A Fresh Perspective

In the first paragraph after the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:13-16), Jesus’ disciples are directly addressed as the salt and light of the world. Light as a metaphor hardly needs comment; salt may be less obvious. Salt functioned as a spice as it does today, but it also functioned (in an age without refrigeration) as a preservative. I suspect both meanings are intended. Disciples of Jesus can have a preserving function in our world by living according to the wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of the world (the domination system). Communities of disciples of Jesus can help preserve some of the virtues and qualities so essential to our true humanity, like compassion, mercy, justice, humility, honesty, etc. And these qualities do need preserving. John Pierce, editor of Baptist Today , in a recent editorial told about coming across a historical marker along the Tennessee Riverwalk that chilled him as much as the cold wind and falling temperatures he was walking in. It was Preside...

Conservative analyst and commentator Charles Krauthammer in a recent piece in the Washington Post lamented that in striking down DOMA the Supreme Court enumerated equal protection as one rationale for their decision. He argues (rightfully so) that the rationale of equal protection will lead eventually to nationalizing gay marriage.  We have turned a corner. While conservative states will rev up their stands against gay marriage as they did when the Supreme Court ruled segregation laws unconstitutional, their ultimate defeat on the issue of gay marriage is inevitable. Just as there are key transitional stages in biological evolution, so we have now entered a transitional stage in our spiritual and moral evolution, at least in our part of the world. Recent polling indicates that in some estimates as much as 80 percent of the younger generation now supports gay marriage. What’s a conservative to do? In an excellent piece in Baptists Today executive editor John Pierc...