Donald Trump was publicly accused of bigotry in a lawsuit almost a half century ago. In response, the former president’s first open denial of racism ever to appear in The New York Times came on Oct. 16, 1973. He was responding to…
What Forrest Gump’s mother would say about Marjorie Taylor Greene
Forrest Gump was a good man with personal morals, integrity and a love for others, especially Lieutenant Dan and Bubba. But he had a low I.Q. and other people often called him stupid. He always responded with what his mother…
I’ve been unaware of my privilege, and if you are a man, you probably have, too
In this time of increased, and justified, attention to gender inequities, I have been thinking about my own life. It occurs to me that while I have supported women colleagues, female students and girls within my circle of family and…
We know the truth, and it is not setting us free
At the annual gathering of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship last week, I heard at least one speaker repeat the words of John 8:32: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In fact, as I recall,…
If ‘guns don’t kill people, people do,’ how should we respond?
You probably have heard the simplistic explanation, often delivered proudly as if it is the very first time someone has thought to say it: “Guns don’t kill people, people do!” This retort is most often given after another senseless murder…
‘Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be’
The clever saying “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be,” while having been repeated in many similar iterations, is credited to a character named Uncle Joshua in The Tents of Wickedness, a novel by Peter De Vries written in 1959. The observation…
How Putin’s picture in a fictitious dictionary challenges all of us
Do you remember your child’s pictorial dictionary? The very first ones contain images of people, places or things that can be named: girl, father, doctor, astronaut, church, mountain, house, playground, ball, hat, Teddy bear, night light. Picture dictionaries for older…
Ukrainians want peace, regardless of their religion
Ukraine is a fascinating nation, the second largest in Europe by land area and the eighth most populous, after Russia. Although it is the poorest country in Europe, its extensive farmlands enable it to be one of the largest wheat…
Blessed are both new wineskins and new wine
Expressing the words of the Bible in contemporary language has a long history, as an internet search demonstrates by noting that “the earliest translation into a vernacular European language other than Latin or Greek was the Gothic Bible, by Ulfilas,…