Among the many words whose overuse tires me (inflection point, iconic, deconstruction, intersectional, trauma) is the word binary. Used as an adjective, binary means “compounded or consisting of or marked by two things or parts.” As used in our culture, it tends to have to do with mutually opposed ideas, concepts, or realities. A light switch with its on/off reality (a light can’t be sorta on or sorta off) is binary. But in our culture, to describe something as binary has come to take on a  moral tone. It turns out that being binary may be good or it may be bad depending on the context and the speaker’s perspective. For some, to assert a binary nature to sex and gender is a very evil thing to do. For others, progressive and populist, to understand that this year’s presidential election is binary in nature, pitting ultimate good against absolute evil, is a very good thing to do.

What we used to call either/or is now called binary, and we apply the term indiscriminately and with inappropriate moral meaning. In fact, the state of being binary is one of those “just is” realities, in and of itself devoid of moral weight.

To be sure, the Bible has its share of either/or, binary, propositions. “Either serve the gods across the river, or serve the Lord,” Joshua told the people. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” he said. (Joshua 24:15) “It’s either mammon or God,” Jesus said.  (Matthew 6:24) Discipleship is not always a fluid thing. We either follow him or we don’t.  In the end, you can’t be a sorta Christian. Continue reading →

With this year’s conference starting on Monday and no invitation in the mail, I’m beginning to think that once again I have not been invited to the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  The AP reports, “More than 60 heads of state and government and hundreds of business leaders are coming to Switzerland to discuss the biggest global challenges during the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering next week, ranging from Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The likes of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and many others will descend on the Alpine ski resort town of Davos on Jan. 15-19.”

It’s not just that I would have enjoyed the Alps and the cocktail parties with such interesting folks, it is that the theme of this year’s conference really interests me.  The theme is “Rebuilding Trust,” and the WEF says the meeting will “provide a crucial space to focus on the fundamental principles driving trust, including transparency, consistency and accountability.”

Trust.  The loss of trust and the need to rebuild or restore trust is a concern of many. I wrote about it over a month ago, and if that is where Bill Gates and crew got the idea for this year’s theme at Davos, they are welcome to it. Continue reading →

It happens every year.  We send out a batch of Christmas letters and a few weeks later the post office returns a couple of them, or a family member writes with the sad news that a once-a-year friend had died.  It happened this year.  A son wrote that both his parents had died in the past year. Nam was in his 80s and Lin, perhaps a decade or so younger.

Nam and Lin and their three sons – well, two of their sons; the third was their American baby – came to the United States as refugees from Vietnam during the Boat People crisis of the 1970s.  The story of their escape was one of great drama and danger as they became separated at sea and not reunited until months later at a refugee processing center in the U.S.  In time, the church in Oregon I would serve in the 1980s sponsored the family and provided a home for them in a small house on the church grounds and a job for Nam as church custodian.  Nam would serve the church for nearly 40 years, and I shared eight of those years with him.

I have been thinking about Nam since we received the word of his death.  I had forgotten what a good friend he was.  Nam was a tailor by trade but had been a bartender on an American base during the war years.  His English was good enough to take drink orders in an officers’ club, but sometimes difficult to understand in deeper conversation.  But we had deep conversations.  I had deeper and better conversations with Nam than with anyone on the ministry staff or others on the support staff. Nam was a friend. Continue reading →

Sunday will be the last day of the year and the last day of my term as ad hoc interim pastor at Ossian First Presbyterian Church in Ossian, Indiana.  Retrospectives on 2023 abound online, so I will confine myself to a retrospective on my 20 months at OPC, as the congregation calls her.

Just after Easter 2022, I received a call from the chair of our presbytery’s Ministerial Committee.  A good friend, he told me the story of one of our congregations that had just gone through a difficult separation with their pastor.  Would I be willing to moderate their upcoming session (board of elders) meeting?  Sure, I’d be happy to give a Tuesday night to a church in need.

The third Tuesday in April 2022 became 20 or more Session meetings as the elders worked through the immediate and then the longer term “what next?” questions, and, in time, called a congregational meeting to elect a pastor search committee and then, some months later, another meeting to call a new pastor. Continue reading →

Becky and I are with family this week, and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!  Perhaps sometime in the next two or three days you might find time to read these accounts of the Nativity as told first by Luke and then by Matthew:

Luke 2:1–20

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Continue reading →