“I’ve been asked this question more times and by more people than I can count over the past several weeks. …First of all, realize that the wisdom is true that one cannot reason someone out of something one was never reasoned into in the first place. …There is no easy step-by-step argument to pull someone out of a Facebook echo chamber.
The Christian is a joyful being! He’s one who has come to know God and hopes to know him more fully, indeed, to know him face to face in glory where there will be an eternal enjoyment of who He is and who we are in Him. In this world, this kind his joy is contagious.” - Ref21
“In troubled times, ‘looking out for Number One’ is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Just as a threefold cord is not easily broken, so we as believers benefit by facing the certain troubles as a unified body, looking out for and supporting one another. Troubled times are the worst times to be fragmented or to go it alone.” - Olinger
“Granted, the alt-right is concerned about much of what I am concerned about. The alt-right opposes much of what I oppose. But sometimes the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.” - P&D
“On the day Christ commissioned Saul as apostle to the Gentiles, he told him he would suffer. He told Ananias, the believer who healed Saul of his heaven-sent blindness….And Saul, now Paul the apostle, tells the believers in the little church at Philippi that this is the common fate—no, the ‘privilege’—of all believers” - Olinger
By Diane Scallon
Did you know that practicing gratitude can rewire your brain? Yes, the brain, this amazing creation of God, can be rewired! Gratitude is a heart change that leads to behavioral change, ultimately improving your physical, mental, and spiritual health and even cultivating a delight for life.
Even at our best, we humans often botch the job of identifying what’s true and right. The important thing is to recognize what went wrong, learn the lessons, and aim to do better.
If I could gather every American who self-identifies as conservative and deliver one message to them right now, that would probably be the bottom line: Face the facts of January 6 and start identifying how to do better and be better.
There’s much we still don’t know about what went wrong leading up to, and on, January 6, 2021. But many points are already known. Here’s a baker’s dozen.
“The Capitol insurrection was horrifying enough as a spectacle of foolishness and symbol of civilizational decay. But another horrifying exhibit of foolishness has been the reactions to the event on social media. Namely, the widespread deployment of one of the laziest tactics to hit rhetoric since the ad hominem: whataboutism.” - TGC
“As a new biography shows, the Dutch Reformed theologian was adept at navigating perennial tensions of Christ and culture.” - CToday
For those who hoped that our experience of living in times of crisis might end with 2020, I do not need to tell you that your hopes have already been dashed.
We might consider the string of crises that date back to last March as separate events, or we might think of them as one multi-faceted whole. We might also discuss those who appear to have engineered them, manipulated them or benefited from them.
But one thing is for sure: We are living in a time of national crisis, and our way of life has been altered—likely forever—in ways that we could not have imagined 12 months ago.
