The Latest From Our Blog
By the end of October, we will be celebrating Halloween. Costumes and masks are a part of those celebrations. It is all in fun. There are other times when costumes and masks are not about fun. In the age of Internet communications, it seems like we assume anonymity, as if no one will know who…
In Sweetwater, Texas each year there is an event called The Rattlesnake Roundup. People go out to the countryside to capture all the rattlesnakes they can find. Like any kind of event like this, there are some strange categories for prizes. However, besides reducing the population of these poisonous snakes, they also milk the venom…
Preachers often preach “fire and brimstone” sermons. The most famous sermon of the First Great Awakening in America was entitled“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The Second Great Awakening made frequent use of the mourners’ bench where “sinners” in need of repentance were placed just below the preacher’s podium and they were supposed to…
How do we respond to hate? Can those who hate be appeased, allayed or accepted for who they are? In his classic book on the psychology of social systems, Failure of Nerve, Ed Friedman used the physical systems of our bodies as an extended analogy of the different systems that make up human society. Friedman…
If you grew up like me, you may struggle with the idea of pride as a good thing. I looked up the word recently in my old-fashioned dictionary. Five out of six definitions described pride as a positive thing. The first one, however, made it a synonym of arrogance, a false sense of superiority. For too long…