Pathway Perspectives

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”-Ephesians 2:13-14, ESV The opening scene of the 1951 movie, “The African Queen,” which starred Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, shows two British missionaries leading a church s...

[Credit: Abraham Hunter] “Each of us as human beings has a responsibility to reach out to our brothers and sisters affected by disasters. One day it may be us or our loved ones needing someone to reach out and help” (Michael W. Hawkins, American Red Cross). “One day” happened last week in my hometown of Houston, Texas, when my relatives were affected by a severe storm that hit the city, left 900,0...

Medieval scholarly theologians, while contemplating the notion of “being,” speculated how many angels might be able to stand on the head of a needle. Seventeenth century theologians mocked such mental gymnastics. I will admit that the thought of such speculation is a bit humorous to me. Here's something, however, that is no laughing matter.How much fentanyl may be placed on a pin before it becomes...

[Shutterstock images] A woman claimed that her unborn child counted as a person when pulled over for driving alone in a North Texas High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane! She explained, “I just felt that there were two of us in [the car] and I was wrongly getting ticketed.” She argued that under Texas’ new abortion law, a fetus is considered a living being. The woman also claimed “this is a baby” (Tex...

[Getty Images] “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” Tina Turner’s 1984 mega-hit rock ‘n’ roll song, could easily serve as a front-page headline for contemporary Christian America. The song saw nothing enduring in love and reduced it to a “secondhand emotion.” Granted, Ms. Turner had lived for years in an abusive relationship, but surely there must be more to love than the logical and physical. I belie...

Friends, the insanely popular television show, will celebrate its 30th anniversary this coming September. Two-hundred-thirty-six episodes aired between 1994 and 2004, and the show amazingly remains a favorite of viewers. Each episode warms us with thirty minutes of escape and entertains us and promises us what we all are created to enjoy—close relationships.The show has endured, in fact, because i...

[Listen to the podcast of this article] The famous antiwar refrain to the 1970 song entitled, “War,” used as a title above, provides its own answer: “Absolutely nothin’!” Edwin Starr, who recorded that version of the song, continued to sing it through the years because he wanted such conflict to cease.War indeed represents one of the most controversial and complex moral issues of this age, and I w...

(Click here for the podcast version of this article) “The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and the beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, embrace the other,” says David Hume (1711-1776), the Scottish philosopher and historian. (1) His words certainly resonate with many of us who wer...

Media sources carried the terrifying story earlier this week of an attempt to rescue two adults and six children who were stranded hundreds of feet above ground on a disabled cable car in northwest Pakistan. No effort or expense was spared to bring those adults and children home safely. Now, consider the annual return of your children and grandchildren to school and the extraordinary efforts to en...

“What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God,” says Martin Luther. The great Reformer knew the special significance of the home and God's word at work in that place. Here is a reason why: the fifth command in the Ten Commandments emphasizes proper motives inside the home.It links honor for one’s father and mother to possession of the land that God prom...

“I do not recognize Larry Ashlock” was the humorous end result to a brief conversation I recently had with Amazon’s “Alexa,” a virtual assistant artificial intelligence (AI) technology now popular in homes and businesses. My experience indicates only one of many frequent daily interactions we all have with this type of technology.Face ID and image recognition, emails, apps, social media, Google se...

Economics permeates every facet of human existence, and how we use financial resources collectively holds moral implications for governments and businesses, as well as families and individuals. This first sentence undoubtedly creates a mind full of thoughts! I’ll break it down a bit to introduce a fresh challenge to the way we typically think about economic equality and our Christian responsibilit...

Rudeness is like the common cold; it is contagious. Uncivil behavior in global culture has become highly transmissible. Whether it is a member of the United States Congress shouting “liar” at the President when he is making an address, or an actor climbing onstage and then slapping and cursing a comedian friend at an awards ceremony, or numerous social media platform videos that capture bad conduc...

It has been said that “Death is no respecter of persons. Natural disasters are no respecter of nations.” Both statements have been demonstrated, yet again, in the aftermath of events that recently took place in Turkey and northwest Syria. A catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck that region on February 6, 2023. The death toll has surpassed forty-six thousand lives, as of this writing, and th...

The poet Robert Frost once wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.” This maxim influences the beliefs and actions of many people when they consider the hot-button topic of immigration. This moral issue currently evokes visceral reactions, as well as intense political, legal, economic, social, and religious discussions.Despite the often-heated rhetoric divide that surrounds the topic, I find that ...