The sirens and the chimes

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

Walking by Eureka Springs’ Crescent Spring at noon on Wednesday is a contemplative experience for me.

On one side, you hear the gentle carillon up the hill at St. Elizabeth’s; her chimes singing to you some hymn of goodness and light and all that heaven enfolds and humanity should aspire to.

On the other side, you hear the tornado/air raid sirens on East Mountain, warning and testifying to you of all the worst, most destructive capabilities that the heavens and mankind can mete out.

They swell against each other, and of course the sirens have the advantage in volume in spite of their distance from you, and for three to five minutes they overcome — drowning out the chimes.

The sirens win.

But the carillon continues gently singing its angelus prayer-songs for another ten minutes, reassuring you that there is still divine love and mercy and grace, and your world goes on turning while you continue your walk.

The carillon endures.

The Story of Easter, 2024

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I’m retired from preaching, but every once in a while I just feel a need to say something that I feel should be obvious … just in case it’s not.

Tomorrow is Easter, and Christendom will observe the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Sermons will recount how it brings hope and verifies the promise of life after death and testifies to divine power and love.

I don’t mean to diminish any of that, nor any of the other encouraging insights those messages may bring.

But I feel that if we fail to grasp that the promise of abundant life is just as much for the here and now as it is for the hereafter, we’ve still missed the point — even if we gladly accept all the other points made.

We fit this planet and it fits us. We fit with each other. We have a place in life, and a purpose, and a way to enrich life’s meaning.

The Man who left the tomb taught and lived and fulfilled a life of perfect love and harmony with all around himself who were willing to share in that vision.

He created; told simple stories to reveal how to love.

He walked and met people where they lived and worked, and told them how much they are worth.

He fed them when they were starving for hope and sometimes even for food or health or life itself.

He felt we deserved a perfect example, even if we could never perfectly imitate it.

He proved it could be done.

And even the way His life was ended — willingly, obediently, self-sacrificially — was a way to make and keep peace in such a troubled time.

So of course His life couldn’t be ended by hatred, jealousy, fear, anger, paranoia and all the other evil factors that conspired to end it.

Love never ends.

That’s the Story.

That’s the essence of the Story
I would want to preach if I still preached; that I would want to quietly post on a noisy social media tool; that I would want to live until I die, when only the loving parts of me are remembered here and become part of the hereafter.

Love never ends.

The Story of Easter.

A wrong turn

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I think Christianity took a wrong turn, and much farther back than you might think I’m going to say. I think it took a wrong turn when it became a religion instead of a way of life.

After three years of abstaining from scripture, I’m going back a little at a time to see if what is imprinted on my memory and mind and soul is accurate, reliable, valuable.

I’m trying to divorce it from what I’ve been taught it says and told it means and drilled about its characteristics. I’m trying to just read it.

I’m starting with the gospels. And there I find nothing about Jesus expressing a desire to begin a new religion, but rather to fulfill an old one. I find no pleas from Him to build structures and governances and hierarchies and rules about what to do and how. I find no support for worship or rituals or traditions that lose meaning through repetition because they may be periodically spoken or sung but not LIVED.

Instead I find prophecy about how the old ends and the new begins. I find stories about accepting and rejecting grace; about accepting and rejecting others; about accepting and rejecting Him. I find teaching about how to live, how to be fulfilled, how to show grace and love and compassion for others. All interspersed with His example of living and doing these things as well as teaching them.

I find medicine for broken relationships.

I find promises of His presence.

I find guarantees of His grace.

In fact, the words of judgment that I find are for the religious, the ones who judge, the ones who reject, the ones who make it hard for others to access grace. The ones who are in bed with government they do not trust and will conspire to take His life because it is politically expedient — and will justify their judgment and conspiracy and lies and murder.

What I remember of the story after that is that it goes all right for a while. The story of His life and teachings is told far and wide, and people gather to hear it and keep gathering to reinforce their belief in a life that’s good and noble and gracious — even to the point of ultimate self-sacrifice. A perfect example of it.

The people who originally told the story chose the wise and most caring to shepherd the rest and moved on to tell the story in other places.

But, people remain people. Just like we do. Even if changed in heart and soul, it’s never complete. Gatherings became churches; synagogues with rules about who’s in and who’s out, who’s in charge, what does this mean or can’t mean, what worship includes and doesn’t, and so on and on.

And the letters we read from the people who originally told the story to the people-having-problems-with-being-people keep pointing them back to the “how-to-live” teachings of Jesus, though they sometimes stray into making new rules.

I think it’s natural and human that another religion resulted from the teachings and example about how to live. I’m pretty sure Jesus saw it coming. I understand that a lot of people benefit from the fellowship of shared belief with others; are uplifted and encouraged with worship together; are strengthened by messages that urge them on and reinforce their faith. Some folks need the ritual and the repetition. Church has its place in faith.

Probably in most religions, not just Christianity.

But if the focus is on self — even on the community of faith that one’s self is surrounded with — rather than living that story, that grace, that Jesus … then it truly is just another religion. Perhaps His name is there, but … His presence?

It’s the way of life that gives meaning to the religion.

Christianity can’t just be another religion, and still be Christianity.

It has to be a way of life.

His life.

Church as we know it

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Yesterday, January 31, was the third anniversary of my retirement from preaching.

I mentioned it to a friend, who asked why, and I gave the same answer that I have given before: I never felt qualified as a preacher, or even qualified to play one on TV. (Because, as you know, preachers are supposed to be called to preach and never retire, even on the off-chance that they can afford to.)

That’s most of the answer. And the rest of it isn’t going to be any more popular:

I’ve stopped believing in church.

Church as we know it.

I haven’t been to church in those three years, except for taking a friend (and her mom, if her mom had felt up to it) to church while they were visiting the area, since neither of them drives.

I certainly don’t have anything against the congregation I left behind; wonderful people and I had no problems the three years and three months I preached there. I love them and miss them. And of all the churches I’ve attended and/or served over the years, I have the least difficulty with the way they operate and function as a church.

My problem is with the way we believers do church; with church as we know it.

Church didn’t seem to be a high priority in the teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the gospels. He mentioned it twice, as I recall; once while declaring to Peter that He would establish it on the rock-like faith that Peter had just displayed, and the second time when foreseeing problems within it and advising on how to handle them. If you follow the links, both of those references are only in Matthew’s gospel.

Nowhere in those gospels is there an account about how Jesus wanted the church to be structured or any authority hierarchies within it, how worship within it should take place, whether it should have a building or ministry staff of its own, whether collections should be taken to support all that, what doctrines might include or exclude your place in it … and so on.

People who came after Him established all those details, and they became the norm and the details fossilized — and rarely does anyone question them if they want to continue to remain welcome in church fellowship.

What Jesus seemed to spend most of His teaching time on is how to get along with others; how to love and respect and care for others; how to do that without judging them; how to find blessing in living that kind of life even though it can be really hard — and that doing so can even make others so ticked off that they’ll want to hurt or even kill you.

And He backed up every moment of His teaching time living out everything He taught. That, of course, is really the how. The verbal teaching was just a summary of how He was showing us to live.

But it seems like our focus in church is not so much on Jesus but on church. How to get in, how important it is to get in and be in and stay in, how to protect its purity and reputation, how bad it has to get before people are asked to leave, how to get rid of them, how to defend its doctrine, how right we are and how wrong others are, why we need to financially support it, etc.

And we wonder why people aren’t just crowding the door to get to the front seats every Sunday morning.

A lot of churches have just out-and-out chosen to become The Jesus Show and invested in worship bands and lights and lasers and smoke and screens and videos — to become more attractive, more entertaining. Sermons have become messages that people attending want to hear. Flags become as important as crosses. Coffee becomes as vital as communion.

Church doesn’t help the poor and the homeless and the hungry and the sick because a few undeserving souls might take advantage of Christian generosity and waste “the Lord’s money” in the effort — the money that is needed to support an impressively-sized ministry staff and their offices and the building. Most of which is used once, twice, maybe three times a week in most cases.

This is church as we know it. We are comfortable with it. We don’t question it. Hierarchy and authority solves the problems that are caused by the querulous or defiant. — Sinners, of course, who make church look bad.

Look, I don’t begin to think that there is anything wrong with gathering somewhere to worship with some songs of praise and encouragement, gratefully praying for folks and other needs, reading and discussing scripture as a common reminder. Not at all. Church just means “assembly;” it’s a gathering of people with a commonality. But it seems to me that it’s become what people came up with as a comfortable substitute for the hard work of daily communion with/concern for others inside and outside of that fellowship.

The come-late-to-the-game Apostle Paul writes to Rome that worship is more than songs, prayers and sermons; it’s the way we live our whole lives:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” — Romans 12:1

You see, I’m not sure that Jesus’ intention was ever to create a new religion out of teachings that shape a lifestyle. And even if He did, then the epistle of James (probably His very close relative) reminds us:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” — James 1:27

I’m just really not comfortable with the church as we know it. I’ve spent three years doing that internal analysis that church leaders dread and call “deconstruction.” I haven’t spent much time in scripture, because I wanted to get away from hearing it the way I’ve always heard it preached — with all the preconceptions and accumulated doctrines of the centuries in between — and start hearing it as it is.

I figured that if, after studying together and attending and listening and worshiping in church as we know it didn’t at least equip me to have a sense for God’s nature and Jesus’ character and the Spirit’s presence for 65 years, it would at least include a pretty good memory bank of scripture. And three years — probably the span of Jesus’ ministry here and Paul’s initial acquaintance with Him — would not erase the core knowledge of the previous 65. (I always double-checked my memory of wording and context to be sure I had recalled it correctly. Praying? I never stopped praying.)

If that makes me apostate, then I guess that puts me in the company of many in history who have lived a monastic lifestyle — some in seclusion — to meditate on the Word and left their own impressions to enrich those who followed them. Though I don’t know that I ever felt like that was something I needed to do.

Rather, I felt like I needed to be out in my little resort town, among people, helping and encouraging and being gracious to my neighbors and our visitors. Being comfortable around folks whom others aren’t comfortable being around. Offering to help people find things they were looking for. Picking up a little trash here and there. Giving rides. Giving bottles of Ozarka water to thirsty folks strolling in my neighborhood. Opening my home to those who needed a bathroom. Or sometimes, a place to sleep. Buying and sharing a meal together. Loving folks who don’t feel loved. Appreciating people who aren’t appreciated.

That, you see, is the religion that I feel like I can observe in good conscience.

And let me say I understand that church as we know it is a great comfort and boon to the spiritual lives of many folks within it who live gracious lives the rest of the time. It fills their need, and they are an encouragement to others there. I just don’t feel like I serve well there. At least, not while questioning everything about church as we know it.

I know a good part of it is me. I’m socially awkward. Crowds can make me antsy. I’ve pretty much lost my ability to sing with age. I’m not good at accepting the status quo. I have trouble believing in structures and doctrines and limitations that have their origin with people, and not explicitly with God, expressed clearly in scripture.

I can’t preach it if I don’t believe it. And in church as we know it, you’re expected to preach church as we know it.

So I’ve come to a (literally) unorthodox conclusion:

Church is more than people in a box on Sunday morning doing a liturgy. Church is all around us, all the time, everyone we know and meet and don’t — whether they have heard of Jesus; whether they believe or not — because everyone is God’s concern, and everyone ought to be our concern too.

It’s an assembly. A gathering of folks who have a commonality, and that commonality is how difficult it can be to live this life, and how it can be made easier by caring about each other and believing in others.

And every time I think about putting church back in the box, back in the us-and-them, back in the insider-and-outsider artifice, I feel like I’m in the wrong place to really, really worship.

Freedom to choose

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

What so many of my fellow Christians fail to understand is that freedom of religion and the separation of church from state in a democracy is the ideal environment for faith to grow.

Because our faith is based on choice.

Always has been. Always will be.

From the choice of fruit in Eden to “choose you this day whom you will serve” to the great and mudane daily choices we make to try and reflect the nature of Christ, it has been our freedom to choose that’s the key.

Not coercion. Not enforcement. Not Sharia-type law.

A choice that’s forced is no choice at all. It doesn’t create a change of heart, or compel a desire to live graciously, or inspire a devotion to truth or justice or kindness or respect.

And the attitude that Christians are somehow morally superior to make these choices for others through law or compulsion — simply because we’ve have been forgiven — is ludicrous on its face. No one should have that attitude because none of us has that moral authority.

Were we asleep when we read or were taught that we are not to judge, or do we just choose to ignore it in a consistently defiant way?

And how effective is that kind of arrogance in trying to attract people while we say we are imitating Christ? Surely that hypocrisy is transparent to the most casual observer!

Did we miss the fact that scripture teaches God gave law to a new and undisciplined nation emerging in a savage and primitive environment — but it wasn’t good enough long-term to draw people closer to His nature, so grace had to be brought by His own Son? How difficult is that to understand? Law can only do so much! It was the schoolmaster until the Master arrived.

We believers have inched away from who He is and what He taught until we are nearly as far away, savage and primitive as the early era of law was from its inevitable Successor.

I’m no preacher and not even qualified to play one on TV — but these truths ought to be taught and preached and insisted upon until they are so obvious that it’s an embarrassment to deny or ignore them.

Choice, not coercion.

Faith, not force.

Compassion, not control.

Grace, not governing.

Love. Not law.

Your neighbor. Yourself. Your enemies.

No exceptions. No excuses.

If we want others to live changed lives, we need to live lives that are changed, exemplary, gracious, forgiving, generous, lovely.

You can’t make that a law.

It has to be chosen.

And maybe we need to be looking into the faces and hearts and lives of people around us who don’t believe, but live that kind of life, and we need to see Jesus there instead of in the mirror and we need to ask ourselves why.

Your religion

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

I guess you can keep on making your religion unattractive if you want to, by forcing your morality on others through law and government — rather than feeding the hungry, helping the poor, seeking justice for all, fighting for everyone’s rights and lives and health and well-being. Hey, it’s your religion, and if you want to turn people away in disgust instead of welcoming them in, I guess that’s up to you.

In the meantime, there will be a lot of us pointing out that Jesus of Nazareth never said we should judge or hate others, ignore or insult or disfranchise them; take away their voices or their votes; or that any person or group of people was better — or more loved by God — than anyone else.

He did say we should love our neighbors as ourselves; do good to those who use us in spite; to show mercy; to control our anger and our urges to say “You fool!”; to seek reconciliation; to give to the one who asks; to love our enemies; to stop worrying about food, clothing and self; and to not judge others — except in the way we would want to be judged.

And He even said that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” would really be a follower of His; but rather those who do the right thing.

That’s what He said, and how He lived, and since I find that very attractive, that’s the way I want to live. You can make up your own religion, and call it what you will, but if it doesn’t do the right thing, then it’s just your religion and it’s never going to be more attractive than your own heart.

Hey, I don’t make the rules. That’s just the way it is with people and religion and the way we live and stuff.

‘Lost’ and ‘Saved’

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Honestly, I don’t think folks are as interested in being “saved” as they are in having a significant, purposeful life.

I think if we Christians were living significant, purposeful lives that were winsome and loving, we’d have something to talk about without ever resorting to words that hold no meaning or attraction.

“Saved” is a church term that means little or nothing to someone who doesn’t believe, especially if they don’t have a church background.

It may have meant a lot to those using the term in Acts 2 — who were familiar with God’s wrath and prophecy; who felt guilty because they were complicit in the murder of the Messiah — but it doesn’t particularly hold weight today.

I think it would take a long time to set up as a meaningful term, or at least one with which people would identify.

They are already wary of the idea of a wrathful God who judges and damns nearly everyone He made and claims to love; wary of that love that seems conditional upon a litany of specific responses, but no seeming emphasis on continuing to grow better, stop judging others, accept others, forgive others, love more deeply, help others, be generous, etc. It’s not what they see in us.

And “Lost” has long felt like an insult to me. An assessment. A judgment. The very thing we’re specifically told not to do.

It’s a term that sounds like it comes from a place of superiority, even if not earned (or actual!). It’s an instant turn-off.

And “saved” is the flip side of that coin. What does “saved” mean to someone who’s been termed “lost?”

Does “saved”
mean being in the position of moral authority to judge others to be “lost?”

How attractive.

The rest of the Story

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

If the gospel you hear is all about Jesus dying and being resurrected but nothing about how He lived what He taught, you’re missing the part of the story that really changes your life.

Because it tells and shows you how to live what He taught.

How to love others as yourself, show grace, forgive, be generous, be compassionate, feed others, wash their feet, help them heal, and be self-less.

If the whole story doesn’t make you want to change your life to reflect that, then all the faith and confession and water immersion and ritual-observance is just a way to spend some time.

The whole gospel changes you. Who you are. Who you want to be. The kind of person you want to live as.

If you didn’t hear that in the good news you heard, you were cheated. You were misled. You were misdirected, maybe for the sake of conversion numbers and goals; maybe just from being taught by someone who was mis-taught and under-informed. You got a little good news, and it may have sounded like the whole thing, because life-after-death is a pretty spectacular idea.

But it’s not the whole idea. THIS life matters NOW. Other people matter NOW. How you live and who you are matters NOW.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with first framing the saying about people who are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

And there’s a point there. That outlook comes from buying into half-a-gospel; the gospel that’s good news for ME. A death and resurrection that means I get to live again.

But that doesn’t really have any meaning if life isn’t lived fully — “abundantly” is the word Jesus of Nazareth uses — right here and now. So that others whom He loves (and we should love) can benefit from that life here and now as well.

I mean, how are people going to be convinced that they matter in an afterlife if they don’t feel like they matter in this life?

Sorry to sermonize on a Sunday. I’m still no preacher. But sometimes I see other posts that feel like what Brian McLaren called “Adventures in Missing the Point.”

Rant over.

The Conversations We Need to Have

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Look, I know that I post things here sometimes that make people uncomfortable … in the deep hope that it will prod them to ask themselves why a post makes them uncomfortable.

I make no apology for that.

And I understand that many people would prefer that their social media just be filled with humor; encouragement; wisdom; photos of kids, food, flowers, pets, landscapes and unique things — rather that posts that trouble and require thinking and reflection.

I totally get that. Sometimes I scroll past the troublesome, too. I just don’t have the energy for them. Sometimes you should too.

It may seem that those posts of mine are intended to be divisive. That’s not the case. My hope is that they can spark thought and dialogue about reconsidering the values that can make one country or people or generation great.

We need to have these conversations, and this social media forum is a place it can begin.

Does it make us great for political leaders to support and encourage insurrection to defy the voters’ choices with no consequences, or to punish them with (at the very least) removal from office?

Does it make us great for our legislators to baldfacedly lie about themselves, cheat others, perhaps even steal and not face consequences, or for them to be suspended from office until justice takes place?

Does it make us great to be force-legislated into the culture and ethic of one group of controlling people — especially when it represents a particular religion —or to have open dialogue about what is right for all?

Does it make us great to teach future generations a sanitized history or to tell the whole truth about our past and present?

Does it make us great to limit voting opportunities and representation rights for a certain group of people or to give equal voice and vote to all?

Does it make is great to single out certain groups of people and label them undesireable and limit their freedom of self-expression, or to recognize the universal right to be and express oneself — so long as no violence is done to anyone?

Does it make us great to ban books for everyone that make a few uncomfortable, or to let books compete in the free market of ideas?

Does it make us great to have government decide whether a person must bear a child/children, or to let that person decide with access to specialist doctors?

Does it make us great to support a system of health care that can be good for those who can afford it but beyond reach for many, or to see to it that it is available to all without a lifetime of debt afterwards?

Does it make us great to spend trillions on war and defense (more than all of the next 10 highest-defense-spending nations combined) or to see to it that the hungry do not starve, the homeless are housed and the jobless are trained and gainfully employed?

Does it make us great to ensure that anyone can easily have as many of any kind of guns and ammunition they desire, or to protect the lives of citizens — of children in schools — by banning the kind used in the military to obliterate as many lives as possible in the least time with the least effort?

Does it make us great to let the free market pay the lowest possible wage for the highest possible profit, or establish a living minimum wage appropriate to regional cost-of-living so that earners are not burning themselves out on two or three jobs just to make a living?

We need to have this dialogue and regard it as damn important to the future — ours, our kids’, their kids’.

And we need to start making some wise choices.

Abortion for men

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

Notice that as new anti-abortion laws are passed, there are no penalties which force a man to parent.

No laws which threaten him with the death penalty if he does not. Or if he commits incest or rape and an abortion takes place.

No laws that force him to put his life on the line in order to parent a child.

No laws that set the definition for life beginning before conception, so that he breaks the law if he has a vasectomy or refuses to inseminate. I mean, life can’t begin without that, and shouldn’t the woman involved have equal say in that?

By the way, if the lawmakers (what percentage of them are men in these states?) are going to get all biblical with their reasons … are they aware that in the Bible, refusing to inseminate in that time and culture was an offense against God? Yep; check out the account of Onan:

Genesis 38:8-10

“And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.”

That’s a pretty substantial penalty for early withdrawal.

The penalty is at least diminished when it becomes part of Moses’ Levirate marriage law:

Deuteronomy 25:5-10

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

So, death before dishonor in this case. The later fellows got off easy. But at least the women were allowed their own role in imparting the deserved dishonor.

Maybe we can’t expect legislators to not write God in their own image though, when God remains stubbornly silent on the very concept of abortion throughout scripture. There is no word for it there; no description of it; and no definition of precisely when life begins.

In the Christian subculture I grew up in, Churches of Christ, we had a saying: “We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent.” A noble goal, but many of us realized the truth is that we generally speak loudest where the Bible is silent.

So do these lawmakers — and my guess is that the vast majority of them are not gynecologists, surgeons, biologists, theologians or even women. Maybe not even attorneys. They’re just good ol’ boys with farms and businesses looking to make life easier for themselves and harder for others. Especially others who are not like them, and whom they cannot possibly (and will not try to) understand.

I honestly cannot fathom the thinking behind the laws being proposed, passed and occasionally blocked by courts in some of these states.

• No exceptions for rape

• No exceptions for incest

• No exceptions for even severe fetal deformity

• No exceptions for pregnant children

• No exceptions for threat to the life or health of the pregnant person

• Severe fines and long imprisonment terms for the pregnant person, physician, or even just someone who assists in transport, and sometimes even the death penalty for the pregnant person

• Trying to extend state authority beyond state lines

Are they making other laws that criminalize a resident for going out of state to do something that is legal there? Like smoking weed? Someone who gives them a ride to do it?

Is that the long-term goal? Set a precedent in courts to create a police state run by the most authoritarian states?

Do lawmakers really expect threatening laws like these to prevent all or even most abortions when those who decided they must have one can find a way? As women have done for centuries?

And do they really want to burden the arrests, trials and penalties of these laws on those who suffer spontaneous abortion, a miscarriage?

Look, I’ve said this before and I’ve been saying it for decades: I wish there were fewer abortions. I wish there were more healthy births, more gentle voluntary termination of parental rights and more adoptions with wonderful kids going to parents who love them as dearly as Angi and I could with ours. I wish the foster care system wasn’t overwhelmed with adoptees but not enough caregivers.

And if we want to get serious about reducing the number of abortions, why aren’t we instead passing laws that support accessible healthcare for all, accessible contraception, equal educational opportunity, parental leave, a liveable minimum wage, available childcare, equal pay for women, and affordable housing? Perhaps even assist with adoption fees and costs? Things that can have a proven positive effect?

If we want to get serious sbout caring for children, why aren’t we passing laws banning assault weapons instead of banning books, libraries, school health workers and imposing vouchers?

I think we all know exactly why.

Money talks. Follow the money. Taking away rights, privileges and opportunities rarely costs money, and it can be done easily to the people who are least easily able to prevent it. And what a righteous authority rush it must give to those in power!

The Bible has a lot to say about justice, too; and oppressing the poor and disfranchised.

Funny how that doesn’t seem to affect the kinds of laws that are being passed these days in the name of what’s good and right and holy.