As our democracy slips away, we continue to wonder how this could happen. A new study sheds light.

Poland also is tending to elect authoritarian leaders. A new study there of 2,000 voters revealed people do not all agree on what democracy is.

The word “democracy” is popular, but many people have no interest in the elements of democracy, like protecting the rights of minorities and freedom of the press.

Turns out Jesus was right again. He divided the world into two groups: those who love humanity as God does, and those who love only their own group.

“If you love those who love you, what reward do you get?” he asks.

He tells us anyone can do that. It comes naturally.

Jesus says we must love beyond the bounds of our own friends and family.

Jesus ministered to the outcast, the marginalized.

We know some who put us in our present danger were simply uninformed. All they knew was the price of eggs.

But many, as the study shows, simply do not love or even care about the neighbor who is different.

They have no interest in the rights and needs of those Jesus called “the least among us,” those who are vulnerable, powerless.

They don’t care who gets hurt if it’s not them.

But there may be a change coming. It looks like everyone will get hurt except the billionaires.
The evil now loosed seems all-consuming.

Again, Jesus warned us, “Do not expect good fruit from a bad tree.”

Most people may come to see it: This rotten apple will hurt all of us.

Yes, worship is at 11:00.

This Sunday, I will talk about something much of the church has failed to get right— salvation.

And much of the church fails to get salvation right because they fail to get God right. Many ministers are very confused about God.

They will say that “God is love,” for John clearly tells us that. But they also preach that God is vengeful and full of wrath.

Even some parts of the Bible get God wrong. Revelation tells us God will pour out “bowls of wrath” on humankind.

God will not do that.

There is no wrath in God. And how do I know this? In two ways.

First, Jesus tells us.

He says that God loves even His enemies. He says that God is “kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.”

Dumping bowls of wrath is not kind.

Second, our experience of God tells us that God is love—always love.

I know thousands of accounts of religious and near-death experiences in which people meet God. No one has ever met a God of anger. No one has ever met a God who would want to hurt us.

Millions of people have gone to heaven briefly in near-death experiences. They have not seen one bowl of wrath there.

Yes, I know. Even the blessed Paul mentions “the wrath of God.”

That’s why it is essential that we put Jesus first in reading the Bible.

That is the only way for us to get God right.

Now, how does salvation look without the wrath? Who is saved?

My sermon Sunday: How Did She Get In?

It’s about a Jewish woman who receives a welcome from Jesus during an NDE.

Sunday at 11:00. Join us, in person or online.

Ah!—now we know.

We’ve been so troubled, trying to make things make sense.

How could they do that?

Let children die in Africa.

End research on cancer in children.

Drastically cut aid to veterans.

Rob from the poor to give to the rich.

Side with the aggressor against the victim.

What, in the name of common decency, is wrong with them?

Then the Car Guy said it out loud. He told us what he is fighting against.

Empathy.

He said empathy is destroying civilization.

There is too much of it, he says.

Empathy is the ability to feel the pain of others.

It is the essence of love.

It is the heart of morality.

It is the foundation for the Golden Rule.

“Do unto others—”

When Car Guy said to get rid of empathy, I remembered.

These guys can’t feel the pain of those dying children because they are sociopaths.

Bless their hearts.

They can’t help it. That’s how sociopathy works. Look it up.

A chief trait is the inability to feel empathy for others.

So, stop expecting them to suddenly hear the cries of grieving mothers and change their ways.

Won’t happen.

They are not going to feel your pain.

Nor the pain of dying children.

But I can’t help wondering: Why are so many Christians attracted to sociopaths?

Looks like they would know better.

+++

Hey! Let’s do something good. Let’s go to church this Sunday.

Worship is at 11:00.

Forgive me for playing the same note on my harp over and over again, but notice needs to be taken.

It is a big thing—the loss of our democracy. The disruption in thousands of lives.

The deaths of children in Africa. And in America, if the present agenda goes through.

I knew that people would show up sad last Sunday, two days after Mr. Zelensky was attacked in the Oval Office.

I did address our obvious sorrow in my sermon and lamented again that so many Christians had helped to bring us to the dark place we are in now.

My mind goes back to the ’50s and ’60s. (Yes, I am old enough to remember those days.)

Racism was the norm in the church. This means that most people in the pews and preaching from pulpits did not truly accept Jesus’ teachings.

But surely, we are much better today. I think not.

Human nature has not changed. Many Christians today are as resistant to the teachings of Jesus as people were back then.

Matthew 5:28-48 is like lost scripture for many Christians. It seems not to exist. For many, the words of Jesus against vengeance and retribution carry no weight.

The unconditional love of God for all people is still not popular.

We know this because of where we are today.

No one who truly knows Jesus Christ would have chosen this.

Yet millions who claim the name of our Lord do, still, support this darkness.

But when it gets dark enough, all (or most) will see that the lights are out.

A change will come.

Evil does not win.

Lord, we trust in you.

It was a hot summer day.

A few women of the church and I were sitting around a table, folding bulletins.

Janice walked in and said she felt like she was going to pass out crossing the hot parking lot.

“Oh, that feels so funny,” said Nita, “looking down on your body like that.”

We stopped folding.

We knew there must be a story. Nita said:

Well, I passed out once. My husband and I were in a hot New Orleans eatery in the days before air conditioning.

I passed right out—fell out of the booth onto the floor. Then I was above myself, looking down on myself.

I saw people rush over to help me.

But I could see only the upper part of my body. My lower body was under the table. I was really worried.

All I could think about was, ‘I hope my skirt is pulled down.’

Then I got my breath, and I returned to my body.

After that, Nita thought “passing out” meant leaving the body.

She had never heard of out-of-body experiences.

Nita was able to see herself—and to think from a place outside her brain.

Take this seriously.

This is a common event.

Events like this—if we are truly reasonable—force us to consider the reality of the soul.

The Nita watching the body on the ground was the real Nita.

If she had died, the real Nita would have left her body behind and continued with her life. The body is not us. We are eternal.

We talked about this in class last Sunday. If you would like a Thursday evening Discovering God class, let me know.

Come. Grow in hope.

Worship is at 11:00.