These days the stark realities of American culture can overtake us anytime, anywhere. I learned that again at a recent lunch with Doug Bailey, Episcopal priest and former Wake Forest School of Divinity colleague. We’d not seen each other in…
Are we all guilty of mass shootings?
Here we are again. Another mass shooting. Another set of grieving families and friends. More calls for sensible gun control. More fist-shaking about Second Amendment rights. More inaction. In the 2016 movie The Limehouse Golem, the catchphrase of entertainer Dan Leno…
Our weekly gun massacres mark a devastating cultural failure
Our weekly gun massacres in the United States are shocking in the extreme. They set us apart from other nations in the worst possible sense. I have not yet been in or near one of these massacres. The closest I…
The other epidemic: Fear
The more I read the news, the more I become convinced there’s another epidemic currently facing the nation. It seems to be particularly acute in churches right now, too. And while it’s an epidemic largely of our own making, it…
The Devil’s tool
When I was the age of my grandson Sam, I was enamored with the song “Ya Got Trouble” from the musical The Music Man. I even memorized it and performed it once or twice for some gatherings. It clearly did not…
In the Nashville shooting, talk of gender and mental health interrupt the conversation about guns
Confusion over the gender identity of the Nashville school shooter has allowed some commentators to flip the script and blame mental illness, not guns, for the death of three 9-year-olds and three adults at Covenant Day School last week. U.S….
Maybe we need God
Sorry for sounding so much like a preacher, but I don’t know where else to turn. I keep hearing we’ve had more mass shootings in the U.S. than days in 2023. We seem out of control, and despite their claims…
No one else is coming, so do something
Dear church, Today I write to you from three places in my soul: parent, prophet and pastor. Like many Texas parents, I had a momentary flash of panic last Tuesday. I opened my news app on the way to pick…
The three arguments used to block sensible gun control and why they’re flawed
The most we manage to produce in the wake of another school shooting is a spate of arguments back and forth. Never any action. The satirical website The Onion is infamous for this headline, posted after almost every mass shooting:…