November 2021

Holy Chaos

I begin by laying the groundwork for our shared labor with definitions, as defined by Merriam-Webster and me. holy exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness having a divine quality, venerated as or as if sacred My definition: the connection to that which is beyond. The sense that something […]

Holy Chaos Read More »

Ridding yourself of your negative emotions

Researchers say that negative emotions—fear, envy, greed, entitlement, resentment, anger, and regret—block gratitude, causing “self-alienation,” broken relationships, and profound unhappiness, thus resulting in a worldview that is “deeply false to human nature and the nature of the universe, a distortion of reality.” Indeed, it hardly takes a doctorate in psychology to know that what Christians

Ridding yourself of your negative emotions Read More »

We successfully weathered that storm once, and we can do it again

Perhaps the single most important lesson we can hope to gain from this analysis is that in the past America has experienced a storm of unbridled individualism in our culture, our communities, our politics, and our economics, and it produced then, as it has today, a national situation that few Americans found appealing. But we

We successfully weathered that storm once, and we can do it again Read More »

Openness and connectivity may, in the end, be more valuable

The pattern of “competition” is an excellent case in point. Every economics textbook will tell you that competition between rival firms leads to innovation in their products and services. But when you look at innovation from the long-zoom perspective, competition turns out to be less central to the history of good ideas than we generally

Openness and connectivity may, in the end, be more valuable Read More »

For herd animals like us

Now when it comes to intellectual doubt, you’re dealing primarily with your meaning module, the part of your brain committee that thinks critically and analytically. But your meaning module’s independent thought processes are constantly being monitored and even censored by your belonging and survival modules. They constantly whisper their respective warnings: “If you think or

For herd animals like us Read More »

We have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully

If we want to understand racism in the U.S., as uncomfortable as it might be for us, we have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully, and to become more receptive to what it is like to be black in the U.S. Here are some astonishing statistics that may

We have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully Read More »

Convictions

Our response is framed by seven core convictions that we believe are foundational to a constructive engagement with the work of reparations. The first regards the nature of racism itself. Before proceeding, we should briefly state that racism, as used in this book, has three elements to it. First, classifying human beings into distinct “races”

Convictions Read More »

Study: Most white evangelicals don’t want to live in a religiously diverse country

The new American Values Survey from PRRI also shows that 60% of white evangelicals believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. No other religious group comes close. https://religionnews.com/2021/11/01/study-most-white-evangelicals-dont-want-to-live-in-a-religiously-diverse-country/

Study: Most white evangelicals don’t want to live in a religiously diverse country Read More »

This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621 https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/04/thanksgiving-anniversary-wampanoag-indians-pilgrims/

This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later. Read More »

Racial hierarchy

Most Euro-Americans were not, and would likely never be, the wealthy aristocrat who had every social and economic privilege in Europe. Eternal slavery provided a new caste that even the poorest white-skinned person could hover above and define himself against. Just imagine the psychic benefit of being elevated from the bottom of a rigid class

Racial hierarchy Read More »