Marginal Christianity

                                                                                   Branson Parler July 18, 2018                                                                                                                                                                Loneliness is on the rise. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people. Our social media networks may number in the hundreds, even thousands, but it appears that our actual social network is fraying. This social isolation was the main topic of the latest issue of Comment magazine , which explored the way that our families, friendships, churches, and cities all show increasing signs of this social isolation. While offering some diagnoses of what’s wrong and some signposts of hope, this collection of articles raises a deep question: what’s at the root of this social isolation? As we look at the symptoms, is there an underlying cause of this variegated and vicious disease?              

For those who claim God has raised Trump up to be America’s ruler at this time even though he does not (despite his protestations to the contrary) evidence anything like a Christian approach to dealing with people or policy. I mean just how gullible are we, folks? Yet still the claim is made that in spite of that God tapped this man to lead America back to its former greatness. Kind of lack Cyrus, the Persian king God chose to facilitate the people’s return to the land after the exile. However, there are several crucial differences that to my mind invalidate this claim. 1.        God chose Cyrus for one specific purpose: to allow Israel to return to the land. 2.        He was not chosen to make Israel great again. 3.        Israel was not to follow his policies and practices in her life as God’s people. 4.        Cyrus, in spite of being chosen by God for this one purpose, was also to be judged as the pagan ruler he was for his sins both in oppressing Israel after its r

The Hedgehog Review : Vol. 20 No. 2 (Summer 2018) James McWilliams The Hedgehog Review: Summer 2018 (Volume 20 | Issue 2) S omeday, when we—or our descendants—have enough distance from the present to contemplate who knows what this country will have endured, the presidential election of 2016 will evoke three words: basket of deplorables . This ill-conceived phrase, delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at a Manhattan fundraiser two months before Election Day, was the rhetorical flashpoint of a broader takedown: You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?… The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. 1 Those comments marked the moment when an apparently new white identity—though in fact an amalgam of new and older white identities—was ingloriously named. Within hours