The Voice of Reason

My dad told me something about my grandpa once.  My grandpa was an orphan; he didn’t see a picture of his birth mother until his late 60s. My grandpa had an inimitable wit, a charming sense of humor, a wife he loved and devoted himself to tirelessly for over forty years, and eight children. What he did for a living I don’t think there is a name for anymore; he was a repairman, engineer, inventor, and tinkerer. What job title his employer, GE, had given him I don’t have any idea. He was a Jack-of-all-trades, just as handy with wood as he was content with a beer in his hand. He was loving, delightful, no pushover, a man through and through, and a devout Catholic. He looked like Frank Sinatra when he was young and a bit like John Wayne when he got older. I got to know all kinds of things about my grandpa. It was impossible not to learn about the man if you were around him, because he was so genuinely himself at all times. I got to learn all about him because my dad liked to tal

"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts..." The dominant understanding about what 'sin' is among non-Christians, lapsed Christians, and far too many practicing Christians is that 'sin' is primarily a list of things that are "bad to do." Though this understanding isn't wrong, it is woefully incomplete after childhood ends. If this view of sin never matures, than we encounter a host of confusion in our lives, are left baffled by apparent tragedy and failure, and will never grasp the first things about human nature. Under this understanding, Christianity as a whole quickly becomes absolutely prohibitive and cruel. Take homosexuals, for example. You've got these two men who seem really, really , nice. They appear happy and functional. They are patient and civilized, even in the face of judgmental accusations of "sin" hurled at them. And to top it all off, they believe they are in love . What stands in the way of