disney wants to cut 50 more, trimming it down to a lean $100 million, half as much as Prince Caspain cost.
Now, this isn’t horrible news for an effects film. A lower budget often encourages creativity. However, this does tell us that Disney is quickly loosing faith in the Narnia franchise. Not only are they encouraging a lower budget, but they have also mysteriously removed Dawn Treader from next year’s original may timeslot in favor of Prince of Persia. This doesn’t mean Dawn Treader is in jeapordy of not being made. Rather, it tells us that Disney simply doesn’t know what to do with it. (more…)
Hector, the real hero of the Iliad?
In returning to Troy to gather his mother and all the noble women to offer prayers to Athena, Hector approaches his brother Paris, and hurls insults toward him for his prolonged absence from the war.
Helen, the mistress of Paris and woman whom the Achaean and Trojans have spent years of agony and suffering for, seductively speaks to Hector, first lamenting that she is not the wife of a better man, then softly encouraging him to, “Come in, rest on this seat with me…You are the one hit hardest by the fighting, Hector.” Hector responds in noble fashion, (more…)
Gay Marriage and Proposition 8: A Christian Perspective
(WARNING, controversy ahead)
One of the issues that has gotten California all a twitter is Proposition 8. It is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election Ballot entitled, quite bluntly “Elliminates Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”
The main problem with this bill isn’t that it is potentially discriminatory or that it is using fear-based tactics to convince people to vote for it. The problem is that Christians, and anybody else who worries about marriage rights in America, whether Christian, gay, Republican, or Democratic, have yet to clarify the principles on which they are defining marriage in the first place. (more…)
Greed: What the “Credit Crunch” means for the Unemployed
Proverbs 21:25-26
“The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labor.
All day long he craves and craves,
but the righteous gives and does not hold back.”
We are watching wealth recede from the American economy and solvency from the average American. National unemployment rates hover at 6.1%, and this month the US Department of Labor released that the largest mass lay-off event since 2001.
Who is to blame? The problem has manifested itself to be deeper than what can be caused a handful of corporate sharks. Their disastrous speculation with American funds has its broad fallout because a large portion of America has been grossly speculating with their own resources for years. We are spending money we don’t have. Yes, the extent of this problem is limited – the majority of Americans do not have any credit card debt. But our nation remains a republic of citizens, and it’s problems belongs to her citizens, and not to an aristocracy or oligarchy. (more…)
America, Politics, and Christianity
For normal, working people in America the political milieu in our overly media saturated culture is doubtlessly tiresome.
On every front page of every newspaper in our country is the latest coverage of the most recent sound byte, gaffe, or event that either presidential candidate made or attended. Talk radio won’t shut up about the election, even some sports radio stations I listen to are now talking about politics!
And, while it is understandable why many are turned off by politics, it is staggering to me how many Christians are “apolitical.” (more…)
