Lott’s Daughters – and other propositions, numbering a baker’s dozen

i
“The church is up to its steeple in politics.” Either way. We take a stand by speaking out, or we fail to take a stand by remaining silent.

ii
“What would Jesus do?” We may disdain such simplemindedness, but . . . .

iii
What about Jesus? What were his stands on the issues of the day?

iv
We may pretend to know. If we do, we are doing just that—we are pretending.

v
So how can we—any of us!—have any true confidence with regard to Jesus' stands on the issues of our day.

vi
Nevertheless: we do have to live in our day. We can escape geography—to an extent—move from Biloxi to Buenos Aires, Bergen, Beirut, or Bombay—but we cannot escape chronology.

vii
And we live, wherever we live (within reason), after the Industrial Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Technological Revolution. We live after the Great War, and the Second World War, and the Vietnam War. We live with automobiles and airplanes. We live with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

vii-a
What though if we don’t live (within reason)?

ix
We also live—as we always have—with wealth and poverty, both gentle wealth and genteel poverty and obscene wealth and grinding poverty. We live as always with power and weakness, both power used for good and power used for ill, power used to help the weak and power used to destroy them. We live in and among, entangled with the powers and principalities, because the principalities and powers live in us.

x
Even if we seek to live in Christ.

xi
Because we fail. We do sin as much in the best of our acts as in the worst of them.

xii
But our failure is not the last word.

xiii
“Behold, the days are coming,” saith the LORD . . . (Jeremiah 23:5-6).

- Rick