Two things I want to highlight in today’s diary:

First, I started in on Brandon Sanderson’s fifth “Stormlight Archive” book, Wind and Truth, last night. The book just released Friday, and I’ve been waiting eagerly for it since I finished book four in September. I first started in on “Stormlight” last March, and powered through all four books over the course of the year. I usually don’t like most high fantasy, as I find it derivative and the world building incoherent or weak. But I love this series. Sanderson is a meticulous and, most importantly, radically original world builder. These books are unlike anything else out there. I’d recommend the books highly, but be aware, reading them is quite a commitment. Each book is north of 1000 pages, and this most recent release clocks in at almost 1400 pages. But, they are definitely worth every page of the read!

Second, my good friend Justin Bronson Barringer wrote a powerful critique of the heresy that is Christian nationalism over at Good Faith Media, titled “Serving Two Masters: Why Christian Nationalism Betrays the Kingdom of God.” Justin is responding to a recent Newsweek piece by Russ Vought that tries to sand the edges off a movement and idea that presents what I think is one of the biggest threats facing both the church and America today. Here’s a quick preview of Justin’s argument:

The kingdom of God is characterized by self-sacrificial love, humility and a refusal to coerce others, even for ostensibly good purposes.

In contrast, the kingdom of the world—whether organized under nationalism, globalism or any other ideology—relies on power, coercion, and, often, violence to achieve its aims.

This fundamental divergence cannot be glossed over by appealing to the Bible’s stories of Israel or the rhetoric of America’s founders.

Give the whole thing a read.

I was very struck by this quote from the book I’m reading, Romans Disarmed, by Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh:

“Sometimes it seems to me as though biblical authority is appealed to only when the church wants to beat someone up.”

Ain’t that the truth. We only seem hear about the “inerrancy of Scripture” or the “authority of the Bible” from fundamentalists and Christian conservatives when it comes to condemning LGBTQ+ people, or women in leadership, or some other transgressor of traditional cultural norms. Never do you hear the inerrancy of Scripture when it comes to caring for the poor, welcoming the immigrant, or condemning the wealthy and the powerful.

It’s almost as if its not about fidelity to Scripture that is at the core of their concerns.

I really have no problem with conservative Christians. I just wish their commitment to using the faith as a weapon against the culture would extend itself to areas that the Bible spends a lot of time actually talking about, like justice and wealth and a concern for the least and the hurting.

I was going to write this morning about the Packers loss to the Lions tonight, but then I woke up this morning and read this morning the summary of Amnesty International’s accusation of genocide by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza. Here is the key paragraph from the write-up:

The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza. 

I really think this is the defining moral issue of our time. What happened to Israel on October 7th was terrible, and obviously they had a right to respond. But, they fell right into the trap Gaza laid for them, overreacting and turning world opinion against them. Israel had wide moral latitude post-October 7th, and very quickly overran than ground. It’s hard to look at pictures of Gaza dn read stories of innocent men, women, and children there, and not feel like Israel could have – should have – handled this differently.

Further, in the moral accounting of this situation in the future, I think the United States, and President Joe Biden, will come in for harsh, and rightful, criticism of their role. We’ve enabled Israeli atrocities. The blood of thousands of innocent Palestinians is also on our hands.