Prior to the holidays, a large segment of the population, Gen Z, said they would rather avoid political discussion altogether by just skipping family gatherings. The Harris Poll on “political avoidance” The Harris Poll recently surveyed over 2,000 Americans and found that around half of Gen Zers would rather skip holiday family gatherings than be confronted with a political debate. And 38% said they dreaded such gatherings. The Harris Poll called this “political avoidance.” Gen…
Even a web site like “Mercury: Your Daily Emerald Blog,” which is a hodgepodge of New Age, self-centered tripe, can get it right now and then. Or, at least, come close. A 2016 blog on the site offered “7 Lessons from Famous People About Forgiving Others.” The “famous people” ranged from Jennifer Aniston to Joel Osteen to Oprah Winfree to Nelson Mandela. And the reasons the celebrities talked about forgiveness varied as much as the…
In 1995 I participated as a teacher in a pastors’ conference hosted by Ukrainian Baptists in Kiev. My two weeks there was my first experience interacting and teaching through a translator. Helen was one of our most dedicated translators. She was a young lady, twenty-something at the time, who had grown up at the conclusion of the Soviet occupation of her homeland. She was smart, engaging, and aspired to work in international politics. And she…
Ah, the holidays. Traveling. Black Friday. Big meals. Football. Loved ones. And, occasionally, difficult people. You know what I mean. Those family members that you see once a year because, well, that’s about all you can handle. Maybe you are blessed to have no such people in your family, distant or close. Or maybe if you do, you don’t have to see them much. But I hear from people all the time…
I wrote this blog in 2018, and it seems especially relevant again. Today, February 18, 2020, the Scouts announced that the organization was filing for bankruptcy. We should mourn the loss of this once great organization, and we should be deeply concerned about what it says about our culture. The purpose of this corporation shall be to promote, through organization and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and…
Tinder uses it for choosing a date. So why not for choosing a child? Why not have an app that permitted you to scan the cherubic faces of adorable babies, swiping right if you are interested in adopting the child and swiping left if you want to move on? Because, frankly, it’s reprehensible. Thankfully, Christians may not be the only ones who think so. In late January Kickstarter suspended the fundraising account of the “Adoptly”…