A public record of some of my thoughts. Feel free to comment, but don't expect me to respond.
The culture continues to get more coarse, while alleged social conservatives say, “Oh, isn’t that awful” and do nothing. Except they don’t quite do nothing. They continue to watch. And, often, allow their children to watch.
As I tweeted this morning, “It’s not good enough to complain afterwards. It’s time for decent people to send the #NFL a message and pledge to #turnoffthehalftimeshow next year. We’ve had way too much of this.”
During my early years as a Christian, I attended an Evangelical church that knew little and cared less about denominational distinctions. When I started to get more serious about theology, and first became acquainted with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I learned a little about the history of Presbyterians in America. It’s not a thrilling story.
The Presbyterian church split north – south over slavery. Years later, during the fundamentalist / modernist controversy, both the northern and southern churches split conservative / liberal. The two liberal branches then reunited, while the two conservative branches remained apart.
This is, of course, a simplification of the history of the “split Ps” in America. Presbyterians have divided into lots of different denominations. There’s even a funny song about it, which I wasn’t able to find on YouTube.
I was reminded of all that when William sent me this article. United Methodist Church Announces Proposal to Split Over Gay Marriage.
The “United” Methodists are going to split into conservative and liberal branches.
We’re often told that there was a time in America when mainline, Protestant Christianity informed the moral conscience of the nation. Whether that was ever true or not, it seems there’s another side to the story. The moral conscience of the nation likes to rip up and reorganize churches.
Today it seems the moral suasion is going mostly from the culture to the church, rather than the reverse.
The Senate is supposed to vote soon on whether to call additional witnesses in the impeachment trial. Some Republicans might join the Democrats in calling for witnesses, which creates the possibility of a tie vote.
It’s not clear that Roberts should have the tie-breaking vote. While it’s true that the Vice President usually presides over the Senate and breaks ties, and the chief justice presides over the Senate in this case, it’s not an exact parallel, and legal scholars differ on whether Roberts has the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote.
I predict that if it comes to that, Roberts will assert that he does have the authority, and he will vote to call more witnesses.
IMO, he doesn’t have much of a choice. If he votes to call witnesses, that doesn’t prejudge the outcome, it simply prolongs the trial. If he votes not to call witnesses, that ends things, and would be seen as partisan, which is apparently the monster that lives under John Roberts’ bed. He’s deathly afraid of seeming partisan.
On another impeachment matter, let’s say Democrats somehow get the votes to removed Trump from office. Does that prevent him from running again and getting elected to a second term?
That would be high theater.
I’ve asked Ted Cruz, who’s doing a very interesting podcast on the impeachment saga, but I doubt he’ll answer me.
I heard a great quote this evening.
“We’re not against elites, we just want better elites.”
P&C review Sam Smith’s Strawberry fruit ale, which is wonderfully full of strawberry flavor, and quite delightful.
Then the boys think about some of the odd ideas people have that they don’t seem to have thought through all the way.
They discuss proposals to …
… and wonder if these people spent any time thinking through their ideas.
Give a listen here: Have you thought this through?