Gard Smith News Today

Speaking up can get you “canceled” in a heartbeat. Indeed, the more flawed the institution or ideology, the more resistance there is to challenge. 

If we let Jesus speak for Himself, there wouldn’t be a word about border politics, but plenty to say about the far greater importance of entering the Kingdom.

Why do good parents have wayward children? No glib answers here, only the thought that prayerful parents needn’t give up hope. Wayward children have been known to come to their senses and find their way home ... to a loving Father who, even now, is running to meet them.

Considering the rapid decline of faith on this side of the pond, which reading of that epitaph will be ours? That of a believing Queen, whose faith-inspired farewell pageantry has made us weep, or that of an unbelieving society of cultural vandals whose self-lauding, empty rituals should make us cry?

Most of all, I will never fail to admire her unwavering commitment to her “holy” coronation vow of service to God and her nation, and her outspokenness as an unabashed Defender of the Faith. Where else can one find such a sense of the sacred and selfless duty in civic leadership?

Co-opting what Jesus taught about forgiveness in order to justify a legitimately questionable political and economic decision is rich, especially considering how much of Jesus’ other teaching is flatly rejected by many debt-cancellation advocates.

As Christians, our identity is not to be found in some tattooed sub-culture, as with gangs, but in the culture of Christ. Our identity comes, not from drawing attention to ourselves, but from drawing attention to Christ, through what others see in us, not on us.

As Christians, our identity is not to be found in some tattooed sub-culture, as with gangs, but in the culture of Christ. Our identity comes, not from drawing attention to ourselves, but from drawing attention to Christ, through what others see in us, not on us.

Rushdie’s reprehensible stabbing speaks less about the obvious evil of murderous Islamic fanaticism than — at the opposite extreme — our own tepid faith. To be fully Christlike is to always be graceful, but to also recognize when God is being blasphemed and filled with godly zeal. 

For believers, difficult end-of-life decisions should be far less distressing. Alongside the uncertainty surrounding life support, sad nursing homes, and palliative hospice care, is the absolute certainty of the Resurrection, and the hope of a deathless life to come.