Questions to Ask Ourselves about our Presidential Candidates

| Present

Our Head of State – our President – differs in several ways from that of many of our sister nations. Advanced democracies like the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden and Canada have a constitutional monarchy where political power is shared between a king or queen (usually) and a parliament or similar body. In the Republic of […]

The Legacy of Slavery, Part I: A Look at Reparations

| Present

The issue of reparations has lately become a fairly significant part of our national conversation. The fact that we are even discussing this in 2019 shows that the legacy of the enslavement of African Americans still persists – 156 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 154 years after the end of the Civil War and the […]

Meditation on the Halting of Death Row Executions

| Future,Present

Recently Governor Gavin Newsom of California halted executions of inmates on death row. Newsom expressed sympathy with victims and their loved ones, saying this as he took his action, “To the victims, all I can say is, ‘We owe you and we need to do more and do better, more broadly for victims in this […]

Franklin Graham, the Bible and the Gay Issue, Part II: Scholarly Evidence for Same-Sex Relationships

| Past,Present

In our last post, we discussed the Rev. Franklin Graham’s negative attitudes toward same-sex relationships, especially in the context of his criticisms of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and Graham’s use of Bible verses to support his stances. Here we will outline some of the scholarly research concerning same-sex relationships in the early church (from […]

Franklin Graham, the Bible and the Gay Issue, Part I: Introduction

| Past,Present

The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, has recently been in the news for lambasting Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for being gay. The younger Graham follows in his father’s footsteps in regarding homosexuality as a sin, something to be repented of. According to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), of […]

Happiness and Health: A Correlation?

| Present

The World Happiness Report is out for 2019. Is there anything we can learn from the current top three “happiest countries in the world” and their health care systems, especially as compared to our own in the United States? Is there a way to see how health care systems and citizen happiness are related? We […]

Considering Mayor Pete

| Present

If you haven’t yet heard about “Mayor Pete” – that is, Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana – you will soon. Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg (pronounced buddha-judge or boot-edge-edge) is currently making a splash, not only on the national media circuit but also in fundraising as he considers a run for the Presidency on […]

Message to LGBTQ Methodists: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!

| Present

In late February 2019, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted, once again, to “maintain the Church’s position on homosexuality, gay clergy and gay marriage as stated in the Book of Discipline” – that is, to ban gay marriage and gay clergy. The UMC at its General Conference in April 2008 had […]

Defining Our Terms: Essential for the 2020 Race

| Present

Terminology matters. As the 2020 presidential election cycle heats up, there is a great deal of banter in the air, among politicians, pundits, journalists, citizens, etc., about terms such as “socialism,” “Democratic Socialism,” “the radical left,” “welfare state,” capitalism and others. I am not an expert in economics or political science, but I offer the […]