The past week has been a circus with allegations of past sexual abuse levied against Supreme Corut nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
I don’t know what this man has or hasn’t done.
I do believe people are fundamentally innocent until proven guilty and that there needs to be evidence.
Some of the moves that the democrats in congress have taken in this process do make it seem like a bunch of political posturing (for instance, them sitting on Dr. Ford’s allegations for weeks and not revealing them until right before a vote. Was that out of their sincere concern for Dr. Ford and desire for her to be heard? Seems like they were very deliberate with that timing).
The whole situation is immensely complicated. (more…)
There have been incidents in the past when comments a person made years ago resurface and come back to haunt them.
I certainly don’t want to justify or excuse hateful comments.
But people are also capable of changing. And I think that’s one thing our society is struggling to accept with the social media mobs who attack people.
This week, a story stuck out to me as being a rock bottom of absurdity. Indy Car driver Conor Daly lost a sponsorship with Eli Lilly over a racial slur. Not one that he said. He father said it.
In the 1980s.
Before Daly was even born.
And now his son is paying the price for that 30 years later.
It’s becoming somewhat of a buzz phrase that a person’s gender is a cultural construct.
This idea flatly contradicts the wisdom of human experience and long established cultural norms.
But more importantly, this thinking contradicts God’s creation. God designed men and women in his creation. Our gender is an essential part of our being. Until the last couple years, our society was in pretty solid agreement on this subject. Today, I still believe most people understand this but there is a culture war, and it’s easier to go along with this progressive agenda than to stand for truth. (more…)
Some of the most significant people in the Bible did great things at very young ages. David was just a young man when he defeated Goliath. It was a young woman who was chosen to be the mother of Jesus. Even the twelve disciples would have all been pretty young. They were following a Rabbi. In that culture, they were probably as young as 15 years old (though Peter seems to have been a bit older). And there are many more examples we could find in the Scriptures.
I think teens have a tendency to look at faith as something for older people.
But the reality is that you’re never too young to start developing a relationship with God and making that your own. You’re never too young to serve God. You’re never too young to share the love of Jesus. You’re never too young to stand up for your faith.
That last one can be a hard thing to do. It can be easy to be influenced by our friends. Influenced by kids we perceive as cool. Influenced by the culture. Influenced by people we follow on Instagram and Snap Chat. (more…)
Jim Thome. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons @Erik Drost
Like any Cleveland Indians fan growing up in the 90s, Jim Thome is one of my all time favorite baseball players.
Always had a good reputation as being friendly, a slugger, wore high socks like he was playing in the 30s. What wasn’t there to love?
This past weekend, Thome was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It’s well deserved. Thome’s 612 career home runs ranks him eighth all time.
Baseball fans talk about guys who are five tool players, which refers to someone who can hit for power, hit for average, run well, throw well, and who has a good glove.
Obviously Thome excelled at hitting for power. And while his career batting average was a respectable (though not exactly phenomenal .276), he actually is 51st all time in on base percentage because Thome also walked a lot.
But he wasn’t known for being a great fielder or runner (19 career stolen bases, compared to being caught stealing 20 times).
Simply put, Jim Thome was not a five tool player. And yet he’s in the Hall of Fame, because parts of his game were great.
We all have room to grow, areas where we can improve. And we should always strive to get better in those areas. But there are also some skills where we’ll probably never excel, and that’s ok, because we can still do a lot with the talent and ability we have.
Sometimes we can get bogged down for modest improvements in areas that aren’t our strengths when we could be working to cultivate our strengths to become even better. Let us never be so good at something that we think we can’t still do it better.
What’s something you’re good at where you could get even better?
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.
