If you know a pastor’s spouse, check in with them. Give honest space to share. They might be bearing more than you know. Pastoring can be a very hard and demanding job. I know. I’ve been there. But I’ve also come to learn that being a pastor’s spouse brings unique challenges of its own, burdens often not known or understood.
In a speech at the United Nations not long before the start of the war against Iraq, Nelson Mandela made a number of comments that many American found objectionable. At the end of the speech, however, he said something in frustration that got spontaneous applause from the audience present: the trouble with the United States President George W. Bush is that “he doesn’t think properly.” Mandela was in deadly earnest, but the British-sounding criticism was comic. It was easy to…
My daddy died on January 2, 2003. He was 94 years old. For the past three years he was a resident of the Van Andel Pavilion, a unit of the Holland Home system in Grand Rapids, Michigan that specializes in the care of those with Alzheimer’s. Daddy’s Alzheimer’s was not advanced but was obvious: memory loss, especially short term, living in the past and confusion about the present. Occasionally he’d wonder, “Where am I?”–“What am I doing here?”–“Where’s mother?” (meaning…
We’re coming to the end–at least I hope we’re coming to the end–of a series of scandals involving America’s corporate leadership. CEOs, corporate boards, top management everywhere–they have all come under suspicion, if not investigation, for their leadership practices. No one paid much attention during the roaring 90s, but when the economy soured and the stock market tanked, suddenly corporate leadership had a lot of explaining to do. Roman Catholic leaders still seem not to grasp the depth of the anger…
Recently a letter to the editor I wrote was published in a Christian periodical. An article profiling National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice had irritated me sufficiently that I wrote to protest what I feared was a tacit baptizing of government policies. Probably that article could have been read in ways other than how it struck me, but having had my share of conversations with fellow Christians on the recent war, what I encountered in the magazine bore resemblance to a…
This is a book about love, which makes it a book for all of us, because we all need instruction in that gentle art. It’s a book that builds empathy and reminds us that we rarely have any idea what sort of burden others are carrying.
As Janet spoke, though, it came to me again that religion mangles the Gospel sometimes. It had, for example, taught both Janet’s and Chester’s parents a harsh script, and they had acted it out; it was Janet who bore the spiritual pain of that bad teaching.
Today, my ESV Bible is all marked up and highlighted, with copious marginalia. It is full of stars, exclamation points, hearts, WOWs and “thank yous.” Someone looking through it might think that my faith is superficial, that it lacks nuance and complexity. But I know the world of struggle that lay beneath each heart, each star, each exclamation point.
God & Country is an important film for the moment we’re in. It helps us better understand what Christian Nationalism is, where it came from, why it’s growing, and where it wants to go.
