I told my friend Dennis E. Powell that I’m starting to believe in Skynet. Over the last week, virtually everything that could go wrong with the technology I depend on for work has gone wrong, as if it has actively turned against me. Having spent a fair number of years wrangling information technology, one thing has always provided a path to survival in those times: redundancy. Redundancy masks problems in the best of ways, much like the physical masks that are such a lightning rod in our culture today.
The state of Texas just passed a “heartbeat” bill, banning abortion procedures after the six week of pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. It also allows private citizens to sue abortion providers, and this is the part that has abortion advocates really concerned.
Time is a funny thing. Well, no, time is time. Our perception of it is where things go haywire. We’re not very well equipped to comprehend the passage of time or its implications.
This episode, the Zippy Crew digs more deeply into the Afghan Crisis and hits on several topics related to religious persecution and faithfulness. For this week’s lighter side, we also wrap up our “Summer of the Miniseries” with last looks at Tinker, Tailor and WandaVision, including a look at a scene in WandaVision that helps us think about resurrection.
A noticeable thunderstorm toddled through here a little after noon on Sunday. Nothing surprising there, nor in it taking the power out for most of the rest of the day.
I join with our esteemed editor-in-chief in lamenting what has happened in Afghanistan. For the moment, I will leave the Christian reflection to him. For my part, I see the tragedy of Afghanistan as the unfortunate culmination of long-running battles in US politics, over US military involvement.
In a lot of places, your papers are everything. Which is why it was especially alarming to hear that Joe’s new best friends, the Taliban, have been seizing the passports of American citizens in Afghanistan. In the Mideast, as in some other parts of the world, your passport is your identity. Without it, you are at the mercy of those who might not have your best interests at heart. Seizure of your passport leaves you naked and vulnerable. Your comings and goings are now no longer your decision.
Pastors in my Evangelical circles have been increasingly faced with requests to provide “religious exemption” letters to those in our churches who do not wish to be vaccinated. With the FDA’s final approval of Pfizer’s vaccine, employer mandates will likely become ubiquitous and increase the requests for these letters. Should we give them?
We can’t fix this world, but there’s hope from God — that’s a point the Zippy Crew comes back to time and again as we deal with huge geopolitical shakeups (Afghanistan), the experience of grief in our lives (and how WandaVision explores that grief) and hope found in the midst of Paul’s warnings against sin in 1 Corinthians 6. Alongside those topics, we also do a wrap up of the 2020 Summer Olympics and talk about the political machinations around two giant bills currently going through Congress.
What is there to say? Our country is governed by an ice-cream enthusiast who has combined the policies of Jimmy Carter with the presentation of Gerald Ford (if Ford had suffered rabies) along with his own diminished capacity — and he didn’t have that much capacity to begin with. In his speech Monday he sounded like that angry doddering guy on the front porch of the rest home who causes visitors to enter through the back door instead.