by | Apr 11, 2024 | Uncategorized
The American Solidarity Party is a small but growing alternative to the Trump-Biden race.
Charlie Richert would really like to stop voting for his dad.
But in the last couple presidential election cycles, the 30-year-old attorney in Indianapolis has been unable to square his conscience with picking either the Republican or Democratic party nominee, so he’s resorted to writing in a name.
“There’s no way I can escape having my faith inform how I vote,” said Richert, a nondenominational Christian who grew up Republican. “Unfortunately, we’ve been kind of stuck in a doom loop of candidates at the presidential level that I’ve just not felt comfortable voting for.”
This year, he’s not drawn to alternatives like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Cornel West. “Maybe I’ll write in Abe Lincoln this year. Sorry to my dad, but a new name to write in would be fun,” he said.
He recalls seeking to convince his classmates in an eighth-grade mock election that they should support Mitt Romney, but his chagrin with the Republican Party’s presidential nominee tracked with the ascension of Donald Trump.
In a year when both major party presidential candidates are viewed unfavorably by a quarter of Americans, many find themselves less excited about the two options at the top of the ticket. But, like Richert, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to go for third-party options.
The third-party candidates running in 2024 span the ideological spectrum, from independents Kennedy and Princeton University professor Cornel West to Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Then there are the more obscure party or candidate options—the Prohibition Party, Andrew Yang’s Forward Party, Maryland politician Jason Palmer, and that man in Texas who changed his name to “Literally …
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by | Apr 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
CT’s outgoing Asia editor recalls how God led him to America, toward the Christian faith, onto the internet, and outward to serve the global Chinese church.
I was born in southwest China, in the Ganzi (Garzê) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. Only a few days after birth, I was sent to Chengdu, the province’s capital city. My sister and I were raised by our grandmother while my parents, both medical doctors, were sent by the Communist Party to the rural Tibetan area many high mountains away from the city, where children could not get a decent education.
I knew at a very young age that I had to get outstanding grades to enter college and avoid living in the cold and poor mountainous area. I studied hard and excelled in school.
At age 16, I went to Shanghai to study chemistry at Fudan University, one of China’s top schools. This was in the 1980s, after China had opened its door to the world. At this time, Chinese universities were quite liberal and tolerant of free thinking, and Fudan was known as one of the most “Westernized” universities.
In college, I began to rebel against indoctrination into official Communist ideology, and I wanted to learn more about Western thought and culture. But my worldview had been influenced by years of atheist education. I thought I did not believe in anything and had no interest in any religion.
After graduation, I went back to Chengdu and started to work in a research institute as a polymer scientist. After work, I played a lot of mahjong, gambling late into the night, but I was unhappy in my heart. After the crackdown on the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, I was heartbroken and lost. (I witnessed similar forms of violent suppression on the streets of Chengdu.) I sank into deep darkness and hopelessness. I could not find an answer to my heart’s questions, and life became meaningless …
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by | Apr 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
Christian writers and artists need communities of like-minded creatives so we can best serve both the church and the world.
I can remember the moment small literary magazines entered my life and established a subtle but dominating influence. I was talking with my dad about some classes I was taking at the end of my undergraduate years, and I shared an idea that had recently popped into my head: “I want to start a magazine. I’ll invite some friends who like to write and are into photography to feature their work. I’ll print 10 or 20 copies and see what happens.”
Surprised, he pointed at a maroon-covered, finely printed journal lying on his desk, the word Image emblazoned across the top. Below the title, a description: Art. Faith. Mystery. As the dean of students at a Christian liberal arts university, he knew his way around a landscape that I was just beginning to roam.
The direction of my life was permanently altered at that moment. I found a world that took seriously the things I loved: faith, books, imagination, the creation of culture, and the development of craft. It lit a fire in my chest.
But ten years later, it feels like that world is crumbling—or is at least on quaking ground. In February, Image announced it was shuttering after 35 years of operation for financial reasons—and then, in March, joyfully reversed its announcement after an outpouring of support. Other small magazines and presses haven’t made the same comeback, and Christians in the Visual Arts announced it was disbanding last year.
From my vantage, these closures don’t demonstrate a lack of energy, talent, or interest in arts and literature in the church. In some ways, the arts and faith movement—led by writers, painters, poets, and photographers who live by a drumbeat not usually highlighted in Christian community—seems …
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by | Apr 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
The book reminds us that life is unjust, but so is the gospel of God’s grace.
Life is unfair, and that is a problem.
All humans seem to have an “unfairness radar” that goes off whenever we encounter senseless injustice. From trite examples provoking our frustration, such as someone cutting us in line, to those that deeply grieve us, like a young mother of three fighting terminal cancer, we mourn with an acute sense that the world is not as it should be. Or consider unfairness on a global scale, as the news barrages us with unrelenting reports of armed conflicts and natural disasters—as we struggle to register the staggering counts of individual lives upended or ended by relentless forces of harm.
Last year, a terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel killed 1,200 unsuspecting people and made another 253 people hostages, followed now by over 31,000 reported deaths and an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In the same year, a series of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria killed nearly 60,000 people, injuring and displacing millions more. This is not to mention the over 3 million COVID-induced deaths, which have been reported globally in the few years since the pandemic sent the entire world into a frenzy. And the fallout of these events will continue to reverberate throughout bereaved and unsettled communities for a very long time.
We often cope with injustices by looking away and medicating with distractions, since sustained eye contact with misfortune is uncomfortable. Or we may—sometimes rightly, sometimes self-righteously—angrily blame the various parties involved, desperately trying to account for the unaccountable. We are gratified when any positive changes result, yet we are also aware of how powerless we are to reverse the diagnosis, divert the bullet’s path, or end …
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by | Apr 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
As players face new pressures from bettors upset with their performance, chaplains in the NCAA are trying to help students remember their imago Dei.
The odds are bringing little favor to college athletes, who are facing more pressure over their performance from bettors.
South Carolina’s defeat of Iowa for the women’s NCAA championship on Sunday drew record-breaking betting numbers. BetMGM announced that the game had drawn the most bets of any women’s sporting event ever.
Last year, bettors placed more than $15 billion in bets on the men’s college basketball tournament, according to the American Gaming Association. A major weight on players are prop bets, which are usually bets on details of an individual’s performance—like the number of rebounds from Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark.
The NCAA estimates that a third of student athletes have been harassed by bettors. It has raised alarms and now is examining how betting and social media more broadly affect student athletes’ wellbeing.
“Indirectly, I think players notice that. They may hear it from a fan walking off the court,” said Roger Lipe, who ministers to college coaches and players through Nations of Coaches and is chaplain for the Southern Illinois University men’s basketball team. Lipe was at the Final Four women’s games over the weekend and the concurrent coach’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio.
In his 30 years of ministry, a conversation on gambling was often a part of preseason meetings. Betting on sports has been happening for a long time, legal or not, Lipe pointed out.
But the legalization of mobile sports betting in states across the country means that it’s much easier for fans to bet, and less taboo. Chaplains have to adapt, Lipe said.
In his work, Lipe does book studies with coaching staff, goes to practices, and prays with anyone before …
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