Presby-Musings

According to some reports, Adam Lanza, the deranged gunman who took the lives of twenty-seven people in Newtown CT last week, could not feel pain.   The twenty-year old, who executed twenty first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th by spraying them with bullets fired from an assault rifle, was reportedly unable to feel physical pain , and could hold a lighter to his arm or ankle while the flesh burned without flinching.   I don't know if these details have been confirmed.  If they are, in fact, confirmed we have just another set of clues as to the possible twisted and demented motives for this horrific act.   But I also see this as a sign and a symbol of something else...  After the initial shock of the massacre at Sandy Hook began to wear off I started to see some predictable things pop up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, and then even more predictably on the cable news programs as well.   Some people immediatel...

During this hotly contested national election, it has occurred to me more than once that our nation has become what some might characterize as "hopelessly divided."  Cable news channels routinely pit guests with opposing views against one another while a supposedly neutral talking head "moderates" their discussion. It's all carefully scripted to make sure that the viewers get to see what they want to see.  Television plays to its intended audience.  If you are liberal and you want to see conservatives get trounced on air 24/7, tune in to MSNBC .  If you are conservative and you like to see liberals get their comeuppance, watch Fox News .  And so it goes. So how do Christians fit into all of this division?  Aren't we supposed to be "one in Christ?"  The fact of the matter is that we aren't.  Christians are just as hopelessly divided as anyone else, and both liberal and conservative Christians claim to have the authoritative interpretation...

This week I am launching a new sermon series, " Family Values : Rediscovering What's Really Important."  The idea is pretty simple... Our culture has become marked by anxiety.  There is no way to escape the deluge of bad news that just seems to permeate the air around us.  Some blame it on the recent 24-hour news cycle that was once a phenomenon, and is now just the status quo.  Others blame it on the immediacy of information from cable TV, the internet, smart phones and social media. There is the passage of Scripture from Psalm 85 where the psalmist extols the virtues of those who are walking in pilgrimage to the Holy City of Jerusalem with the blessings of God all around them.  "They move from strength to strength," he writes.  Strength to strength... that sounds beautiful doesn't it? Unfortunately, I think that most of the people in our culture move from fear to fear.  We move from being anxious about terrorism to being anxious about war....