Midlife Meditation

Portrait of Faith: Victor, Elam Sr., Elam Jr., Colena, and Frances Anderson, c. 1932. Christianity was never meant to be a legacy faith. Reading the oldest portions of the New Testament, it becomes clear that the first generation of Jesus' followers never expected a second generation to arise. In Mark 9:1, Matthew 16:28, and Luke 9:27, Jesus says that "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power." In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul counsels the church to practice celibacy, so as not to be caught in flagrante delicto by the parousia . Of course, the Second Coming never happened, at least not in the way it was expected to, and every generation of Christians since has had to find a way to live eschatologically in a world that isn't going anywhere. The evangelical urgency of the gospels--of converting the entire world in fear of the wrath to come--lost much of its edge as churches had to shift their fo...

News from the world of science: conservatives (and liberals too, let's be inclusive here) are hard-wired to hold their political beliefs. According to the research quoted in this article, conservatives have a much higher "negativity bias": stimuli that they find annoying, disgusting, threatening cause them to shrink away. The article speculates on possible evolutionary roots to this tendency, notes that this distaste for the other actually creates happier people who are more content with the status quo, while liberals tend to be more neurotic, and conclude with a plea for liberals and conservatives to stop trying to convert each other and make peace so Congress can go back to getting things done. My first reaction to these ideas was simply this: Vindication! I've been saying something like this for decades. My experience of butting heads with conservatives long ago taught me that arguments are only persuasive to people who are already sympathetic to the ideas bein...