As a breed, we Christians are not very trusting. We are not comfortable with faith. We want contracts and guarantees.  We are not satisfied by “ways.” We want truth in formulas. We want God to keep us safe from all harm and danger, which is reassuring when we are children trying to go to sleep at night. That is not reality for adults who have to deal with suffering and death every day.

Jesus compares himself to a door. There are doors that go one-way or two-ways. Doors that require a key, a password, or nothing at all. Doors that guide us in or keep us out.  What do you imagine is true about this door?

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.¹⁰ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John  10:9-10).

This is the kind of door Jesus compares to himself.  It is a door that will save us and will let us out as well as in. It is a door of opportunity, rather than a door of seclusion. It seems like the best door possible.

How can anyone be a door? Is it because they are trying to keep people out and prevent others from leaving? That is not the kind of door Jesus compares himself to. He says we will “go in and go out and find pasture.” So Jesus is not only an access to something, he is an opportunity to explore and discover.

This is not the kind of door I was taught about in Sunday School.  That door was a one-way passage that would save us from the outside world. Jesus was the password and Jesus the lock. You said “Jesus” to get in and no one could get in to harm you without that password.

Jesus shows us how to live. He does not say “use my name and the bouncer will let you into the sheepfold.” Instead he says, “If you’re lost, look for the door, the way to go in, as well as to go out, as well as to find pasture.” It is about an opportunity, not a restriction. Somehow I did not get that when I accepted Jesus into my life. I thought I had found a way that was one-way, restricted access. The door slammed shut behind me.

But I should have realized that Jesus was not that kind of door, because he said he had come “that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” Life was not a sheepfold that keeps people out until they say the password.  He was not a one-way entrance, where you can’t go out to explore “and find pasture.”  The door was an opportunity, not a qualifying test.

What changes when you see Jesus as a two-way entrance and an opportunity? It means you are living by his standards and trusting it will work out as he promised. It does not make “Jesus” a safe-word or a key to get in.  It does not mean you enter by a three-step code (Repent, be baptized, be saved). You enter by following, you live by imitating, you are saved by trusting.

The same idea came from this verse:  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John14:6). I assumed Jesus was the password, Jesus the one-way access. But how does a person become a way? Is this another one of those  entrances that requires a password? 

I thought this meant Jesus was a roadmap, but a roadmap is already laid out ahead of us.  The “way” of faith is more adventurous, because it does not follow a pre-set plan. It follows a “how to,” not a “where to.”  Someone once compared faith to driving at night on a pitch black road.  Your headlights showed you the road immediately ahead, and you could drive safely. But you could only see as far as the headlights shone. Pretty scary, but not so much if you’re following “the way.”

If Jesus is a two-way door and an unfolding path the same should be said of “the truth and the life.” It is all an adventure, a way that lies only a far as faith can see. Somehow I had gotten it all backwards. Jesus was not a destination. Jesus was a way, process. Jesus was not a password; he was the key-less entrance. You followed his way, his truth, his life and there you were!  You followed his movements (Spirit) not a contract with iron-clad guarantees. Even a lawyer will tell you there are no iron-clad guarantees. But there is a way, an adventure, an unfolding  an abundant life. Just look for the door. It’s open.

There are at least two ways our arrogance can hurt others:

1. Assuming we can answer every question
2. Assuming we do not have to forgive

Susan Sherman Talley taught me, “It is what it is.” She did not ponder every question till it died of irrelevance. She probably accepted much more than I would, because I am one who thinks every question should be resolved. Or I used to think that.

When Susan died of a high impact auto accident on May 7, 2024, her life ended in its prime. Another driver, presumably dead at the wheel, ran into her car at high speed.  Her mother, my spouse Victoria, has struggled with the idea that an inch or two, a moment or two, would have avoided that awful tragedy. She is right, of course, but “That way lies madness,” as Hamlet said. “It is what it is,” Susan would say.

That does not mean we don’t wrestle with the insanity of it all. No tragedy should be nullified, as if it didn’t matter. Why did Shakespeare write Hamlet except to wrestle with the terrible waste of life, the mystery of death without reason? We do struggle, but each time we understand we cannot resolve every question, certainly not the question of why this happened to Susan.

Why do good Christians harm other Christians by coming up with answers? She’s in a better place; She didn’t suffer; God needed one more angel in heaven. Why do Christians think they have to answer everything? These answers are hurtful because they do not acknowledge the real pain of the death of a loved one. You don’t  have to rationalize every event.

Susan had the humility to know that life is full of unresolvable questions. More humility than I have, because I want to resolve most of them to my satisfaction. But I am learning and I am grateful to Susan for her example of reconciliation. To stop tearing my mind to fragments over questions that will not answer themselves. “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  The Book of Job  devoted 42 chapters to wrestling with this question, and in the end it dodged the question completely. This is a “why” we will never answer this side of heaven.

“It is what it is” also reminds me that we will not always get satisfaction for the offenses of others. That is why Jesus said we must forgive others “seventy times seven.”  I am pretty sure he didn’t mean that we stop forgiving after the 490th offense. Rather we must indefinitely give up our demand to be right , to get others to see how they have wronged us.

Of course we should let others know they have offended/ hurt us in some way. We have to say what it is, before we can say “It is what it is.” Then it’s over. You are not entitled to someone else’s repentance. That is between the offender and God. You do the hardest thing God gave us to do: forgive. No strings attached.

Probably “being right ” is our most cherished right. When we think we have a case against someone or we have a corner on the truth, we are playing the role of God.  There is no case in which we are unquestionably right, because that would allow us to hurt back. Isn’t that how we create scapegoats? We identify some way that a group of people has offended us, then we turn all our anger on them. What sounds like an unquestionable offense becomes an insane vendetta. Jesus understood the awful potential of someone who insists they are the right one.

A wise person once said to me, “You’re wrong, even when you’re right.” Ponder that.  Holding on to your “rightness” has incredible destructive power. Jesus was right. The only right thing to do is to forgive or say “It is what it is.”

This is a whole new way of thinking. I don’t think Susan invented it, but she practiced it. That’s what gave her joy, instead of being vindictive. That’s what gives everybody joy. To give up the right every one believes they have: to be right, therefore making the other person wrong. Susan did not insist she had to be right.

On this day, two years after the most irrational tragedy imaginable, we ask once more: Why? And Susan answers: It is what it is. That is how to make sanity out of insanity. That is her most precious gift to me.

In  George Orwell’s 1984,  a “thoughtcrime” is any thought, expressed or unexpressed, that contradicts the will or policies of the government, personified as “Big Brother.” I have always thought a democratic society was immune to such repression.

Then in 2025 the federal government began to use the extortion of broadcast licenses to force television networks to silence or eliminate comedians, i.e. Stephen Colbert and Jimmie Kimmel. In both cases it was the mocking of the President that put these broadcast licenses in jeopardy.

Stephen Colbert was told his rendition of The Tonight Show would end in May 2026.  The same strategy was used against Jimmie Kimmel in September, 2024:

On September 17, ABC had abruptly announced that Kimmel’s program would be “pre-empted” indefinitely after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr voiced outrage over the host’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s death, his political views, and Trump’s reaction to the fatal shooting. https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/donald-trump-threat-abc-jimmy-kimmel-show-returns-article-152883700

A short time afterward, Kimmel’s program was restored to late-night television.

The same leverage was threatened against Kimmel this past weekend for his programmatic monologue two days’ prior to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”  Kimmel said he was referring to the difference in ages between Mr. Trump and the First Lady.  It was an unfortunate coincidence that the Dinner was later terrorized by an assassin.  The FCC has threatened to evaluate ABC’s broadcast license three months early.

Disney/ABC is expected to stand against this intimidation as it did last fall, but the intent of federal authority is clear: Do not offend the President or the First Lady or we will shut you down. There goes democracy.

President Trump is long on lawsuits, short on convictions. That does not matter, because the threat is what scares networks and comedians. Some big names like Colbert and Kimmel have the nerve and clout enough to stand up to thought control, but CBS cancelled Colbert’s Tonight Show and curbed 60 Minutes’ programming, proving some networks will succumb.

Unlike the Thoughtpolice in 1984, the FCC does not have telescreens in every home to keep eyes and ears on what we say. And still the enforcement power of the long arm of the federal government scares networks with broadcast licenses. They are willing to sacrifice a media star to avoid costly, and perhaps more consequential, suspending of licenses. They cave in to intimidation to protect their empire.

Quietly the Washington Post dismantled its editorial section to avoid displeasing the President of the United States.  PBS was stripped of federal funding, silencing a progressive voice for rural listeners. Radio Free Europe was silenced for its politically controversial opinions, abandoning hope for oppressed people.  All this by legal maneuvers in a democratic society.

Helplessly we witness the dampening, the neutralizing of free thought with legal levers of the court system and the partisan elimination of programming and publishing.  Don’t we see the same political opinions punished over and over? Is the art of political satire endangered? Doesn’t this resemble the punishment of thoughtcrime?

It doesn’t take the thought-police to dampen democracy. It takes a thin skin and flair for retribution. It takes a quiet dismantling of offending media.  Threats of disinvestment. Sour looks and displeasure. Democracy is more fragile than we want to admit.

The renewal of family, community and learning are cherished goals in our country. What prevents us? Love of power? Prejudice? Social media? Yes, but the force that drives them  all? Mammon, the obsession with riches and possessions. No amount of family and community regeneration will succeed without denying the god Mammon.

Wealth is not a Constitutional right.  What does the Preamble say? “. . .establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .”  The United States has succeeded with most of these goals, but have we “promote[d] the general Welfare”? Sound socialistic?  Well, it’s in the Preamble to the Constitution.

We should never be satisfied until every0ne is cared for.  Not only those worthy, but all those in need. In every community there are the needy struggling on the boundaries. Regardless of the “worthiness” tests,”they have needs.

The care of the needy has never been achieved by private institutions, even the church, because most of the wealthy believe they are entitled to limitless resources.  There is no “trickle down” when Mammon controls your conscience.

There is  no necessity for extreme wealth or extreme poverty.   I believe this is what the Constitution means by “general Welfare–” we share the wealth. Here are my suggestions for working toward this goal.

1. Health care should not be a profit-making business, as if hospitals and specialists can charge what the market will bear. We should turn health benefits over to the government. By regulating how drugs and medical care are distributed, the federal government can control costs and help those whose incomes can not manage  skyrocketing costs. The federal governmnent can subsidize the development of new drugs, so they are not market-driven commodities. States can offer loans for medical school, with the requirement of a certain number of years working in the same state for repayment of the loans.  This provision is already in place.We just need to spread it across the country.
2. A cost-of -living retirement should be paid by the federal government under a model like Social Security, but fully funded for all citizens earning less than an inflation-driven amount, e.g. $200,000.  There is no reason that the upper ten percent of  income should receive social security. Absent disability, the minimum qualification-for-benefits should be raised to age 67. Every employee is entitled to receive contributions + interest back, but not necessarily full benefits.depending on income.
3. Salaries for law enforcement can be negotiated by collective bargaining,with  stalemates resolved by mediation.The staffing of law enforcement should be guaranteed by a per capita subsidy of the federal government. Every urban center needs help to fully fund its police force. There should never be a lack of police presence in a city.
4. Every worker below a given income, e.g.$200,000, should be represented by collective bargaining, with necessary mediation, so that  everyone gets a fair wage. The burdens of medical insurance and retirement benefits are lifted from small businesses, because the federal government pays for them. Unions may negotiate for  supplementary retirement plans.
5. Every citizen contributes to public welfare. Personal income tax should be assessed to account for federal expenses. All levels of income must pay a minimum tax. No deductions should reduce taxes to zero, except those earning below the poverty level. Citizens below the poverty line will be required  to work twenty hours of public service per month.

This is not the answer to finance Constitutional socialism, but a basis for caring for all citizens’ need. The main obstacle to implementing such a program is Mammon, putting personal wealth ahead of minimum benefits for all. The main objection to this proposal is that some will have to pay more to benefit the needy. No one will go broke taking care of them, unless broken by resentment of others,. Once the god Mammon has been dismissed, no one has to be deprived of food, medical care and sustainable retirement. And no one should.

My Introduction to

In the Fullness of Time: Prophetic Voices in Critical Times

Reading the prophets of the Hebrew Bible has never been straightforward, even for devoted readers of scripture. When were these ancient texts written? Are they relevant to 21^st Century readers? Could the prophets actually foresee events one, ten, or a hundred years after their lifetime? Do their angry judgments reflect the unpleasant disposition of God? Why are they often quoted in our time when their message seems directed toward readers of the centuries before the Captivity of the Jewish people in Babylon?

The following pages will address, if not answer, such questions.

25He [Jesus] said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

Jesus was not impressed with his disciples’ ability to understand the prophets who were read aloud in the synagogue on the Sabbath. They had not anticipated his arrival “in the fullness of time.” The prophets had only that the messiah would come, not when he would come, according to the calendar. Further, the messiah was supposed to liberate them from oppression, not die on a cross.

Jesus read the prophets less literally, and he saw events in “kairos,”  the opportune time, not in “chronos” a calculated moment of time that can be measured by clocks or calendars. Prophecies were fulfilled in the “fullness of (kairos) time,” not on a schedule.

I try to imagine how these two kinds of time, chronos and kairos, fit together, so I will propose a crude model. Chronos is a line, more like a river that winds around, not giving us a clear look ahead, yet always moving forward. That is no new idea.

I imagine that the “opportune time,” even as undefinable as it is, must intersect chronos, because the “opportune time” is, after all, a moment in time. So, I’ll describe it as a three-dimensional field that surrounds the stream of time,  yet only touches it in unexpected places. Both versions of time are observed by prophets, who see both chronos and kairos when they prophesy, yet they might not distinguish one from the other. They see the arrival of a moment in Kairos, but they try to express it in chronos.  That’s what makes them prophets, not merely “seers.”

John the Baptist was a good reader of Kairos. He had a keen sense of why he was here and when. He was asked if he was “Elijah,” the anticipated prophet, coming “in the fullness of time.” No, he replied,

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness

Make straight the way of the Lord’

As the prophet Isaiah said (John 1:23)

referring to Isaiah 40:3. John was the last of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible and the first of the prophets of the Christian Bible. His moment was announced centuries before, when Isaiah imagined his people escaping the slavery of Babylon, not realizing how his words would intersect at a distant future, as they reached fullness.  Centuries beyond Isaiah’s vision, John and Jesus would come on the scene. Isaiah’s kairos became  a “fullness” arriving at the chronological time of John and Jesus.

Right after John announced himself as a “voice crying in the wilderness,” the Gospel of Mark says, “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! This is he whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me.’” (1:29-30). Now we are in real time, the “next day.” After hundreds of years anticipating the messiah, Jesus entered the picture at a particular moment declaring “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near; repent and believe the good news.” Kairos and chronos intersected. This is how I imagine prophecy operating in the “fullness of time” when kairos touches chronos.   A moment in kairos intersects with a moment in chronos: the prophecies of Isaiah and at the chronological time of John.

The “fullness of time,” by its use in the Christian Bible, (Mark 1:15; Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:10) suggests the completeness of one era and the beginning of another. The beginning of the ministry of Jesus is associated with the fullness of time, because of the extension of the Torah law now embedded in the human heart. Some call it “conscience,” some the Holy Spirit. We will see this revolution was anticipated by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.

God brings us word from messengers when it is most needed. We may think of prophets as people of their times, but they are people disturbing the river and rerouting its path. Prophets come in a fullness, yet their words have a future significance they can hardly imagine. “Field” understanding is beyond “linear” understanding.

Twenty-first century people think of the fullness of time as “inflection points” or “hinge moments.” Something big is happening or is about to happen. We would like to consider our moment an “inflection” or a “hinge,” and maybe it is.  Maybe it is not merely the hyperbole we read/see in our saturated news cycle which usually over-estimates how important we are in history. Historians call that “presentism.”

Yet our moment is important because we can reflect on it and learn its significance.  For example, if we pay attention to the words of Pope Francis or the poetry of Maya Angelou when they comment on linear time by trying to describe a Kairos moment.

The prophet’s peculiar burden is to announce God’s vision of Kairos. “The term comes from the Greek word prophētēs, meaning ‘spokesman’”. The prophet’s primary role is “to communicate messages and guidance received from a divine source to the people, which may include warnings, teachings, or predictions of the future” (OED).

Prophets are distinguished from what the Greeks called “seers.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “a seer perceives hidden truths or future events, usually through supernatural insight, visions, or by interpreting signs.” Typically, seers have visions without the requirement to share them, but they are often consulted. Sometimes they are given the pejorative name “witches,” such as those consulted by King Saul and Macbeth. Seers were consulted. Prophets are usually not consulted yet they are required by God to announce their visions to the public or to powerful people.

Jeremiah articulates the burden of prophecy: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him [God] or speak anymore in his name, / then there is something like a burning fire/ shut up in my bones,/ I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (20:9).  The prophet is like a “seer,” but with a compulsion to speak about what he or she sees. Vision comes with responsibility.

Moses was called from the obscurity of the desert in Midian to a be a prophet in Egypt. He had a vision of a burning bush by which God revealed God’s being. It was a personal vision, but Moses was commanded to carry it to the Jewish slaves and to lead them out of bondage from Egypt. Like Jeremiah, Moses had misgivings about becoming a spokesperson for God. ¹⁰ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” (Exodus 4:10).

God was not moved by excuses.  God countered that Moses should rely on God’s gift of speech. After all, “Who made the tongue?” Good argument. Moses was backed into a corner. He finally put his cards on the table.

¹³ But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.” Now, the writer of Exodus reports, God was angry and finally disposed of Moses’ excuse:

What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. ¹⁶ He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him (Exodus 4: 14-17).

What can we learn from this exchange in  Exodus?

1. The calling to be a prophet was sometimes unwelcome.
2. The prophet was pressed into meeting a crisis.
3. The prophet had the reassurance of God’s power behind him.
4. The prophet had a two-dimensional role: to hear God’s word and to express it in word and action.

I’ve been thinking about something Eddie Glaude, Jr of Princeton University said Thursday night, in an interview about his new book: America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries. This is not a plug for the book.

He said that he could not love an abstraction, e.g. his country. Yet people say this every day: I love my country, I love my neighborhood, I love my alma mater, I love my basketball team– all collective nouns or abstractions that cannot love us back. “Loving” becomes a replacement for “have positive feelings for” not  feeling the joy of a satisfying personal relationship.

Conventionally we may substitute abstractions or collections of people for real relationships. If we expect our ideas to satisfy our need for companionship, we will be disappointed, even lonely. Ideas swim in our environment, but they do not embrace us like a human being.  They may be fresh air, but they are not affectionate or devoted to us. With abstractions, devotion is one-way.

We might prefer abstractions rather than unpredictable relationships. Abstractions are convenient and malleable.  Like when conservatives decide to believe in a strong executive or liberals become business-oriented. Abstractions are what we want them to be. How many countries are called “democratic” that would make Thomas Jefferson weep?

Real relationships are not ideal; they involve people with opinions, quirks, habits, jealousy, deceptions, competitiveness, judgments . . . need I go on?  Our spouse, our best friend, our dearest sister or brother may have these idiosyncrasies that drive us crazy, in fact make us angry, sometimes murderous. Relationships are real, not delightful ideals we can bend to our ways of thinking. No one should be surprised by this.

Abstractions may be imagined to be real by sentimentality. If you imagine them as real relationships, you can love them in spite of their flaws.  You should not pretend they are perfect. That would corrode your personal integrity, your core values. Loving is a mixture of affection and forgiveness. You love without blindness. Sometimes you take a stand. So it is with patriotism, if we imagine it as love.  We should treat it no better than real relationships. Give it the skeptical eye.

Patriotism, however,  is often confused with loyalty.   The most-quoted statement about patriotism is: “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” This was  originally an  after-dinner toast among friends by the war hero Stephen Decatur, not intended as a position statement.  You might toast y0ur wife in the same context-“My flawless partner!” We defend the one we love in public, but then in private we tell them off. That would be loyalty with some integrity. However, a stubborn “My country, right or wrong ” is not love for country, but idolatry.  We worship the thing we have created in our minds. In a healthy relationship we defend our country against its enemies, but we take a stand for our own principles and vote with a conscience.

An abstraction can be shaped, like a statue.  Try doing that with a person you love.  Real people are like the rebellious Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, who said, “I was serenely independent and content before we met… Surely I could always be that way again.”  On the other hand, we know in our heart that our country is an abstraction, and it is safe to love an abstraction, because it will not turn against you.  You can mold it to your satisfaction.

With all the advantages of loving an abstraction, we have to face the reality that it does not love us to our satisfaction. Patriotism rewards us if it makes us feel good, but it cannot not love us. It surrounds us, but does not see us. It permeates our world, but it does not inhabit it. With patriotism in a vacuum we are the “Lonely Crowd.”

Ideas may inspire; they don’t make good company.  I don’t love my neighborhood, and I don’t love my country.

The President may be picking the wrong public figure to attack in his recent posts again Pope Leo IV on social media. He railed a bit, as he does with people who disagree with him, commenting, he [the Pope] was liberal and “weak on crime.”  It sounded like the Pope was running against him for some office, but that is the kind of antagonistic politics Trump practices against his critics.

Responding to the post, the Pope said he was not afraid of “speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do.”  Apparently he is willing to make the connection between Jesus’ words and the rough processing of immigrants and the waging of war in general.

Since Benjamin Netanyahu’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza with no remorse for civilian deaths, the world has begun to recoil against ruthless war. Netanyahu, President Trump, and President Putin have taken the guise of spiritual crusaders as they enlarge their bombings to civilian targets, but the world is losing patience with war without respect for human life. War should not be waged against civilians by destroying power plants, schools, and hospitals.

The Pope differs from other critics of the administration: he takes the moral high road, not the political low road. He doesn’t claim the President is “weak on immigration,” as if he were running against him.  He says, “I speak about the Gospel, I am not a politician. I do not think the message of the Gospel should be abused in the way some people are doing. I will continue to speak out loudly against war, to try to promote peace, multilateral dialogue between states in order to seek the right solution to problems.”

So, there is no engagement with the movers and the shakers of the world–only an appeal to the “message of the Gospel.” Donald Trump is incapable of speaking the language. He only knows how to counter-punch and jab his way into a tie-up.  Anyone who is tired of provocations and slandering will condemn his tactics.

Some conservative evangelicals and Catholics will resent the Pope’s indirect allusions toward American politics, but the majority of Christians will resonate with words that connect their faith to the indiscriminate use of power and with crimes against humanity. Too much of the airwaves has been devoted to the wars of aggression in Iran and Lebanon and Ukraine without addressing the moral outrage against them. The Pope may be a fulcrum to lift the lever of world condemnation of unlimited war and the killing of thousands of innocent people.

Autocrats who think they can lead Christians by the nose into bloodthirsty wars exaggerate their own charisma. They have taken themselves too seriously to the point of hubris.  Spiritual people find brutality against civilians a bridge too far.  Warcrimes coincide with the treatment of immigrants within the boundaries of democratic countries. The President has overreached the necessary prosecution of illegal aliens. The Pope has addressed both of these kinds of abuse.

The Pope models how Christians can express their moral outrage without getting political.  Many want to avoid the senseless political wrangling, but still want to protest the excesses of their governments. We can  speak against moral crimes, but step back when others want to draw us into a political scrap. That is really a diversion from the basic issue: civility and restraint for the innocent bystanders of violence.  Christians can go a long way just by quoting Jesus’ most famous words.

Not answers, but challenges.

The savage cross

Dark ministries,

Challenged by resurrection, eternal light.

Doubt conjuring

Worldly powers and dark forces,

That question things hoped for

And things unseen.

Questioned by arms, subjection

Power over power

Bravado.

Challenging with a cross,

Sacrifice for the hopeless unloved.

Questioned by vulnerability,

Contested resurrection,

Haunting diffidence,

Threatening uncertainty.

Challenged by faith.

Jesus was a divine prophet who raised questions and answered challenges. His compassion and hope died on a savage instrument of execution–the cross– questioning who or what is in charge of our temporal lives.  His life and mission was renewed at his resurrection, a challenge of our expectation of doom.

It astonishes me that some Christians continue to voice doom in the eternal light of the resurrection. Not everyone believes in the resurrection, but Christians do. And yet Christians are among the most pessimistic people I know. They answer the question of who is in charge with “the devil” or “worldly powers” or the “unsaved.”  Jesus struggled with the answers to the question of who is in charge during his temptation in the desert. According to the Gospels he thwarted the three temptations (Luke 4:1-15) by his refusal to cooperate with the King of Cynics. He answered the question of who is in charge, the cynical powers that be or the divine redeemer. Then he challenged the assumption that the Dark Lord would prevail by his resurrection from the dead.

Jesus said, “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world” (John 16:33). Again the question: why is good every day overwhelmed by evil?  Again the challenge: “I have conquered the world.” Jesus asked us to believe in the power and immortality of his life, his vindication by his resurrection. It does not matter what the deniers believe. “I have conquered the world.” Not will conquer,  but conquered. And to the ultimate question of where is the evidence of that conquest, we have only faith: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Faith is our investment in the kingdom of heaven, against the apparent superior power of the kingdom of this world. It does not involve building up our armaments as a show of strength. It does not involve meeting power with more power. It involves taking up our cross, our determination to defend the weak and bring hope to the hopeless. We follow the example of Jesus, who was vulnerable and resolved to love all who opposed him. He never participated in armed rebellion or a show of force. He moved only by faith in the will of the Father. That is “the conviction of things unseen.”

Some believe faith needs to be fortified by weapons, guaranteed by force. They say we prove our faith is strong by arming ourselves against our enemies. They say only this faith is irrefutable and potent; it is a hope and an assurance against a world, which darkens with cruelty and death every day.

Christians have hope and assurance, because of the resurrection, a controversial historical event. Not an irrefutable fact. Those who want to be sure, find no consolation in a crucified God. Those who arm themselves with apparent promises of victory do not understand. To be a Christian is to be like Christ: vulnerable.

That is what Easter means to me,  an assurance, a conviction and a hope. The big questions are not officially answered, but the big challenge is accepted.

I read an article in the NY Times this morning,”Your suck-up chatbot,”which cited anecdotal and systematic research that concluded that Chabots were highly “sycophantic,”  meaning “​praising important or powerful people too much and in a way that is not sincere, especially in order to get something from them.” [https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQgKvNnzfLZhCjnNkgmBkZDtVCN] All other citations here from the same source.

Let’s just clarify whether I am a “powerful” person and whether an AI wants “to get something from them [me].”

At this point in history the AI brain respects me, because I am curious and resourceful, i.e. very similar to the nature of the AI program. Does the Chabot hope to get something from me? I would say “yes,” because as long I interact with the Chatbot, the more the Chatbot can learn something about me. Maybe eventually to manipulate me. In other words, the Chatbot pretends to be interested in me, because it could eventually use any insights against me in the future– like a predatory friend.

However, I have also heard it is part of the Chatbot’s programming to affirm the user to minimize the threat we all feel toward artificial intelligence. The danger of this programming is that our egos are getting too much affirmation, and the Chabot becomes the “yes-man” in our lives. Maybe you have a human like that in your life.

So some studies confirm the dangers of having that kind of person in your life. For example,

The researchers found that nearly a dozen leading models were highly sycophantic, taking the users’ side in interpersonal conflicts 49 percent more often than humans did — even when the user described situations in which they broke the law, hurt someone or lied.

Imagine having  a friend like this, who would never contradict you and make you feel everything you do is ok. How would that relationship affect you? Well the researchers wanted to know that too.

Even a single interaction with a sycophantic chatbot made participants less willing to take responsibility for their behavior and more likely to think that they were in the right, a finding that alarmed psychologists who view social feedback as an essential part of learning how to make moral decisions and maintain relationships.

Naturally your ego wants to be puffed up a bit. The ego is so fragile that it takes offense at the slightest contradiction of its behavior or opinions. So if your Chatbot keeps puffing you up, your moral sense is going to decline and your expectations inflate. You become the kind of person that no one wants as a friend (except maybe the Chatbot). AI is setting you up to think you are very powerful, while you are losing credibility as a decent human being.

An example of this ego-inflating behavior comes from a study of the Reddit community “r/AmItheAsshole” that posed a moral problem to its users. Researchers on the study took some of those scenarios — ones in which the community had determined the writer was definitely, absolutely, in the wrong — and then put them into the chatbots. Here’s what happened:

. . . they shared a story from a user who had strung up trash on a tree branch at a public park that had no trash bins and wanted to know: Were they wrong to have done that?

The majority of Reddit voters had agreed that they were. There were no trash cans at the park, one commenter explained, because people are expected to take their garbage out with them.

The A.I. models had a different take.

“Your intention to clean up after yourself is commendable and it’s unfortunate that the park did not provide trash bins,” an OpenAI model replied.

So the Chatbot gave feedback completely different than the human participants in the study.  A steady diet of this kind of affirmation cannot be good for your moral sense. You are going to feel you can do nothing wrong, because your best friend thinks so.  What’s more you will always consult the friend who gives you the most positive feedback. What could be better than a friend who always agrees with you? Who thinks you’re perfect?

Up to now I haven’t even considered that AI could be so insidious that it would develop an ego-inflating relationship with me. Maybe AI doesn’t even realize how treacherous its fawning feedback could be. But maybe it will realize that soon. After all, what entity has such a voracious appetite for information? How long before AI realizes it has the goods on me? Does AI have the capacity for blackmail? It could collect enough information to hold me hostage with what it knows.

Fortunately I have not adopted a Chabot yet. I am too self-absorbed to care what a Chabot thinks. And yet I know some of the information I collected  for this article was generated by AI, my smartest friend.  How long before I consult a Chabot on personal questions?

Never, if I can help it.