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A 2017 Norwegian-Irish film (The King’s Choice) examines the hard choice that the nation’s monarch, Haakon VII, confronted in the dark days that followed the German invasion of his country on April 9, 1940. As with Winston Churchill the following month, Haakon confronted the harsh reality that his politicians had simply stuck their heads in the sand as the storm clouds gathered and as Nazi Germany appeared as an increasingly terrifying danger. Even more so than the British, the Norwegian politicians had simply refused to make serious preparations to defend their country. Churchill had quite accurately described the 1930s as the “locust years.” But now the Norwegians confronted the harsh choice as to whether they should knuckle under to the Germans or fight for their independence.
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Dr Suse McBay writes: In the past few years numerous stories have finally come out about how church leaders and pastors have abused their power and sexually abused women, men and children. Most recently there has been the truth about Ravi Zacharias, but also Jonathan Fletcher, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz and Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels. Along with individual stories and situations there has also been the revelations of child sexual abuse, cover-up and collusion within the Church of England, the Catholic Church and the American Southern Baptist Conference (to name but a few). While these stories reflect the extremes of the sexual immorality and sin within the church, they are indicative of a Christian culture that is failing to live out the gospel within the realm of our sexual desire. The message of sexual morality that the church has preached has largely centred on what not to do and how not to do it: boundaries, rigorous accountability and a fierce determination not to do it again. If the headlines of the past few years have taught us anything it surely must be this: this approach is clearly not working.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
To hate requires dehumanizing the “other,” no longer a full flesh-and-blood person with feelings and hopes and despairs and friends, but simply an object to be hated. Or shot. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s statement on good and evil is usually abbreviated into a quick social media meme, but the full quote carries a gut punch: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart … even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an uprooted small corner of evil.”
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