As you may have noticed, in my former essay I used Economics 101 and Economics 202 as “handles” to depict capitalism as it was envisioned by Adam Smith in 1776 and how it has been corrupted in subsequent centuries.
In my recent reading of Marcus Peter Rempel’s book, Life at the End of Us vs. Them (2017), I found some help in understanding the story of capitalism, especially the fact that capitalism seems to have flourished best in those parts of the world influenced by Christianity.
To say that 2018 has been a momentous year is an understatement. Indeed, it has brought out some of the best and the worst in people around the globe.
Borders are front and center these days. We are told that a country without strong borders is not a country at all.
For much of my life I have conflated Jesus, born in Bethlehem, with the cosmic Christ through whom the world was made. It is only recently that I have come to see that “Jesus and Christ are not the same.”
In my previous essay, I reflected on the similarities of the moves toward authoritarianism in Germany in the 1930s to that happening in the United States of America today.
While travelling in the United States recently I was at the same time working my way through Eric Metaxas’ epic biography of Diedrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, (2010).
Miriam Toews has done it again. She has written a novel with a “not so subtle” purpose of speaking to issues of brokenness within the human condition; this time in the Old Colony world of Bolivia, South America.
The more carefully I listen to fellow Jesus-followers, and my own heart, the clearer it becomes that most of us struggle to maintain an active and consistent prayer life.
I was born in the West where, in my early years, I was known as “Jackie.” Being “western,” I absorbed western notions about Christianity in the little country church I attended with my family.
