What's Tony Thinking

Thin, Sharp or Thick

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April 21, 2025 — I have previously mentioned the new book by the Brookings Institution scholar, Jonathan Rauch. It is Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy.Ā  It is such an interesting book, in no small part because it comes from a scholar who isn’t himself religious, and has repented of his own onetime contempt for religion, and Christianity... Read More

Easter: Not A Human Potential Story

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April 19, 2025 — Easter is a not “a triumph of the human spirit” story. It is not about realizing your “human potential.” It is not a story about how the good people endured and overcame. We love those stories. Especially we Americans love those stories. Hero stories. Rags to riches stories. Fighting and winning stories. No, we are... Read More

To Be of Use

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April 16, 2025 — In recent weeks I have written several times on themes of the dignity of Work and the importance of Sacrifice. In our current moment, both have fallen on hard times. Work has often come to be viewed as a source of drudgery or frustration. Or it is a necessary evil, to be got through so... Read More

One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This

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April 15, 2025 — “One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This” is the title of a new book by Omar El Akkad, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist and novelist. His title has in view the Israeli war in Gaza. But this compelling line is one that has multiple resonances today. El Akkad’s phrase suggests the way people can be... Read More

At the Weekend, April 12 -13

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April 11, 2025 — Holy Week begins tomorrow, which is Palm Sunday. The word most associated with Palm Sunday is “Hosanna,” which means, in most definitions, “Save us, we pray.” But that’s the genteel, the polite, version. What it really means is “SAVE US, dear God, right now, right this very minute!” It is a cry of desperation. Which... Read More

Work and DOGE

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April 8, 2025 — In 2003 when the dot.com bubble burst it hit Seattle pretty hard. At the congregation I then served we had a number of people who had, overnight, lost jobs as companies folded. We started a support group for those out of work and looking for work. As it turned out, it was a men’s group,... Read More

Green

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April 4, 2025 — It’s spring in the Northwest, or at least the part of the NW on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. I am enjoying the many colors of green. Here are some photos from walks with Georgie, the dog. All green, save one which shows the cherry blossoms against an April sky.   And here... Read More

The Need for Adults

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April 2, 2025 — Last December I flagged a post by Freya India, a 20-something Brit who writes on Substack. She also contributes to Jonathan Haidt’s site, “After Babel.” Haidt is the author of the best-selling The Anxious GenerationĀ that is about the cost to kids of spending too much time on phones and devices, and too little time in... Read More

What Churches Can Do

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March 31, 2025 — I very much liked this piece on Substack from David Fitch. If I were a still the pastor of a church I would be encouraging us to reflect on this piece and consider implementing those practices to which we felt called. In the meantime, I encourage those of you who are pastors or lay people... Read More

At the Weekend: Pope Sends Vance Back to Catechism

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March 29, 2025 — This week Pope Francis sent a letter to U.S. Catholic Bishops addressing the policies of mass deportation of the current administration. He begins with the Exodus story of a people who were migrants and aliens, going on to note that Jesus too was a refugee whose family fled their homeland when his life was threatened.... Read More