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current affairs human rey's a point

Who Should I Vote For?

Who should I vote for: Candidate A (in 2024: Kamala Harris) or Candidate B (Donald Trump)? Maybe this is an easy question for some of you USian Christians. It’s not easy for me. I’m struggling.

I’m not struggling with other questions like how candidate A or B will ultimately come into power. God is in control of all governments even if people (or the state) don’t use their God-granted authority (to rule, judge, and even condemn) the right way.  

I’m not wrestling with how to act if someone I don’t want in the oval office gets there anyway. I have responsibilities to obey the government God put in place. The only time I have a different choice is if the ruler pits my obedience to the ruler against my obedience to God.

Further, I’m not struggling with the question if I should vote. Christians, regardless of their locale, should personify the best example of a citizen of a nation under the lordship of Christ. That would mean that a Christian, living in a system where he or she has the freedom and responsibility to mindfully perform civic duties—one of those being voting—should perform those civic duties. In general, I should vote. But it doesn’t follow that I (1) always have to vote or (2) have to vote for the candidates nominated by the two biggest parties. If the American democratic system produced Joseph Stalin (the far-left communist dictator) and Adolf Hitler (the far-right Nazi dictator) it doesn’t follow that I must pick one or the other.

In the current circumstance, I find myself considering and weighing my options. How do I weigh my options? Before I decide who to vote for, I need to figure out how I’m supposed to vote.

Categories
current affairs rey's a point

Retrospective Lessons From Four Hard Teachings

In agile, there’s this thing we do at the end of a sprint (which is a period of one to four weeks) called a retrospective. We look back at the sprint and think about what went well, what could we do better, and what actionable steps are we taking to get better for the next sprint.

This article isn’t going to be about Trump, Biden, COVID, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, police brutality, implicit bias, Supreme Court justices, or a church splitting. This article isn’t going to be about how we as a nation can do better.

This is just me doing a retrospective before the next sprint. Feel free to read over my shoulder.

Categories
current affairs history philosophy

Did Nye and Ham Really Debate Creation?

Screen Shot 2014-03-29 at 7.13.29 PM

I recently watched a debate, aired from the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky, between Ken Ham (degreed in Applied Science with an emphasis in Environmental Biology) and Bill Nye (degreed as a Mechanical Engineer and pupil of Carl Sagan).  The topic for the debate was “Is Creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?” This is important.

To make his case, Bill Nye would have to show that creationism is not a viable model at all; Ken Ham would have to show that creationism is just as viable as any model because the scientist is working in God’s world.

Mind you, right off the bat, I’m surprised that Bill Nye would agree to this topic. Any debater would simply have to show that there was no inconsistency between science and any creationist religion to win the debate.

Indeed, Bill Nye, during the Q and A session, admits that there is absolutely no inconsistency between modern science and the belief in a creator God. He does make claims about how you don’t need God for the process of evolution (calling it a process that leads to complexity from the bottom up instead of a process that leads to complexity from the top-down) but he admits no inconsistency.

On that ground, Nye would have lost the debate.

Unfortunately, from the start, the debate had nothing to do with the debate topic. Indeed, the topic strayed so far that proponents (on either side) would clamor that their position won. 

Categories
current affairs eschatology human

Rainbows, Promises, and Holiness

bow

Today I saw a rainbow.

We’ve had heavy rain the last couple of days. I had stopped at a traffic light as I was driving down from Farmington into Bristol. The radio (and friends) had reported that another cell was moving slowly through Bristol. Farmington was still bright with the shining sun but right across the street everything was out of focus in a haze of rain.

Every now and then, during these days of rain, there was a calm where you would look outside and see that wall of clouds blackening the sky except where you are standing.

It really is a weird feeling if you happen to be aware of the conditions.

You transform into this tiny, insignificant speck in danger of any of the forces all around you. The wind, if it gets strong enough. The water, if there is enough of it. The lightning, if it crashes down.  A tiny speck against that power doesn’t stand a chance.

But today, during one of these heavy blasts of rain and momentary pauses, the sun broke through the wall of clouds.

Categories
current affairs

Should Christians Support Guns?

guns

Some Christians, especially after a horrible incident—like the Newtown shooting at Sandy Hook public elementary school or the Aurora Movie Theater, or Columbine or Virginia Tech—wonder if it’s right for them to support guns. They ask things like “Shouldn’t Christians love their enemies? Why should they support guns at all?” and “why are American Christians so violence craved that they are adamant supporters of guns?”

What I want to do in this article is highlight what I think is a Biblical position regarding guns. I’m sorry that I can’t deal with the question directly. With so many unspoken assumptions, I have to get to the text through the fog of misinformation.