“Tell us one interesting thing about yourself.” I’ve always disliked that “icebreaker” question, whether it occurs in a business gathering, conference breakout, Sunday school class, retreat setting or anywhere else. I always have considered my life to have been a…
Rand Paul gets mixed up on the ‘right side of history’
Donald Trump isn’t even in office yet and there’s already political flak between his intended “border czar” and the mayors of Denver and Boston over Trump’s plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants. Paul Homan warned the mayor of Boston,…
Letter to a friend concerned about my peace
So good to hear from you, John Doe! I think about you just about every day because almost every day I see the gift you gave me. I write the following with profound appreciation for your own message. There is,…
Trump is nominating Project 2025 leaders to key posts
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump emphatically denied any connection to or knowledge of Project 2025, the Christian nationalist game plan for transforming the U.S. into a conservative theocracy. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he said in a July…
A Nigerian’s view of the US presidential election
With the U.S. presidential election now over and a winner declared, one thing people may need to do — particularly those whose candidate failed to win the election — however difficult, is to adjust to reality and learn to live…
How the election split the survivor sphere
The echo chamber got me. I am a survivor of child abuse and an advocate for victims of domestic violence; the related social spheres are the ones I frequent online. All I had seen for weeks was joy over Harris/Walz…
New Bonhoeffer film offers a mixed bag of emotions
The task of offering an analysis of the movie Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin has been complicated for me because the promotion for the movie shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a gun in his hand. My attempts to recover from this misleading…
Democracy 2025 coalition will challenge Trump and Project 2025
An alliance of leading pro-democracy organizations has launched a campaign to challenge anticipated Trump policies that pose economic, political and religious liberty threats to the nation. Democracy 2025 is a coalition of more than 280 legal and advocacy groups representing…
Ryan Walters orders all Oklahoma schoolchildren to pray for Trump
In Oklahoma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is at it again. The man who has made controversial statements about Black history, who promotes a Christian nationalist agenda for curriculum and who demands teachers have Bibles in their classrooms…
Did Trump voters know what they were getting? Pew surveys say yes
With every announcement of a cabinet-level nomination that seems more shocking than the last, Americans who are not on the Trump train are struggling to understand how many of the president-elect’s actions will be agreeable to his base and whether…
Calling the cows
I lay in bed, awakened from what otherwise would have been a restful night of sleep. The question that had plagued my conscience had now intruded upon my sleep: Why do so many conservative Christians so blindly follow Donald Trump?…
A tale of two Trump supporters
Less than an hour after Donald Trump was shot, one of my most liberal friends posted a meme making light of the situation. I phoned to confront the callousness. Things got heated. When I blurted, “Stop acting like a 2-year-old,”…