The Pastor's Ponderables

Many have already commented on the government's separating children from their parents when they come seeking asylum at the southern border. Many have noted that it is immoral to take children from their parents, often literally pulling them from their arms, and taking them someplace where nobody knows.  Not even the government seems to know where these kids have been taken, and the parents have no way of knowing if they will ever see their kids again. Many have said all these things, and I have thought I would most appropriately say nothing at all since others have said it so well. Except, to be silent is to assent to the act, and I can't do that.  Worse yet, Attorney General Jeff Sessions quoted scripture out of context in order to justify this abomination.   So, let me lay out my reasons for condemning this practice.   First, the stated reason for it in the first place is to discourage people from coming to this country and bringing their children. Let...

All the talk about the Supreme Court’s ruling on the baker who didn’t want to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple has got me thinking back a few decades. About 30 years ago, at the height of the AIDS terror - that is, when everyone was truly terrified and did not understand what was going on, and an HIV diagnosis was seen as a death sentence - I was in seminary.  As part of my studies, I had to do something called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) which was essentially a chaplaincy internship. We saw all conditions of people in that gigantic hospital, but the unit that struck the most fear in the hearts of doctors, nurses, and everyone else was the AIDS unit.  In those days, nobody knew how it was spread, so everyone gowned up, wore a mask, and put on gloves.  The chaplains were also told to do so, which sparked long and heated discussion.  One student chaplain argued that he wasn’t even sure we should visit them since they had brought their illness upon themse...