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Showing posts from June 2, 2024

"The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt. A Review

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  The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt Penguin Press ISBN: 9780593655030; March 2024; $30   There is this creeping feeling that things are amiss, which keeps snagging our perceptions and catching on our minds. Some people shift the blame to this or that political party to explain the trouble or fault the stupidity and lameness of “those younger folk”. Most of the time much of the blame and assertions are prejudicial anecdotes with very little research or factual analysis. That’s where Jonathan Haidt comes in. Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is also the author of several valuable works and papers, such as “ The Righteous Mind ” and “ The Coddling of the American Mind ” and other compositions. In March of 2024 he published “ The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Me...

Communion of Saints

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  [This was my letter to my congregation today - 5 June 2024] Here is a little something to contemplate and let move around in your heads and hearts. In Romans 12:3-8 (as well as all of 1 Corinthians 12) Paul states that we are a body, and that means that each body part has God-given abilities and functions. He then announces that each of us have Jesus-given gifts that are to be used for the good of our congregation. “ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them ” (Romans 12:6). This goes along with what Paul states in 1 Corinthians 12, “ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good ” (12:7).  Part of our assignment, then, is to employ and engage the gifts we have; think through ways we are to be involved with each other for the larger good of our congregation. Now, there are seasons of life when other things restrict us from doing this – like raising little children or caring for aging parents, for example. But as soo...

"Our Father..." - 2 June 2024

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  Our Father Who art in heaven : we come to you trusting and rejoicing that you are our Father through Jesus Christ, and that you will answer us, as promised, with as much readiness as, and more readiness than, our own earthly parents. And we trust that we may expect from your almighty power all things necessary for body and soul. Hear us, Father, as we pray. Hallowed be thy name : Enable us rightly to know, reverence, magnify, and praise you in all your works through which shine forth your power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth; and likewise, to so order our whole life, in thought, word, and work, that your name may never be blasphemed but honored and praised on our account. Thy kingdom come : Preserve and increase your Church, to include this congregation and these churches in the greater OKC area: Christ Family Church, Christ Temple, Christ the King, and the Christian Center. So govern us by your Word and Spirit that we may submit ourselves unto you always more ...