Josh Benner

Tag: colorado

  • Election of firsts – but you have to be the right first to get attention

    45586108_359237021492424_3523764385669447680_n.jpg
    Update: there have been chances in vote leaders in certain elections since the writing of this article. Martha McSally and Young Kim would go on to lose their elections.  

    I’ve seen a lot of posts and Tweets about the diverse candidates who were elected on Tuesday. Van Jones of CNN said the election didn’t turn out to be a blue wave but it was a rainbow wave.

    Many are celebrating that the first female Muslims were elected to congress, the first openly gay governor was elected, the first two Native American women were elected to congress, the youngest woman ever was elected to congress.

    Young Kim was narrowly elected to California’s 39th congressional district. I don’t see her on the list. But she’s the first Korean American elected to the US congress. She’s a republican so that doesn’t get celebrated with the others. I did a search on Twitter for these lists that also happen to mention the first Korean American woman. I found five. TOTAL. On all of Twitter.

    But that makes the celebration seem disingenuous to me. Diversity gets celebrated but only if it’s the right people, otherwise it gets ignored. Martha McSally was elected to the senate in Arizona. She was a pilot in the air force and the first female to fly as a fighter pilot. When she retired from her 22 year military career, McSally was a colonel and one of the highest ranking female pilots in Air Force history. A remarkable woman. But she’s a republican so she gets largely ignored.

    Essentially it doesn’t matter to people who celebrate it. It’s not about any of these diverse candidates who won. If it were, Young Kim would also be celebrated. What matters is people who adhere to a certain political ideology. And if they happen to check intersectional boxes, that’s great. If they check those boxes and aren’t progressive, they’re ignored.

    Also, why the need to front load things with a person’s race, gender, or orientation instead of their plans to govern?

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram

  • Colorado baker who refused to bake a same-sex wedding cake now has to defend himself for not baking a gender transition cake

    photo-1518566585952-954bb14432d1.jpeg
    Few people can say that they’ve had a case go to the Supreme Court. Jack Phillips can. He’s the Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple in 2012. The couple took this to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission who ruled in favor of the couple.

    According to the Supreme Court, the case addressed whether Colorado’s public accommodations law “violates the First Amendment as applied to an individual who declines to design and create custom wedding cakes for same-sex wedding celebrations that violate his sincerely held religious beliefs.”

    In a 7-2 ruling, the court ruled in favor of Phillips. (more…)

  • Forgiveness in the shadow of death

    13718616_10154461283134260_1702054337548725430_n.jpg
    In the summer of 2016, Jamison Pals drove through Nebraska with his wife Kathryne, and their three young children: Ezra, 3; Violet, almost 2; and Calvin, 2 months old. As traffic slowed down for construction, a semi truck, driven by a 53 year old driver named Tony Weekly slammed into the back of the Pals family. Their car burst into flames. All five died (a sixth person in another car also died from injuries related to this accident).

    The family had been driving from Minnesota to Colorado to train as missionaries, with plans of being sent to Japan.

    Last week, the driver was sentenced. Advocating for him was an unlikely source: the victim’s own families. “We ask the court to give the maximum allowable grace,” Kathryne Pal’s father Gordy Engel said before the court.

    Tony Evans was sentenced to six months in jail for his crime.

    The grace and forgiveness of the families I find inspirational. It’d be easy to hate this man. It’d be easy to never want to forgive him.

    But the families have publicly forgiven him. They’ve embraced and hugged him, they’ve prayed for him, and shown him love.

    That’s the power of the gospel. It’s a love that doesn’t even make sense. This man’s actions took away six lives and a beautiful young family. And yet, their relatives can forgive.

    Rick Pals (the father of Jamison Pals) said in court: “I can honestly say Tony, both families have forgiven you…I know how much God has forgiven me. How could I not forgive you?”

    For Christians, forgiveness is never given as an option. We are always called to forgive others. In the face of tragedy, these two families have shown something profound, something beautiful.

    41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

    Luke 7:41-43

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram

  • Supreme Court rules in favor of Christian baker

    1024px-Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States_-_Roberts_Court_2017.jpg
    Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple who was getting married.

    This decision only scratches the surface of the issue. It does not give every Christian who works in a creative field (baking, photography, etc) permission to refuse services for a same-sex wedding.

    I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar but it appears to be on an inevitable crash course for another Supreme court decision. Is it a matter of individual liberty? Whereby a person reserves the right to refuse service? Or is it discrimination and the violation of law?

    People on both sides of this issue are very polarized. If private business owners do have the legal right to refuse service, some draw analogies to people refusing services to African Americans before passage of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s.

    Persecution takes a variety of forms. There are absolutely people who seek to persecute Christians for their beliefs under the tyranny of law. With Jack Phillips, a couple attempted to force this man to comply. There have been numerous legal victories for the gay rights movement over the last few years. But some seek to crush any dissenters. There have been other businesses who have faced threats, backlash, and thousands of dollars in legal fees for standing by convictions.

    Today’s decision does not further enshrine religious liberty. It has more to do with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and their hostility towards Phillips than if Christians have a general liberty to refuse services in situations which conflict with their faith.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • Couple sells everything to buy boat: it sinks on day 2 of journey to Caribbean

    27752307_10156183062728914_3935510943673472552_n
    Facebook
    I’ve been struck by this story of two people who lived in Colorado. They quit their jobs, sold all they had, and used that money to buy (and fix up) a boat. This was to pursue a dream of living at sea and sailing the Caribbean.
    The dream was short-lived though, and on their second day at sea, the boat sank. They escaped the wreck with their lives, their dog, a cell phone, and $90 to their names. (more…)