Category Archives: Polity

A Comprehensive Plan for Reducing Gun-Violence in America

Posted by Caleb Coy on

We’re talking about it. Here’s an outline for a comprehensive plan that involves everyone doing their part. Sure, some of it may be naive, and almost none of it was my idea. But hear me out. Here’s what I think everyone can do to reduce gun violence nation-wide. Help me tweak this. Let’s crowdsource it. If the feedback is supportive enough, we just might send this suggestion on to politicians, pundits, preachers, parents, and peew-peew peddlers.

We can call it The Ballistic Pruning Accord

[Note: All listed measures are assumed to be taken voluntarily, except those taken by government authorities. In addition, this list does not include measures already taken in most areas, such as intruder drills and locked-door policies in public schools.] Continue reading →

13 Things Romans 13:1 Doesn’t Say

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Romans 13:1 is an oft-quoted passage in Christian scriptures. A small sentence nestled in the middle of a powerful letter from Paul the Apostle to a church in Rome, these few words have been taken to mean a lot of things they simply could not mean in the context of the letter, Paul’s other letters, the entire body of New Covenant scripture, or the whole Bible. Continue reading →

Government Shutdowns, Amnesia, and Blame

Posted by Caleb Coy on

 

Winston Churchill is often quoted as having said, “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”

How true that is. The words we say sometimes become the words we must later eat. If they turn out to be true, they must apply to us. If they turn out to be false, then we are proven false. Either way, our words we must eat.

This weekend the American public witnessed a government shutdown, the first in 5 years. This is the first time in U.S. history that a government shutdown has occurred while the White House, Senate, and House of Reps. all being controlled by a single party. The shutdown is still ongoing. Continue reading →

3 Must-Read Articles I’m Sharing

Posted by Caleb Coy on

This week I found myself unable to write a post of my own, because three different articles keep coming back to me that I ultimately decided I needed to share. I think they are all very timely and necessary.

  1. from Ed Setzer at Christianity Today

    Michael Flynn Isn’t the Only Guilty One

    This article calls Christians to ask ourselves why we allow ourselves to become targets of fake news, and why our zeal is often hijacked by our gullibility. We embarrass ourselves, hurt our witness, hurt the reputation of others, and lose our mission when we are perpetually duped by fake news stories.
  2. from Jack Wilkie of Focus Press

    A Dangerous Trend in Churches of Christ

    This article, from a conservative apologetic publication, challenges Churches of Christ as children of the Restoration Movement to consider their own plea for unity. I agree that many have become rigidly guilty of defining our salvation by our own rightness, pushing salvation by precision obedience and making the burden too hard to bear.
  3. from Steve Gardner at Authentic Theology

    The Boston Declaration: 5 Problems With Them and How to Fix Them

    This blog post examines the very timely Boston Declaration crying out against “the corruption of U.S. Christianity.” As the author points out, the declaration did not do well enough to reach its primary audience, patriotic evangelicals. He lays out a method for addressing the audience in a way that will better gain their respect, and maybe even change their hearts.
I urge all Christians to please take the time to read these this week. Thank you and God bless.

from the Warblr—Will the Religious Right Wake Up on the Right Side of the Bed?

Posted by Caleb Coy on

This past weekend The Warblr chose to publish my Op-Ed. I am thankful for the opportunity.

Will the Religious Right Wake Up on the Right Side of the Bed?

“I wish I could say that the Charlottesville horror—those coddled little Nazi’s with tiki torches shouting “white lives matter” at a statue until someone was killed by a terrorist—was completely isolated from our culture, that this is not America. But it is America, because you’ve tolerated it for far too long. You’ve allowed the lunatic fringe, the alt-right, the conspiracy peddlers, and the petty rumor mill to influence you, hijack your religion, seduce your otherwise outstanding zeal.

You helped create this. Will you repent of it?”

 

#Charlottesville

Posted by Caleb Coy on

I visited the campus of UVA one when I was a kid. It was a peaceful day, and I recall it as a mostly boring tour of a pretty campus and some pretty buildings. It was a history field trip, because something about Thomas Jefferson starting the college.

I remember those awkward history lessons about how when the college was founded people owned other people as slaves and treated them like animals. We knew this was wrong. When I was a kid, I knew racism was wrong, and if you asked me, I would tell you it’s wrong to drive a car through people for no reason.
Continue reading →