City of the Mind

  We know that Russian propaganda works by identifying existing points of fracture in a country and amplifying those fracture points by promoting certain narratives.  The “America is in decline” narrative has been around since at least the 1960s.  Some trace it back to the Civil War and Reconstruction as an expression of white southern resentment over the loss of their privileged status.  Nevertheless, the America in decline narrative has proved false again and again.  By the 1990’s the United States was the sole superpower on the planet, able to project itself anywhere in the world by means of finance, economics, military might, and soft power (notably popular culture).  In the 2010’s, when the moaning and complaining for the political and religious right was beginning to reach a fever pitch about how everything was breaking down in America, the United States was still by far the biggest economy in the world, the richest country, t...

    When we talk about Jesus we often talk about Jesus and his disciples, and usually when we say “disciples” we mean the men called “the twelve disciples.”  And the four Gospels certainly spend a fair bit of page space on them.  But the crucifixion highlights a whole other group of followers of Jesus, one that remained faithful to him even when the twelve abandoned him.   When Jesus was led off to be crucified, none of his inner circle of twelve were to be seen, except for maybe one—but I’ll come back to him later.   The followers of Jesus who did not abandon him were the women.  Let me read for you what each of the Gospels says about who was at the cross when Jesus was crucified.   [Besides the soldiers and those mocking Jesus...] There were also women there looking on from afar who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons o...

                    "God helps those who help themselves": a saying often quoted by well-meaning Christians, and often attributed to the Bible, but actually found nowhere in the Holy Scriptures.  In fact, "God helps those who help themselves" stands in opposition to the core message of the Bible. So, where did this saying come from? Part I: Theory                   The origins of this saying are in Classical Greece, around the year 600 B.C.  The earliest evidence for the saying is in one of Aesop's Fables.  In the Fable of Hercules and the Waggoner, a wagon gets stuck in deep mud such that the horses cannot pull it out.  The wagon driver cries out to the god Hercules for help. The god appears and chides the wagon driver for just kneeling there and praying....

              Christianity has a problem: doctrine.  But it is not doctrine as such or the content of doctrine that is the problem.  Rather it is what people think doctrine is, what it has come to be used for, and its disconnection from its spiritual roots.             The role of doctrine—and its true spirit—is to provide guidance to spiritual seekers to come to spiritual insight. However, its application and development over the centuries has often had less to do with helping people move toward insight, and more to do with the desire for uniformity and the perceived needs of leaders in the Church and the society of the day to exercise control over their underlings.  Thus, doctrine was estranged from its roots and spirit, and has rightly become the object of scorn and alienation that it is now for so many.    ...