7 Takes Towards Wisdom, Sanity, & Cake

No Jesuit Tricks, Honor and Shame, California Water Politics, The Wisdom of God, The Desecration of Narnia, Don't Die, and Psalm 42

[Sorry to be so late this morning, and sorry about the background noise in the recording. There are a lot of young people here going in various directions. Also, I was up late at a fun Missions Meeting instead of writing for today, which is why I didn’t keep my promise about a Two-Part post. You can blame Jesus for disarranging my plans.]

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash —My Mental Health Is Worth This

It’s Friday! And it’s snowing. And some of my kids are going away for the weekend and need to find snow pants and other garments of that nature, so I am, as usual, in a rush. And I had not intended to do Takes, for I have many thoughts, as I said yesterday, about the Netflix Documentary Don’t Die, but there are a couple of items that came up yesterday that I would also like to comment on, rather briefly.

One—I was very grieved to see last night that No Jesuit Tricks, an account that I have sometimes followed, was not forthright about his academic credentials. Even more upsetting, though, is that he is convicted of sexual immorality of a gross and wicked kind. You can read a long account of it here. He did not share this information with his Anglican church and so was allowed to preach sometimes and participate in other kinds of ministry.

It is such a hassle to go through all the rigamarole of background checks and being licensed and other kinds of so-called hoops to do work in the church, but on a day like today I am reminded to be grateful for them. I hope No Jesuit Tricks will repent and believe the gospel, for it seems he has simply erased himself from the internet.

Two—This is a discouraging time when well-known people sin so publicly and then don’t say they are sorry but dig in (like Steve Lawson). I was listening to someone recently who was remembering that in the past when a person publicly “failed” even if it wasn’t his fault—like some battle was lost or all his inferiors mismanaged everything—he still took responsibility and resigned. When did it happen that public officials stopped resigning in the face of catastrophe and negligence? And how much more should it be the case that someone resigns when the offender is a Christian and a pastor.