Commentary

I reject the existence of an all-powerful and all-knowing god if it means abandoning human free will. But does rejecting the god of supernatural theism require the rejection of the reality of god in its entirety? No. But it does require a different understanding of the reality of god and the characteristics of omnipotence and omniscience.

We’re now manipulated by information from all over. Hackers on both sides of the Ukraine war, for example, jockey to influence its outcome. Feeds from global social media draw viewers by the millions. How much of the information we imbibe is accurate? How much is generated by artificial intelligence? How much is just plain lies? Most importantly, how do we know?

Thousands will crowd into the Stateline Speedway event center in Post Falls this weekend for the Re-Awaken America tour, a far-right political event that cloaks in ridiculous evangelical fervor an agenda aimed at restoring Donald Trump to power and sending to the sidelines all heathens who reject their pseudo-Christian lunacy.

In a time when the public voice of Christianity is predominantly fundamentalist and predominantly anchored in reactionary politics, it is water in the desert to hear someone speak as the Queen did last Christmas and as she did so many times before that. I will miss her witness as a disciple profoundly.

I squint hard to see something special in rude and crude people I too easily want to dismiss as not worth the trouble. Because they are trouble. Yet, like Matt, I have found they have value, too.

As a rule, mysteries are my novels of choice. But lately, a friend has been giving me other books that have no semblance of mystery in the sense of a genre; rather, mysteries of life. Two have had a profound influence on my thinking during the past month.