10 Random Thoughts for the New Year

By Marty Duren, CP Op-Ed Contributor Friday, January 03, 2014

1. Speech is not free if the government allows corporations to do its suppressive dirty work. When speech is systematically stifled by suspensions, warnings, firings or rebukes, it is functionally as effective as an arrest.
2. Christians in industrialized cultures may be missing or misinterpreting biblical truth because they are no longer agrarian. The context in which scripture was given and received is important. We need theologians from the pasture and between the fence posts as surely as we need theologians from the pulpit and behind the lecterns.
3. I cannot find a biblical reason to be against food stamps and for corporate welfare at the same time.
4. Rational thought leads inexorably to faith in something. "Nothingness" is not an end of rationality.
5. Logic and faith are not, nor have they ever been, at odds with each other. Any "war" between them is erroneously perceived.
6. I think unions are both necessary and their own worst enemy. They are effective as a check on unbridled, undisciplined capitalism. They are their own worst enemy when infected with corruption and when refusing a wage that half of America's working poor would walk across the country barefoot to earn.
7. If the government wants to send food to needy areas of the world it should not create a bounty for agribusiness while doing so.
8. Why do so many Christians seem to espouse theology shaped by talk radio and TV opinion panels? Theology of the Airwaves is killing us.
9. I'm struck by Paul's love for the Jews. "I would rather be condemned if it meant the salvation of my national kinsman" is a workable paraphrase. That is quite the love.
10. The Bible is the most verbally cherished and practically ignored book in the history of writing.

And so it goes…

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