“Tough Issues, True Hope” by Luke Davis

Christians are regularly denigrated for believing Biblical teachings that were broadly accepted by the general culture less than a decade ago. The pace of change in the culture, powered by sea changes in news media, entertainment, the business world, and large parts of political and governmental authorities, seems so accelerated that it often bewilders even those who accept the changes uncritically. And this seeming rejection of Christian values has accompanied a rejection of the values of Western civilization generally. 

Multitudes of books have been written and read to understand what has happened and, equally as important, to respond and deal with the change. Luke H. Davis, as a high school teacher of Biblical ethics, has witnessed and experienced the changes. He also has to help the students he teaches to understand and deal with the issues that seem to confront them, and all Christians, at every turn. 

And he’s created a navigational aid, Tough Issues, True Hope: A Concise Journey Through Christian Ethics. In short, succinct, and conversational chapters, he’s assembled and summarized the main issues where Christians find themselves in conflict with the culture. Each issue is summarized, its Biblical position discussed, and then questions provided for further discussion. Davis uses clear, easy-to-understand language, writing a book that’s as suitable for high school and college students as it is for adults in the workplace, the home, and church. That’s no simple accomplishment.

The list of issues is staggering and begins with one that many Christians are unaware of – words and language. Words and language matter tremendously and can be used not only to illuminate but also to propagandize. (I can still remember when newspapers referred to “pro-life” and “pro-abortion,” until they evolved into “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice.”)

Luke H. Davis

The issues Davis considers includes technology and social networks; diversity and unity; abortion; murder and capital punishment; euthanasia; suicide; disabilities; bioethics; gender; marriage; divorce; pornography; same-sex marriage; and more. He even discusses the concepts of stewardship as they relate to the individual, the workplace, the environment, and immigration (legal and illegal). 

It’s a daunting list. It’s daunting even to consider how Davis researched and considered each issue. Equally impressive is the tone of the book; it’s not condemning or strident, but honest, candid, thorough, and loving. A non-Christian reading the book would likely miss how much care and love went into the discussion.

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017).

Tough Issues, True Hope is one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of culture, issues, and Christianity. It’s comprehensive without a deluge of details. It’s highly readable. And its solidly grounded in what is pre-eminent for believing Christians – the word of God.

Related:

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

My review of Litany of Secrets.

My review of The Broken Cross.

My review of A Shattered Peace.

Poets and Poems: Ailbhe Darcy and "Insistence"

We live in a time when the boundaries between the public and the private have blurred. Wittingly or not, we’ve surrendered traditional notions of privacy to the large social media platforms, not to mention the assorted activities we undertake daily in e-commerce. Everyone, it seems, is in the data collection business – our data. 

Similarly, the lines between the public and private spheres have blurred as well. Politics have reshaped friendships and family relationships. The great issues of the day seem to demand that everyone must take a position and private actions to solve public crises. We hear that immigration, environment, climate change, populists vs. elites, health care, and more require our committed response and action.

Ailbhe Darcy is an Irish poet currently living in Wales. She was educated in the United States and spent time in Germany. She’s attuned to the issues on both sides of the Atlantic. In her new collection Insistence, she’s asking questions. What do these issues mean for my private life? What is my responsibility as a poet? What is my responsibility as a mother of a child?

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

“One: Unity in a Divided World” by Deidra Riggs

I am Facebook friends with a considerable number of Christian writers and poets. Many of these friends I have met face to face, talked with, had deep conversations about serious issues with, worshipped with, and prayed with, together and in a larger group. Over time, as relationships grow and develop, you believe you know people, or know them better.

Then came the presidential election of 2016. I discovered that, for many of these friends, I didn’t really know them at all. Ferocious anger, rage, hatred, outbursts, disdain, and even sarcastic snark poured out all over my Facebook newsfeed. One friend, a minister, said on Facebook that you couldn’t be a Christian and have voted for Donald Trump.

It turns out I didn’t really know my Facebook friends after all. It was disheartening and discouraging.

It is this response to the election that kept recurring as I read One: Unity in a Divided World by Deidra Riggs. Riggs also feels and grieves the division and divisiveness in the church, but she’s experiencing it from a different vantage point. But she always has good, important things to say, and I knew I would learn from reading her new book. And I did.

In One, Riggs is talking to and with the church. Using both Scripture and personal anecdotes, she addresses the deep divisions, the lashing out at each other, the intense political arguments – all that stuff on my Facebook newsfeed. What she says is that we are supposed to be known by our love – not by wearing “Make American Great Again” baseball caps or how many “#Resist Trump” groups we join. Sadly, that is not what’s been happening.

“Our identity is who God sees when he looks at us,” she writes, “and God is not a politician.”

What are the things that divide us? Attitude. Perception. Race. Income. How we understand evil and injustice. Fear. Politics (always politics). Culture. History. We put God into boxes of our own making, without realizing that God is always bigger than those boxes. Far bigger.

Deidra Riggs

Of all the divisions that exist between Christians, race is likely the most stubbornly resistant, and by a wide margin. We still worship largely as white churches and black churches, Riggs says, and the situation hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. There’s a lot of history to be overcome. That division is a loss to all of us. We are all made in God’s image, she points out, and God doesn’t make mistakes.

Riggs devotes a chapter to discussing the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, a black teenager shot by a white policeman. Two competing narratives emerged out of that death, one considering Michael Brown as victim and one considering Brown as thug. Riggs went to Ferguson in the days after the shooting, and was profoundly affected by what she found there.

I expected to be challenged and jarred when I read One. And I was. She quotes groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that raise my hackles. But perhaps that is the point – perhaps some issues require groups to be out on the edge to gain attention and for the issue to be taken seriously. Sometimes you need people in your face to understand that there really is a problem here.

Riggs is a writer and speaker. She's previously published  Every Little Thing: Making a World of Difference Right Where You Are. She's spoken at Tedx conferences and women's retreats, and is the founder and host of the One Conference. She and her family live in Lincoln, Nebraska.

One is well worth reading and digesting. It provides insights into some of the thorniest problems faced by the American church. It points to possible solutions. You don’t have to agree with everything it says, and you probably won't. But you will see the value it offers. Deidra Riggs and I might disagree in a number of areas, but we have the important ones – and the important one – in common. And she is well worth listening to.

Related:

My review of Every Little Thing.

The web page for One: Unity in a Divided World.

Top photograph by James Maxon via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.