This morning I read Trump’s former personal attorney, and convicted felon Michael D Cohen’s testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. You can read it here. This morning I’m listening to it. I’m struck by a few comments he made, and which have come up in questioning too. Mr. Trump is an enigma.…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. December 3, 2017 Daniel 3 King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits. If my biblical math is correct, that’s about 90 feet tall, and about 9 feet wide, which is maybe not a hallmark of…
The “me too” campaign may have taken 10 years before it really caught fire, but now that so many stories of harassment, assault, and rape are coming out, I’m feeling in equal measure hopeful and horrified. I’m hopeful because when this behavior is brought to the light, it loses it’s power to do damage in…
It’s a casualty of my profession, perhaps, but I believe our actions reveal our theology. In other words, the things we do and sometimes the words we say reveal what we believe about the God in whom we claim to believe (or the god in whom we claim we don’t believe). When words and action…
A few years ago, I wrote about my concerns with (then presidential candidate) Trump’s statements about why he has never asked God for forgiveness. Here was what Mr Trump said: “I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things…
I’ve always believed that language matters. For example, I never refer to someone who is here without documentation as an “illegal”. People cannot be illegal. Their political status may be undocumented. Their behavior may break laws. Their very existence, however, is not a crime. The language we use to describe people orders the way we…
After a cowardly, despicable and horrific suicide bombing in Manchester, England the other day, in which young women were targeted, our president said this: “I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them from now on losers, because that’s what they are. They’re…
Our president has recently followed through on campaign pledges to ‘make America safe again’ (or is it great again? I can’t remember) by increasing the deportations of “bad hombres“. In reality, this just means people who are living here without legal documentation, as mothers are being separated from their American born children, and Immigration Customs…
President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 that bars Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. indefinitely and bars all other refugees for 120 days, and keeps out visitors for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Initially, as ABC News reported, administration officials said the…
I read an article in yesterday’s New York Times about a study that showed that women who had abortions did not experience the pain and trauma that is often spoken of as a reason to make abortion illegal. “Researchers followed nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions nationwide for five years and found that those who…
Glass Overflowing 