Safe Haven

 (Note: The balance of this piece was published as a Facebook status first.) People are free to like what they like, and not like stuff they don’t. And this includes Taylor Swift. Me personally? I love her music. But I have to object personally to the idea that her target audience is women and girls. I’m neither one of those things. And even if it were true, the men I associate with genuinely like and admire women and girls. We should be as offended by the idea that women are odd, or so different than men that never the twain shall meet, as we are that all men are violent monsters. Anyway, I remember hearing Taylor at 16 on the radio giving an interview. Her first song “Tim McGraw” had just come out. The interviewer asked her who she wanted to write songs with. She said Craig Wiseman. That dude has some serious credits to his name, including helping Phil Vassar write his self-titled debut in 2000. And I can remember thinking, “This kid is gonna be huge.” Right now, she’s the bigges...

 Christa Pike was the victim of a botched execution in Tennessee. It’s all the proof we need that we shouldn’t do this anymore. While we’re on the subject, her life is textbook “mitigating factors.” We shouldn’t have even gotten to this point in this case. And she was sentenced 31 years ago. Don’t read the comments. We’re coarsened by our thirst for blood. And don’t argue “limited government” with me; the Supreme Court lifted a stay that the state had granted. The federal government imposed itself to help the state of Tennessee kill Pike, and couldn’t even do it right. Your tax dollars at work. The supreme expression of government power over the individual is in killing. If you want more of it, you might be a lot of things, but you’re not a conservative in the Anglo-American sense. A lot of American Catholics are sold on the “Frank The Hippie Pope” narrative, because it obscures the fact that the popes have been moving toward abolition of capital punishment for 60 years. If you spe...

 I've seen the clip a few times. Tyler, son of the legendary coach, played on an AAU team in high school. They asked Coach if she'd coach those boys for one game. Probably not anything of great consequence, and sports in the end is not.  She calls a timeout and says, "Somebody on this team needs to rebound, if we want to win this game!" Summitt never did anything halfway. And that's why she has 1098 wins and 8 NCAA titles. We still miss you down here, Coach.

 Not in the sense of Protestant. In the sense that Jesus is my personal friend. Actually, friendship better captures what’s happening in the Scriptures than anything else. A lot of people are giving up the label. Lots of reasons for this. Sex. People want to be liberal about sex. Maybe they are sinners themselves, and the guilt of believing something else while living differently is too much. Maybe they’re just sentimental and really liked “Will & Grace.” The reality of the lives depicted there is sadder than a sitcom. The true nature of Sola Scriptura and Reformed claims about the Fall work together to make every argument an argument not about what the Bible says, but what it means. There remains a chasm between faith and reason, and under this regime, conscience and history and experience means nothing. We always thought “Where is that in the Bible?” would lead in one direction; it doesn’t. And it’s not really a question, it’s a direct challenge to any purported authority. Pe...