The Carolina Panthers defensive end had a “long and hard” road to the NFL. Born in Nigeria, he was trafficked as a child and left on the streets of London. After picking up football just four years ago, he made an impressive NFL debut with the Panthers.
Watch it all.
Read it all. (Please note that this is a long and painful article whose content may not be suitable for some blog readers–KSH.)
“The Star-Telegram discovered at least 412 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 independent fundamental Baptist churches and their affiliated institutions, spanning 40 states and Canada.” For many survivors, “churches” are a living embodiment of hell.https://t.co/KFJNENU3yQ
— Boz Tchividjian (@BozT) December 9, 2018
Churches across China have faced new waves of harassment and pressure to register since a new set of regulations to govern religious affairs in China came into effect in February and heightened punishments for unofficial churches.
In July, more than 30 of Beijing’s hundreds of underground Protestant churches took the rare step of releasing a joint statement complaining of “unceasing interference” and the “assault and obstruction” of regular activities of believers since the new regulations came into effect.
China’s Christian believers are split between those who attend unofficial “house” or “underground” churches and those who attend government-sanctioned places of worship.
…over the long run it will matter. The boomer conservatives, raised in the era of Reagan, generally believe in universal systems — universal capitalism, universal democracy and the open movement of people and goods. Younger educated conservatives are more likely to see the dream of universal democracy as hopelessly naïve, and the system of global capitalism as a betrayal of the working class. Younger conservatives are comfortable in a demographically diverse society, but are also more likely to think in cultural terms, and to see cultural boundaries.
Whether on left or right, younger people have emerged in an era of lower social trust, less faith in institutions, a greater awareness of group identity. They live with the reality of tribal political warfare and are more formed by that warfare.
I guess the final irony is this: Liberal educated boomers have hogged the spotlight since Woodstock. But now events are driven by the oldsters who fuel Trump and the young wokesters who drive the left. The boomers finally got the top jobs, but feel weak and beleaguered.
“In the age of social media, virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive.” https://t.co/oWFuaRvEps https://t.co/oWFuaRvEps
— Ismail Royer (@IsmailRoyer) December 5, 2018
You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.
Yesterday we had our Bishop at Sullivan's Island to preach and do a service of Confirmation. Check out his sermon or one of the others wherever you get your podcast or on our website: https://t.co/x5tXjxsvCN pic.twitter.com/YbI1TAbj8T
— Holy Cross SC (@HolyCross_SC) December 10, 2018
Solzhenitsyn, denounced by some as a supporter of messianic nationalism (something he always repudiated, even when it manifested itself in a great writer like Dostoevsky), also provided an enduring model of constructive patriotism. He loved Russia profoundly but refused to identify his wounded nation with a Soviet despotism that stood for religious repression, collective farm slavery, and the elimination of political liberty and a tradition of literary reflection that spoke to the health of Russia and the permanent needs of the soul. He wanted Russia to abandon destructive dreams of empire and turn inward, but without forgetting the sorry fate of the 25 million Russians left in the “near abroad” after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 1998’s Russia in Collapse, he forcefully attacked “radical nationalism…the elevation of one’s nationality above our higher spiritual plank, above our humble stance before heaven.” And he never ceased castigating so-called Russian nationalists, who preferred “a small-minded alliance with [Russia’s] destroyers” (the Communists or Bolsheviks). He loved his country but loved truth and justice more. But as Solzhenitsyn stated with great eloquence in the Nobel Lecture, “nations are the wealth of mankind, its generalized personalities.” He did not support the leveling of nations in the name of cosmopolitanism or of a pagan nationalism that forgot that all nations remain under the judgment of God and the moral law. In this regard, Solzhenitsyn combines patriotism with moderation or self-limitation. One does not learn from Solzhenitsyn to hate other peoples, or to deny each nation’s right to its special path, one that respects common morality and elementary human decency.
How one evaluates Solzhenitsyn tells us much about how one ultimately understands human liberty: Is it rooted in the gift of free will bestowed by a just, loving, and Providential God? Or is it rooted in an irreligious humanism, which all too often leads to human self-enslavement, as we saw with the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century? Solzhenitsyn’s reasonable choice for “Liberty under God” has nothing to do with mysticism, authoritarianism, or some illiberal theocratic impulse. Those who attribute these positions to Solzhenitsyn cannot provide a single sentence to support such misrepresentations.
Solzhenitsyn spoke in the name of an older Western and Christian civilization, still connected to the “deep reserves of mercy and sacrifice” at the heart of ordered liberty. It is a mark of the erosion of that rich tradition that its voice is so hard to hear in our late modern world, more—and more single-mindedly—devoted to what Solzhenitsyn called “anthropocentricity,” an incoherent and self-destructive atheistic humanism. Solzhenitsyn asks no special privileges for biblical religion (and classical philosophy), just a place at the table and a serious consideration within our souls.
"Solzhenitsyn’s life is marked by this great paradox: in the camps, cold and hungry, and subject to limitless repression by camp guards and camp authorities, he recovered an appreciation of the purpose of things." https://t.co/l8VjSkDYQ7
— Jay W. Richards (@DrJayRichards) December 10, 2018
“On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world.”
Few people have ever fixed their date of birth more indelibly than Thomas Merton did in that lyrical opening to his memoir, “The Seven Storey Mountain.”
A best-seller upon its 1948 publication, it remains in print in multiple languages as a modern classic of spiritual autobiography.
But its appeal only begins to explain why this Saturday — on the last day of January 2015 — people in Pittsburgh and elsewhere will be holding prayer vigils and other events to mark the centennial of the birth of Merton.
On the 50th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death, here's a 2015 story from the archives on his legacy: Why Thomas Merton 'continues to captivate' | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette https://t.co/EcQp3JN3b1
— Peter Smith (@PG_PeterSmith) December 10, 2018
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Reconsidering Thomas Merton, who died 50 years ago today https://t.co/kb4OAnEu0U via @IrishTimesBooks pic.twitter.com/gWVVXi6mRH
— Irish Times Books (@IrishTimesBooks) December 10, 2018
Gracious God, who didst call thy monk Thomas Merton to proclaim thy justice out of silence, and moved him in his contemplative writings to perceive and value Christ at work in the faiths of others: Keep us, like him, steadfast in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Today marks 50 years since this beautiful (and troubled) soul was taken, far too soon. Apart from JC he is the man that has had the most profound effect on my faith, and I will be forever grateful. Rest in Peace, Thomas Merton. pic.twitter.com/VriMjnUg5q
— Fr. SJM-C+ (@FatherSJMC) December 10, 2018
Almighty God, who in many and various ways didst speak to thy chosen people by the prophets, and hast given us, in thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the hope of Israel: Hasten, we beseech thee, the coming of the day when all things shall be subject to him, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.
The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.
–Psalm 25:14