I have to admit I’ve never been a country music fan.

I think it’s because I was raised in north Alabama and woke up to “The Country Boy Eddie Show” for most of my childhood. For someone who needed a little energy to start the day, this had the opposite effect.

Eddie Burns had a little bit of everything on his variety show, but none of it broke the speed limit. There may have been a segment from the local birdwatcher, followed by the announcement of a few obits, followed by a slow, twangy country song representative of the 1970s. Tammy Wynette, Pat Boone, Emmylou Harris were all Country Boy Eddie guests.

And so was Dolly Parton.

I came to dread those morning exposures to all things Eddie and I came to associate country music with it. So, I pretty much skipped the whole genre.

Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the occasional country song, some of them retroactively. I enjoy a few of Alabama’s old songs. And, like most of the world apparently, I could hear Ella Langley sing just about anything.

Dolly Parton only landed in my orbit when she popped on Johnny Carson or Jay Leno, or some similar show.

There was a lot to like in those little snippets I remember. She talked about her poor childhood and how she never forgot where she came from. She had a very infectious self-deprecating humor. People who can comfortably make fun of themselves are often good people to be around. She was very generous with her wealth.

In the wake of her death, my social media timelines were filled with tributes from people all across the spectrum. She apparently encouraged everyone, prayed with many and went out of her way to try to make people’s lives a little better, whether that was financially or just with a well-timed word or note.

It was convicting. If she could do that with all of the demands on her time, why couldn’t I? What was stopping me? It also made me realize we live in a society that actually rewards the opposite. Hot-take artists and social media snipers are the most celebrated in our society today.

That prompted me to fire off this text to some of my coworkers:

What a great question. But, I didn’t know the one thing I really needed to know. More on that in a moment. I followed up that text with this one.

What followed was an almost hour-long conversation about this topic. We talked about how Jesus walked among the people with love, compassion and a gentle nature but also never compromised the truth for anything. We talked about how we seem to be one way or the other, hitting the right note on one side but conspicuously silent on the other.

The next day, my X timeline was still full of Dolly content, and I clicked on an interview Dolly did in 2024 with a British magazine about her faith. She was quoted as saying:

Dolly Parton described her faith as almost textbook New Age. Believe for the sake of believing and let that energy propel you forward. No wonder New Humanist wanted to talk to her because there is no room there for the path to salvation articulated in the Bible.

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation. He said it. Others said it. There would have been no urgency to spread the word of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection to the entire world if there was a belief within the early followers that there were multiple paths. Moreover, why would God sacrifice His only son if you could just believe for the sake of believing and attain salvation.

Much to my surprise, I learned then that Dolly Parton was not a Christ follower.

That is unless of course there was some epiphany gained later in life that she did not share publicly.

To be fair, Dolly spoke of faith —and her faith specifically — in many different ways and with many different analogies across her public career. In some, she talked about her “Bapticostal” upbringing. In some, she talked about a confidence that “Jesus loves me”, but nothing was as descriptive (and recent) as her 2024 statement to a humanist publication.

Southern Living compiled several of Dolly’s quotes about faith. The Humanist article is absent but you can read the compilation here.

There are so many lessons for me. First, don’t assume anything. As a former journalist, it is a cardinal rule of journalism. Now that I am in ministry work, it is even more important.

A huge thread of the New Testament is that we are not saved by our works. And in this instance, I was moved by the genuine niceness of a person and her willingness to help others when it didn’t benefit her. I combined that with her good-ole country upbringing in Tennessee, a few gospel songs she sang during her career, and made a false assumption.

Lesson one: Don’t assume.

Second, Dolly stood out because she displayed many Christian characteristics better than most Christians. What an indictment. We are overpopulated by a lot of social media influencers who heavily publicize their Christian faith, yet all we see from them are tirades and insults directed toward Christians and non-Christians alike. Sometimes their words may be factually true, other times not at all.

But the life of Jesus teaches his followers grace AND truth. Be compassionate, yet hold to truth and speak it in love.

Lesson two: Grace and Truth

And third, believing for the sake of believing may have some positive societal impact, but it does not change a person’s spiritual path.

There must be an object and it must be the right one. A quarterback can have textbook mechanics. He can set his feet just right, position his elbow under the ball just right, reach back just right and spin the ball with a perfect, tight spiral.

But if he doesn’t direct it to the right target, the ball flies aimlessly into the air and pointlessly to the ground.

Or worse.

Dolly helped a lot of people, temporarily.

Lesson three: Aim means everything.

When I think about Dolly Parton, I will think about how I need to be more intentional in helping people and encouraging them and how Christians could learn something about those attributes she displayed, but I’ll also think about how she tragically chose to aim at no target.

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It’s been a banner year for socialists in the United States by any measure.

People are calling it the “Mamdani Effect”, but that is too nearsighted.

How we got here goes back many, many years.

For context, almost every election cycle has been defined as the one that makes or breaks the nation. As it turns out, sometimes your side wins and sometimes your side loses, and we have some choppy seas to navigate before the other side wins and undoes most of what was done the previous four or eight years.

I remember voting George H.W. Bush in 1992. My guy was defeated pretty soundly by Bill Clinton. I remember thinking the world had ended.

Clinton, however, was actually concerned about his legacy and pivoted strongly toward the center after the Republican Revolution of 1994 forced him into some strong welfare reform legislation, etc.

Then we hopped between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Granted, elections have consequences and one can’t ignore a march to the left — especially along social matters — over the course of time.

Those on the right have always been antsy about this march. There was a growing feeling that conservatives in power had been too weak to take a stand and slow down the march. But there were never enough people so concerned that they were willing to elect a maverick candidate.

But in 2016, things changed significantly.

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The left went too far in the 2012-16 cycle. They pushed for government-subsidized sex change surgeries. They tried to argue that biological males really could go into female restrooms without issue — and play women’s sports.

When they couldn’t get substantial change through Congress, the President simply governed by executive order with far-reaching EPA regulations. They used the IRS to go after certain groups of people. They forced contraception mandates on employers, regardless of religious belief. Universities outlawed conservative influencers from campus events to keep students from being “triggered.” And the President verbally indicted a swath of normal people, chiding them for “clinging to guns and religion.”

Too much. Way too much. Any of that would inflame the right. However, this also made the middle uncomfortable. And the middle is where elections are won and lost. Simply put, the left went way too far and pushed the middle to take a chance on a wild card.

This is the start of how we got where we are now.

Combine all of that with the Democrats choosing to break its own rules to force Hillary Clinton to the Presidential nomination. Again, the middle reacted. Add this to the notion that Hillary Clinton may have been one of the most unlikeable people in the country, and all of that led to the election of Donald Trump.

Imagine. The left went nuts in those four years. The Republicans could have chosen any number of people running for the nomination and won easily in November. But they gravitated to the strongest-sounding candidate, and despite nominating a man that really scared the middle, the middle was still willing to pick him over Hillary, but it was close.

People forget, but Hillary and her gang were four years early to “the election was rigged” party.

It was this very noticeable lurch to the left that finally led the country to take a chance on a maverick.

And here is the danger. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And while the far right was pumped, the middle did not particularly like the way 2016 Trump governed. He overreached, meddled in DOJ affairs, implemented overbroad travel bans, and stayed too cozy with his financial assets. His thin skin turned a lot of people off, and he could not stay on message, instead choosing to trade childish insults with enemies.

While one can argue that he may have been justified in any or all of these actions, the important middle did not think he was. The Democrats put up a very weak candidate in Joe Biden, and even he was enough to defeat Trump in 2020.

So follow the pendulum here. Trump was elected in 2016 because of a strong move to the left in the prior administration. Trump came in with a wrecking ball (or most thought. They just didn’t know what was to come). The middle said “too much, too quick” and swung back to the other party.

So Biden had been a stereotypical Democrat most of his political career. Some Democrats even believed he wasn’t left enough for a good part of his time as Senator. However, he had to make some alliances to get elected, and governed strongly to the left from 2020-24 to cash in some favors and as a reaction to Trump’s four years.

The left then emptied their guns on Trump. This was the left’s fatal flaw. Had they just left him alone, he probably wouldn’t have won election in 2024. But, they couldn’t help themselves. That pesky middle saw exactly what was happening. Whether or not they liked the way Trump governed, they saw the government being used as a weapon against a party’s political enemy, and they (the middle) didn’t like that at all.

As nasty as January 6th was, it was the overreach in the reaction by the administration that turned people off. At the same time, the AOC and Rashida Tlaib wing of the party rose in influence. Democrat after Democrat publicly proclaimed there was nothing at all wrong with Biden’s mental faculties when the American public could obviously see otherwise.

When Trump survived all of the arrows, the middle was ready to give him another try, especially when the Dems face-planted again with the late switch to Harris after the disastrous Biden-Trump debate.

And if you thought Trump 2016 was something, Trump 2024 took things to a brand new level.

He came out swinging and hasn’t stopped since. The most loyal supporters love it. Enemies hate it.

The middle probably doesn’t like it either. And even some Trump voters are having second thoughts after the war with Iran seemed to go against Trump’s stated philosophy and after tariff imposition has led to increased prices for many products.

And that’s a long path to explain the election of Mamdani and additional socialist wins.

The left goes too far in 2012-16. The right reacts strongly. The left wins in 2020 and comes off the top rope to try to destroy Trump. He survives and takes vengeance on anyone in his path.

The left reacts by lurching even further to the left, toward socialism.

It isn’t just Mamdani. Six months after he was elected, at least four candidates backed by the Democrat Socialists of America won Congressional primaries in blue districts (two in New York, one in Colorado and one in Michigan). All are expected to win seats in November.

DSA-backed candidates won six State Assembly races in New York. Socialists or Socialist-leaning candidates won state legislative races in Georgia, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Washington, D.C., will almost certainly elect a Socialist mayor in November and Los Angeles may as well.

Yes, there have been plenty of DSA-backed losses as well, but far too many wins to make any sense.

This is not the Mamdani Effect. This is the Trump Effect. It is a reaction to the forcefulness of how Trump governs. And Trump was a reaction to the far left shift of 2012-16.

When the left gains control again — and it will at some point — the reaction is going to be a far overreach to counterbalance the right extremism. This of course will cause them to lose future elections, but the amount of damage will be significant.

So this is the question. Was it worth it to elect Trump? Twice? Some would say yes. No other Republican would have had the guts to push through Supreme Court justices likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. Maybe no other Republican would have gotten a handle on the border so swiftly. I’d love to say Trump had a rousing success with DOGE, but it appears there have been no lasting effects. Spending is ridiculously out of control. The deficit is $40 trillion and counting. $40 trillion, with supposedly “conservatives” controlling the purse strings for most of the last 10 years.

Others may say no, it was not worth electing Trump. A Rubio or DeSantis may have gained political victories without creating a crazy reactive lurch to the left. Either candidate may have pleased the middle enough to stick with Republicans in the White House, Senate and House. The “middle” does lean a tad right, after all.

I wrote this back in 2024:

You can read the whole post here.

We are where we are now because of the vast overreach of each party since 2012.

I’m writing my thoughts because I am wondering how we can return the country to some sense of normalcy. And I’m not sure how we get back to that after volleying back and forth between different types of crazy for the past 14 years.

It seems like the parties are not interested in nominating a normal candidate anymore.

And we’re going to pay in a big way because of it.

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I’ve recently been thinking about the balancing act needed to accurately convey the Christian message of salvation and the life on earth that follows.

The tension between wanting as many as possible to come to Christ while remaining Scriptural about what that means is real.

As we invite people into a relationship with Jesus, we quote His words spoken in John 10:10:

Of course this is true. However, if we don’t provide proper context one can see how easily a person could believe that the “abundant life” after Christ is one full of guaranteed physical health, material prosperity and conflict-free harmony.

To make matters worse, highly-followed preachers basically preach this type of theology. They will tell you that all of these things will come to you if your faith is strong enough. They know that most of the people in the pews or watching by television are facing some sort of obstacle in one or more of these categories. And those listening want to believe that they can believe their way out of a circumstance.

So they believe.

And nothing happens.

Or their conditions worsen in those areas, and their faith is quickly shipwrecked.

The origins of this dangerous theology is often debated, but it appears to have come onto the Christian scene relatively recently — within the last 200 years. It started to become widespread with the dawn of radio.

An early radio preacher named E.W. Kenyon often gets credit for first spreading this belief far and wide. He borrowed from New Thought ideas and infused it into Christianity, where faith came to be seen as a spiritual law that guaranteed that believers who spoke positive truths aloud would lay claim to the divine blessings of health and happiness.

You may have heard the phrase “What I confess, I possess” tied to this belief system.

This flawed system has not only shipwrecked the faith of many believers, it has also cleaned out the bank accounts of many of our most vulnerable. Elderly believers, often widows or widowers, have been tricked into believing their physical or financial well-being will improve based on the amount of money they send to the ministry.

Another often-used phrase: “Seed faith.”

A surface reading of the Bible paints a completely different picture.

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Perspective changes at salvation. Eternal location changes at salvation. Circumstances may or may not change. Sometimes they get better. Sometimes they get worse.

Jesus preached a different gospel than Kenyon and those who followed in his path. Jesus told his followers they would need to take up their cross daily, a reminder that living for Christ often comes with challenges.

Not long after the conversion of the Apostle Paul, Jesus sends a man named Ananias to Paul to help show him the things he must suffer for the gospel (Acts 9:16).

After the birth of the church, new converts rejoiced that they were considered worthy of suffering under Roman oppression for the sake of the gospel (Acts 5:41).

Each disciple suffered immensely for the sake of spreading the story of Jesus.

And just think about people you know. Whether you are a Christian or not, you know many. Some faithful Christians in your circle are suffering. Others may not be currently.

One of my favorite Substacks is Schrodinger’s Poodle. Sarah Salviander was an atheist astrophysicist who converted to Christianity 20 years ago while working on Big Bang research and reading Lee Strobel and Gerald Schroeder.

This is what she said about her conversion experience:

It wasn’t long after she came to know Christ that her circumstances cratered. She was diagnosed with cancer and has had multiple rounds of it since. Her child was stillborn. Her husband battled near fatal illnesses, etc.

Read the entire post here.

The fact is that you may come to know Christ today and your refrigerator may break tomorrow. Any number of circumstantial things could occur — and will — within the life of a faithful Christian.

If you are currently being exposed to this anti-Biblical prosperity theology, please leave it now. It is destructive.

The most powerful witness for Christ often comes from those suffering the most. It is those who show the unnatural approach to suffering (better put, the supernatural approach) that turns the head of the skeptic.

Jesus never promised we would be free from suffering as His follower. On the contrary. He did promise His Spirit would be with us through it. And His grace does extend to us in many ways, and He may choose to remove us from a difficult circumstance. But He may not.

The good news of the gospel is simply that our sin spearated us from a perfect, holy God. Since perfection can’t be tainted by any hint of sin, a perfect sacrifice had to be made for the payment. We couldn’t supply it. Only God could.

The gospel is that we’re reconciled to that holy God through his perfect son. Our circumstances have nothing to do with this. Upon salvation, we become Christ’s amabassadors to a lost world. We live under His authority and we tell His story verbally, both of which communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And eternally, we live with Him forever.

If you don’t know Christ, pray to receive Him. Your daily circumstances may or may not change, but what really matters changes forever.

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The headline of a recent story on the front page of the digital edition of the Dothan Eagle caught my eye.

David Hoffmann is investing millions to preserve local newspapers

There it was, on the eve of Independence Day no less. If you read this Substack often, you know the preservation of local journalism is dear to me, having spent 26 years in the business.

Could a man be riding in to save the day and specifically save the Dothan Eagle?

I learned that Hoffmann is a billionaire and that he owns 127 companies. I learned he fell in love with newspapers when he saw his little league baseball picture in the local edition as a pre-teen.

I learned he just became Chairman of the Board of Lee Enterprises, the company that owns the Dothan Eagle.

He said he wants to invest in local journalism instead of gut it.

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“You know,” Hoffmann said in the article, “We’re running right toward some things that everybody else is running away from.” 

Hoffmann’s own company, Hoffman Media Group, owns 42 community newspapers, including the one in his hometown where his love for journalism started.

And now, thanks to a massive financial stake in Lee Enterprises and his ascension to Chairman of the Board, Hoffmann says he wants to inject life back into the local newspaper.

And these paragraphs really got my attention:

Color me with dark hues of skepticism.

Unless Lee Enterprises decides to do a 180 in philosophy, this flattering piece on the billionaire riding in to save newspapers will be another black eye for journalism.

I’ve written about the decline of the Dothan Eagle here and here. I wrote about coming to the Dothan Eagle and joining a staff of 34 in the newsroom in 1996 and to leave as one of 10 in 2019.

Those still around at the Eagle would consider 2019 the good ole days.

There is one news reporter working her dead level best to get news out. Michelle Mann does everything she can to provide some content for local readers.

A quick look at the local news front of the Dothan Eagle digital edition shows stories from Michelle Mann, Michelle Mann, Michelle Mann, Michelle Mann, Michelle Mann and obits.

And if you’d like to check out the local front of the Enterprise Ledger, it’s six Michelle Manns and a Fort Rucker Public Affairs piece.

Sports is the same. David Mundee, David Mundee, David Mundee, David Mundee and David Mundee.

This is your entire reporting staff. Two people.

A quick look on the general news front shows two stories from al.com, one from the Miami Herald, one from USA Today, one from Reuters and two from Stacker, a press release generator that wanted us to read about the closest national parks to Mobile and Montgomery.

This is a newspaper controlled by Lee Enterprises.

Ironically, it was another billionaire in 2012 — Warren Buffett — who promised to breathe life into local newspapers. That’s when Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought a swath of newspapers from Media General including the Dothan Eagle. Buffett had a smiliar story about falling in love with newspapers as a kid.

Buffett may have meant well, but quickly realized the quickest path to profit is to cut the largest expense.

Payroll.

Staff size started to shrink. After a few years, Buffett also realized he couldn’t simply task a few mid-level managers at his larger newspapers to run the smaller ones, so he entered into an agreement with Lee Enterprises to manage his new papers while Buffett maintained ownership.

Eventually, Buffett sold his papers outright to Lee.

Remember the scene in Cast Away where Tom Hanks pushes off from the island on which he was shipwrecked, and over the course of several days, his makeshift raft comes apart one stick at a time until he could hardly lay atop?

This is how the Dothan Eagle has been dismantled over the past six years under the ownership of Lee Enterprises.

Dothan has a population of more than 70,000, but the Eagle serves the entire Wiregrass. Its designated market area population is almost 110,000, and doesn’t even include Jackson and Holmes counties in Florida.

And Lee Enterprises believes one news reporter and one sports reporter is sufficient to keep you informed.

I want to believe Hoffmann. I want to believe in the most Fox Mulder way possible.

But I need to see it. I would love to see Hoffmann make a gesture by hiring two additional news reporters and another sports reporter. I know a great sports editor that Lee Enterprises let go just a few months ago.

David Hoffmann fell in love with newspapers after seeing his little league baseball picture in a local edition. Now he is chairman of the board of the company whose cuts have removed the possibility of Dothan little leaguers seeing their photos in the paper.

At least today.

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{Note: I originally published this in July of 2024. Pretty appropriate for today.}

I lost my mother July 9, 2004, to cancer.

I wrote about her last year. You can read it here.

I loved her because her story is one of sacrifice. She gave up much of what she wanted or preferred to keep a family together. I didn’t realize it at the time, but a great part of her worldly joy came from me.

I haven’t written here about my dad but it isn’t because I didn’t love him as well. Our relationship was a bit more complicated.

I knew my father drunk more days than I knew him sober when I lived at home. I wasn’t bitter, I don’t think. I was more confused than anything. It was only much later that I processed all of it. At the time, you just sort of live it.

I lost my dad August 25, 2009, to cancer. My parents didn’t go to church when I was young, but later attended a rural church in the mid 80s, not long after I surrendered to Christ and began attending a church with friends. They went there a handful of years, enough for my mom to sing some songs there and enough for my dad to surrender to Christ thanks to a visit from the church’s pastor.

He preached my dad’s service, but I gave the eulogy. What I communicated in that time of remembrance is what I chose to focus on about my dad. We all have many facets and some are better than others. I learned an incredible amount of positive lessons from my dad that I try to carry today.

We choose our focus points. Our circumstances, whether past or present, may not be ideal. But we have the power to choose our perspective.

That’s the real freedom of choice. It may be your childhood, or past trauma, or it may be the general craziness of the world we live in today. We could all dwell on something unpleasant if we let ourselves. We choose our focus.

The Apostle Paul could have focused on a lot of unpleasant things. He was beaten several times, shipwrecked, abandoned by friends and imprisoned. He didn’t ignore those things but he chose to have his mind live in a better place.

He wrote this to the church in Philippi in Philippians 4:8-9.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

So this is how I remembered my dad that day …

I can only remember my dad singing parts of three songs in my entire life. The first one was “King of the Road” by Roger Miller. The second one was “The Streak” by Ray Stevens.

The third was “How Great Thou Art.”

But even though my dad was not much of a singer here, I believe he is singing this very minute, praises to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

I love that song. It’s my favorite hymn. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite because it’s so worshipful or because I can remember my dad singing it. Maybe a little bit of both.

And really, even though our coming together today is part of the grieving process, I look at today not so much as a time to mourn but as a time to worship. Really, we think of worship as what we do on Sunday mornings, but actually our whole life is an act of worship, everything we do.

And as we come together to remember the life of my dad today, what better occasion to worship a God who has promised us eternal life with Him for those of us who acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior.

Today, this time here, is an act of worship.

People have asked me how I can get up here and talk at my father’s funeral. Under different circumstances, it would be impossible. But the reason that I can get up here and talk with confidence and be in a state of worship to God Almighty is because of what happened more than 20 years ago in the living room of my grandmother’s house.

That’s when Bro. Billy Karl came to the house to talk with my dad, and that’s when my dad accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, baptized just a few days later at Covin Baptist Church with my mother. Wonderful time. When my mother passed away five years ago, as we were driving away from the service, I wanted to make sure about my dad’s salvation, because I had no doubts about my mother’s. And I asked him point blank if he felt secure in his salvation and he said he did, and articulated well what Christ’s death and resurrection had done for him. That’s the only reason I can stand up here and talk today.

Occasions like this always make us think about our own mortality. None of us know what tomorrow brings. And one of the best ways you can honor my dad is not to let the sun go down today if you have any question about where you stand with God. There is no more important decision in your life.

1 John 5:13 says I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

God never wanted us to wonder or fret about our salvation.

It has been wonderful talking with so many of you who have memories of my dad. It has been such a comfort to hear the stories and the kind words so many of you have shared.

As I thought about his life and the experiences that we shared together, there were several words that came to mind when I thought about how best to honor and remember him here today.

The first words I thought of were HUMBLE SERVANT.

My dad lived to serve other people. When my grandmother fell and broke her hip many years ago, it was dad who practically moved out there and sat with her day and night while she recuperated. When my mother had a heart attack in 1999, he tended to her every need, before he had his own heart attack. Later, when she had cancer, he could not bear to leave her side.

Many of you here today have been beneficiaries of his service, and could share countless stories of his servant attitude.

James had this to say about evidence of the faith you hold in James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”

He was an HUMBLE SERVANT, but he was also a GRACIOUS GIVER

What was his was yours. Many of you have been the recipient of the vegetables from his garden. Many of you have been the recipient of assistance in other ways in a great time of need.

You know, it is one thing to give out of your excess, but it is another thing to give out of your need. There were many times when my dad gave, when it appeared he could least afford to give.

My parents spoiled me well beyond their means and I have a lot of pleasant memories about birthdays and Christmas, but two of the most memorable things my dad ever gave me came just a few years ago just after my mother died. It was a very rough time for him. He was lost without her and times were tough. It was close to my birthday and I had come up for a visit. As I got ready to go, he motioned me over and handed me two big bags of tomatoes he had gotten from his garden. He told me he wished he could have done more, but maybe I could use them. It was all he had.

That Christmas wasn’t much better for him, and when I came up to visit, he handed me an envelope that had 35 1-dollar bills in it. He said he hoped I could use it to buy something I wanted.

This is how he was. Many of you have similar stories. You’ve told me.

You’re never more like Christ when you are helping others, whether it’s seeing after a loved one who’s sick or providing a meal or a blanket for a stranger. Jesus, one day he and his disciples were watching this big event with all the pomp and circumstance when all the rich religious men would parade in front of the crowd to give their gift at the temple. Jesus was watching and saw this widow getting ready to give her gift and he calls his disciples over and says “Look here guys …”, and although she only gave a small amount, it was much more than the rich people gave in the eyes of Jesus because she gave out of her need. My dad gave out of his need, and never asked for anything in return.

Dad was an HUMBLE SERVANT, a GRACIOUS GIVER, and he was a CLEVER HUMORIST.

He was just plain funny, all the way up to the end. Just about a month ago, my dad was sitting with Steve at the kitchen table. He said “Steve, I’m at the mall the other day and there are these little signs at two or three places where people are looking, and I go over there and see what they’re staring at and there’s a little sign, and an arrow pointing and it says “You are Here.” Now how could they have possibly known that I was going to be there?

Just a few weeks ago, when he was getting the mediport put in at the hospital, he was pretty wiped out when the procedure was over, and he was recuperating laying on the bed. And he was messing with the nurse, saying “my feet are a little crooked, can you straighten me up? Then he kept asking for those little 3-ounce things of juice, over and over, well after he actually wanted them just to mess with her.

My dad was an HUMBLE SERVANT, a GRACIOUS GIVER, a CLEVER HUMORIST and he was a RESPECTFUL GENTLEMAN

My dad taught me a lot of things, some of which I actually learned. The greatest lesson, I believe, that he taught me was to look on everybody with equal respect. And that was my dad. He showed you just as much respect whether you owned the town or cleaned it up. He never saw someone as a means to an end, never saw someone as better or worse than anybody else.

He always said yes mam and no mam, yes sir and no sir. Always told me to say thank you, to honor my debts, keep my word and treat everyone with respect.

That’s my dad.

As wonderful as all of those qualities are about him, and they are wonderful, the best thing I can say about my dad is that he knew Jesus as Savior and Lord.

So what is the best way you can honor the memory of my dad? Simple. If you already know Christ as you Lord and Savior, why don’t you commit to taking your relationship with Him to a new level? Be a better son or daughter, mother or father. Help other people. Commit to serving others. Commit to doing something that would put the faith you have in Jesus into action. Make your faith come to life.

If you don’t know Christ, the most important thing you can do to honor my dad is to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Don’t let the day come when you pass away and leave your children wondering about where you’re spending eternity. It’s the cruelest thing you can do to a child. Nothing would honor me or my dad’s memory more than taking care of your eternity right here, today. When we get done, if this is something you need to take care of, please see Bro. Billy Karl, or myself. Do what you need to do to take care of your eternity today.

You know, I have no idea what Heaven is like. I think if we knew exactly what it was like, nobody would want to stay here. I can only speculate. But if my dad could have his idea of Heaven be made real in eternity, this is what I think it would have looked like Tuesday about 11 o’clock when he passed away.

It would look very similar to where he lived. There would be a simple home surrounded by a lot of woods for him to walk around every morning, and there would be a lot of wildlife for him to appreciate every day. There would be a garden, that tended itself, providing fresh vegetables every day. Alabama football would be on the television every day and they would always be winning. My mother would meet him at the door, she would take him by the hand and point toward the light illuminating everything, and she would say “Come with me, let me show you what I loved to sing about all the time. And they would go and join the heavenly chorus around the savior’s throne. God now has a new bass singer.

Thank you so much for coming and honoring the memory of my dad by being here.

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Did you know that marathons kill people?

That may be a misleading statement because there is no evidence that there is a higher mortality rate for marathon runners, but at least one study indicates that because marathons exist, more people die unnecessarily.

One day, a professor of healthcare policy was headed to watch his wife run her first marathon and he wanted to be along the route to cheer her on. As it turns out, he had his own parking spot located at a hospital close to the route and knew he could park without an issue.

However, he wasn’t counting on the runners’ route blocking through traffic. The alternate route he had to take made him late and he was not able to be along the route when his wife passed by.

When he got home, he apologized and told her what happened. She said “Wow. If you couldn’t get to the hospital, then what about people who really needed to get to the hospital?”

And so he did a study. As it turns out, ambulance travel time in Marathon-affected areas took 32 percent longer (or on average 4.4 minutes longer) to reach its intended destination than normal. Ambulance travel was studied because that data is available publicly and has to be reported. But just think about the people that had emergencies and traveled by private vehicle. Those people most likely couldn’t run traffic lights and all the other things ambulances do to arrive quickly.

So, again, studying patients that suffered heart attacks or cardiac arrests, the study found that deaths from those two increased by more than five percent in cities on days when marathons were run. Not only that, those who did not die but were hospitalized suffered two times more severe damage from their heart attacks than the statistical average.

Why? Time is everything. In heart attack or cardiac arrest situations, a delay of just a few minutes can be the difference between life or death.

For all of us, time is critical.

If you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, there is no time like right now. Don’t delay. No one is guaranteed another moment.

If you don’t know what that means or haven’t thought about it in a long time, message me (lgriffin@rbcdothan.org) and I’ll be happy to chat with you.

If you do know Christ, make the most of your time. Prioritize what matters.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:13-17)

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This case appears to be the one.

Minutes after a judge ruled that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby could play college football this season while the courts hash out the merits of his lawsuit, I began to receive angry messages from multiple people.

Granted, unfair rulings have existed since the first judge was seated. Scores of cases have been decided against the overwhelming direction of the evidence. Many of them have occurred within the arena of college sports.

This one, however, is the one that crossed a line we may say is imaginary, but isn’t.

In short, Brendan Sorsby was a college quarterback at Indiana University when he bet on his own team 40 times, according to evidence collected by the NCAA. He placed thousands of other impermissible bets throughout the course of his collegiate career, which bounced from Indiana to Cincinnati to his current team, Texas Tech.

But betting on your own team is the Pete Rose rule. Even everybody’s hero wasn’t immune to the rules.

When faced with overwhelming evidence he bet on his own team while managing a major league baseball club, Rose accepted a lifetime ban from the sport. Even with gambling more integrated into sports — even collegiate sports — today, the bedrock rule has always been never, ever, bet on the team on which you belong.

The reasoning behind this rule — which has held up until today — is simple. Sorsby was not a participant in the games that were the subjects of his bets. However, being a member of a team gives you access to information a random person would not have. He would know if the starting quarterback rolled his ankle during the walkthrough on Friday. He would know if the quarterback’s girlfriend confronted him at the hotel the night before. He would know if the star wide receiver and the coach fought in practice that week.

It becomes an integrity issue. It’s the reason former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon can’t even think about re-entering the world of college baseball for 15 years because he was accused of giving that kind of inside information to a buddy, who then tried to walk into a Cincinnati sportsbook and make a big wager moments before the start of a Tide baseball game.

The NCAA, for all its inconsistencies and impotence, understood this common-sense rule. The NCAA ruled Sorsby ineligible in the blink of an eye. When asked to reconsider, the NCAA didn’t even need to head to the Kuerig. It upheld its own ruling.

Sorsby and his legal team did what just about anybody does today when faced with insurmountable odds based on evidence. It filed for an injunction in the town in which Sorsby was set to make a reported $5 million to play football this season.

Lubbock, Texas.

Monday morning, local District Judge Ken Curry ruled Sorsby “demonstrated that he will suffer a probable, imminent and irreparable injury” if not allowed to play this season.

To that, Curry is absolutely correct. Sorsby would suffer harm to his career if he did not play this season. The question the judge failed to address in his ruling is this:

Who is at fault?

His ruling is a de facto answer.

Not Brendan Sorsby. Not in the least. Some may say his two-game suspension is an indication the judge believes Sorsby shoulders some of the blame.

Sorsby will miss two non-conference games, one against an FCS opponent and the other against a non-Power conference team. No one faces any consequences here. Not Sorsby. Not Texas Tech.

Those sympathetic to Sorsby point to his problem with gambling being the result of an addiction. Addicts have always faced consequences for their choices, even in the throes of addiction.

My dad drank to excess most of my life. He was obviously addicted. He also made choices. One of those choices was to drive drunk. A judge believed he needed to follow the law in 1983 when the law said my dad needed to be away from his 12-year-old son for 90 days. The judge was right. The collateral damage of separating dad and son for 90 days was not the law’s fault. Ultimately, it was the best for him and me.

Monday, a hometown judge sent a very strong message that rules do not matter, or at least they do not matter more than a chance for the hometown team to make the college football playoffs.

I see no reason why this ruling is not a green light for college football players across the entire sports landscape to load up their NIL money or their revenue share money on their own team. Why not?

Let’s just make that part of the college football broadcasts. Let quarterbacks make their bets public and let’s follow their success or failure on the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

And then, when these athletes have lost all of their money to gambling, when they have leveraged future earnings and find themelves in debt, we’ll find someone to blame.

Somehow, it won’t be this judge.

This is the case. Many people in the orbit of college football thought we were losing the sport. People have thought that for years. We shook our heads at a lot of rulings.

Monday, people are doing more than just shaking their heads. We’ll look back at this case and realize this was the one. This one is different.

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We want to pay college football and basketball players.

And we want schools to have sensible athletic budgets.

And we want to limit what coaches can make.

And we want fully-funded non-revenue college sports.

If you want to know why college sports is in such a mess, look no further than this wish list, full of contradictory goals.

It was decided several years ago that it was unfair for colleges or associated entities to benefit from an athlete’s name, image and likeness without compensating the athlete.

More recently, it was decided that athletes should not only benefit from name, image and likeness, but should directly benefit from the revenue universities generate in athletics — specifically football and basketball.

Now, athletes receive revenue-share money and NIL money.

We can debate whether that is good for college athletics but this has already been determined. Athletes won this debate on market dynamics.

Why should a school that generates $100 million in football revenue not share some of it with the players? After all, it is the players fans pay to see.

This is the free market in action.

And although NIL has become primarily pay-for-play, the idea behind true NIL made sense. If a fan walks into a college bookstore and buys a football jersey because “Manning” is on the back, why shouldn’t he benefit?

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So here we are. The decision makers are trying to get a handle on what true NIL really is, and that’s a good thing. They are trying to get a handle on whether professional athletes can play college sports, and whether 26-year-olds can play college sports, and those are good things to decide.

But the argument that just doesn’t fit into the matrix is an often-used one most recently reiterated by Georgia football coach Kirby Smart at this week’s SEC Spring Meetings.

If society has decided that college athletes who play revenue-producing sports should get compensated for the part they play, you can’t turn around and argue that sports that produce no revenue at all are owed something.

Before this societal shift, that argument could be made. College football and basketball players received a full scolarship to the university at which they played. The revenue generated from these sports was used to fund every other collegiate sport played at that university because almost all other collegiate sports operate at a significant loss.

This was the collegiate athletic system for many years until football and basketball players and their supporters decided to play the market card. They won. However, you can’t claim free market dynamics for sports that make money and then argue socialism for sports that don’t.

Kirby Smart played football for Georgia in the 1980s. It is likely that some players were paid under the table but he understood the money he helped make for the football program went to fund baseball, women’s basketball and all other sports played there.

So of course Kirby is speaking from the heart. He understands the whole reason collegiate sports were created. The overwhelming majority of people that participate in a collegiate sport will make their living outside of that sport. Collegiate sports has been an avenue to a degree.

A choice was made, however, that has consequences.

Arkansas shuttered its men’s and women’s tennis teams a few weeks ago, only to bring them back when donors pledged funds to operate the sports.

And this is how it should be. If society decided to compensate players in sports that generate revenue, then it — by default — also decided that collegiate sports is “about” revenue. That means non-revenue sports should not expect to be funded by revenue-generating sports that must turn around and pay millions to their athletes.

I’m not saying I like it. I’m saying that’s reality. I do not want to see sports cut. I want to see someone wind up a successful CEO because they earned a degree while playing lacrosse or baseball.

However, if I was an athletic director at a university such as Arkansas, of course I would cut tennis. And I would cut the 10 largest drains on my budget and put myself in the best possible position to succeed in the sports that have to succeed to stay afloat.

Decisions have consequences. We need to decide what college athletics is about. If it is about compensating and rewarding according to revenue, then ADs should proceed accordingly across the board.

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It helps when the gifts you have align with the work you do.

Some people have a knack for numbers, and thrive in finance or economics or other similar professions.

Some people are born leaders and can guide large companies to great success.

Journalists (I was one for 26 years) need to have a nose for news.

My nose for news may have had a deviated septum.

On one hand, a “nose for news” may mean the ability to see a story when no one else does. I had that. I could take a mundane matter such as a resident battling the city about overgrown weeds in the neighbor’s yard and turn that into a big-picture story about where individual rights end and governance begins. All of a sudden, it wasn’t about knee-high weeds. It was about freedom itself.

On the other hand, a nose for news may mean the ability to dig for the right information at the right time to make a story truly great.

It wasn’t long into my journalism journey I realized I may not have that.

I wasn’t an ambulance chaser, but there was this one time …

My first job out of college was as a general assignment reporter for the Cullman Times, a 5-days-per-week newspaper in the city of Cullman, located halfway on I-65 between Birmingham and Huntsville. We covered all of Cullman County including the nearby town of Hanceville, about 10 miles south of Cullman.

I remember driving back from Hanceville one evening after covering a routine water board meeting, when an ambulance zoomed south toward Hanceville.

Even at a small daily, a passing ambulance is not story-worthy, unless …

So I followed it. I wasn’t pushing a hard deadline so I had time.

I whipped around and followed the ambulance into the parking lot of a well-trafficked strip mall. When I arrived, medics were tending to a patient in a vehicle in the middle of the parking lot.

A crowd of about 10-15 people were circled around the car as medics did their work.

This is not a story, unless the person in the vehicle is the mayor, or some other elected official or well-known person. So my job was to find out what was happening and who it was happening to so I could quickly determine this was not a story and be on my way.

As I began to look at the assembled crowd, I began to seek out the person who looked like he/she knew what was going on. I had two simple questions. What’s happening? Who is it happening to?

Quick. Easy. Out.

This one man was eyeballing me. As I scanned the crowd, I kept coming back to him because he looked like he had something to say.

“That’s the guy,” I said to myself, trusting my nose for news.

I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but I was a guy with a reporter’s notebook in hand. I casually walked over to the man and talked in a quiet tone as medics did their work.

“Did you get a chance to see what happened or do you know who this is?” I asked.

His answer made me doubt my whole career choice.

Noise — loud noise — began to come out of his mouth but no syllable was intelligible. He kept going for a few seconds at higher and higher volume with nothing but gutteral sounds coming from him.

Then it hit me.

This man has no tongue.

I can’t begin to tell you how deflating it is for a 22-year-old fresh college graduate who thinks he knows everything about the news reporting business to pick the one guy out of a crowd who is missing the one tool it takes to provide a reporter with information.

Fifteen people. Fourteen tongues. The odds were definitely in my favor and I failed miserably.

First, the wave of deflation. Next, how am I going to move on from this very awkward situation?

By this time, more people are interested in my conversation with the man with no tongue than the poor person in medical distress in the vehicle nearby.

I can’t just turn and walk away. That would be rude and disrespectful.

The man is continuing to utter sounds as I process a handful of possible responses. I probably chose the wrong one.

I wanted him to know I appreciated the effort. But how do I show that and move on? So, I picked up my pen and started writing in my reporter’s notebook as he prattled away.

I nodded dutifully and made a few movements with my pen. I nodded dutifully again and made a few more movements and started to walk away.

But he kept on … uh … talking.

More than likely, he was saying something like “I have no tongue, you embicile. Of all people, why would you try to get information from me?”

But I’m stuck. I can’t just walk away. So I went to my trusty reporter’s notebook with my pen again and said thank you.

There is no way to salvage this moment. Maybe it was the mayor in medical distress, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. I just walked back to my car and left.

I made it back to the newsroom. I had choices the next morning when all of my coworkers were present.

Share the story or tell no one?

I shared. People laughed until their lungs collapsed and that’s when I realized that reporters always — always — need to share their stories.

Over the course of the next 26 years I shared and heard stories that belong in the Comedy Hall of Fame. I learned that self-deprecation is the best form of humor. I learned not to take myself too seriously. I learned I didn’t know everything about everything, especially about my nose for news.

Those stories kept us going, because we saw a lot of stuff we had rather not see. Laughing at ourselves and each other was the best medicine.

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I sat staring at the image above, taken just a couple of days after the devastating Tuscaloosa tornado of April 27, 2011.

The anniversary was just three days ago as I write this. I located the photo in a desktop folder. It was one that I took on April 29 when I accompanied several men from here who jumped in a truck and drove to Tuscaloosa to help anyone they could find.

I thought I needed to write something about the tornado. I thought about how Tuscaloosa was changed in so many ways — physically, emotionally, economically. I could have written about the initial response to the tornado’s impact; how people came together to make a difference. I could have written about the chaos a natural disaster brings. All of those things would have been good stuff for a Substack.

But I just kept staring at the photo. We were actually in a staff retreat for my church Monday. It just stayed on my laptop most of the morning.

The photo is of the intersection of McFarland Boulevard and 15th Street. Until April 27, 2011, it was one of the most recognizable intersections in Tuscaloosa. There was a mall on one side and an iconic Krispy Kreme on the other. No matter which direction you were traveling, you could use it for navigation. You knew how close (or far) you were from Druid City Hospital, or Skyland Boulevard, or University Boulevard.

On that day, unless you were told, you would have no idea you were standing at McFarland and 15th.

Instead of sitting down to write about the tornado, I began to think about a number of people close to me who are experiencing catastrophic circumstances in their lives due to health matters or other concerns.

It is in moments like those that you can lose your bearings. Things that you had often used as landmarks in your life can be ripped up and laid bare. What do you do when so many things that you knew to be solid in your life were quickly leveled?

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Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people. He saw religion as providing a pleasant illusion that numbs current suffering, or at least dulls it. He believed religion served to keep normal people oppressed. If they knew their condition, he thought, the people would rise up to change their condition.

Psychologist Sigmund Freud said God is an illusion created in the mind to meet deep psychological needs. Although he didn’t coin the phrase, he saw religion as a “crutch” to deal with the unpleasant aspects of living.

Made-up, illusionary aspects of dealing with life are common. They are also temporary. They only carry you so far. People deal with unpleasant aspects of life in all sorts of ways. Alcohol and drugs are two well-known ways to numb. Many people turn to food, or they work all day, every day. They may bury themselves inside their phone through social media or games and apps.

Those always come to poor ends. If Marx and Freud were correct, society would have come to the same conclusion about faith. Overwhelmingly, it has not.

There is a reason that a real crutch serves you better when you have a broken leg than an imaginary one. When you put those very real objects under your armpits, you have full confidence it will take you where you need to go. Those very real crutches make contact with a very real floor or ground to move you in a very real direction.

Try to pick up a pair of imaginary crutches and move anywhere. Your face will meet that very real floor. That’s why rock bottoms exist for alcohol and drug abuse.

It may come in a matter of days, or even years. It will come, however.

Christianity has reigned supreme for 2,000 years because of its reality. If Christianity was a man-made illusion, it would have collapsed on itself long ago. There is a there, there.

As society has become more weird, more crazy, more dark, there are more people realizing the substance of what Christianity is. There is sin. Humans can’t fix it, no matter how hard we try. There is a solution that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

The people within my circle who are facing these catastrophic circumstances don’t have an illusory landmark. They have a very real point of navigation. They have a true North that makes it possible to move forward when it would be impossible otherwise.

It’s why so many thinkers and influencers have explored everything else, but keep coming back to Jesus after everything comes up short.

It’s why former Sen. Ben Sasse — with days or just months left to live — can face his final days on earth with steadfastness.

If it’s so easy, then why isn’t everyone a Christian?

It’s not easy. It requires a very hard thing for a human to do.

Surrender.

But in that surrender, there is freedom. There is a true North.

When everything else is laid flat, it will always stand. It always has.

Pursue Christ in surrender.

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One of the most-viewed posts came in 2024 when I wrote about the perverted depiction of the Last Supper during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Paris.

When God is Mocked

My point was that Christians blew a golden opportunity to present the gospel to a world that, at least for a moment, was paying attention to Christianity.

So here we are again.

This time, it wasn’t the artistic director of a sporting ceremony. It was the sitting President of the United States of America.

President Trump posted an image of himself in a flowing white robe and red sash, glowing beams of light coming from his hands, beings floating in the sky in the background, appearing to heal a sick man, a woman praying to his side.

The backlash was immediate, even from some of his most loyal supporters. The president said he thought the image was portraying him as a doctor, or someone connected to the Red Cross. Whether this is true or not, the spotlight once again shone bright on Jesus.

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So, let’s take advantage of this opportunity that has been dropped in our lap:

We believe Jesus is God. We believe He is holy. We believe putting ourselves in the lofty place of Jesus is sinful. We believe it cheapens what Jesus did for the world.

We believe God created everything, including mankind. We believe we messed up a perfect relationship with Him by choosing sin. We believe only a perfect sacrifice could restore that relationship.

We believe that perfect sacrifice was Jesus, who was God and the expression of God that He wanted us to see in the flesh. His life here culminated with His crucifixion (payment for our sin taken on Him) and Resurrection (complete victory over sin and death).

Those who come under that acceptance of Christ’s payment on the cross and His Lordship over our lives are restored to Him forever, throughout eternity. This is as sacred as it gets.

But what a great opportunity to explain why it means so much. All under Christ live imperfect lives, but we strive to be more like Him every day and rest in His forgiveness. The best exchange in history: Jesus beckons us to exchange our identity for His.

So yes, the anger over the post of the image is understood. Something we hold to be sacred above all has been mocked.

But we get to share the gospel to the world again. And I’m sure many have shared the gospel with the President numerous times, but maybe this time it will resonate.

You can have the best immigration/border policy. You can appoint Supreme Court justices who make many decisions that help the country. You can help relieve unnecessarily burdensome regulations. Those things are good from a worldly standpoint, but they can also all be undone in a matter of a few years.

What you do or don’t do with Christ makes all the difference for eternity.

Jesus will be just fine. He was mocked when He was here and He will be mocked until He comes again.

But maybe this is another moment for the world to not just to think about some image posted by the president, but to think about Jesus.

This time, may we rise to the occasion and be on the ready to tell the greatest story ever told.

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I had a conversation with a couple from church recently about the tough decision they faced in placing a loved one in assisted living.

I’m 55. I know I may be there one day and I know that is always painful for both the children who have to make that decision and the loved one.

The older I get, the more I’m like my dad, who never wanted to be away from home.I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be away from home forever, in a strange room living a few feet away from strangers.

A person in this situation is faced with two choices: isolate or assimilate. I’m afraid my choice would be isolation, just like the choice of this particular loved one.

Studies indicate isolation is the least healthy choice. The absence of social interaction proves to be bad for body, mind and soul.

But it was this comment from the couple that stayed with me for days:

She just stays in her room all day and watches cable news. Now, she’s afraid of everything.

I stopped watching cable news years ago. My first reaction to my friend’s comment was “how sad.”

That sadness quickly changed to anger.

How many elderly men and women across this country sit in front of a television every day, watching their favorite cable news network for hours and hours?

I stopped watching because I realized cable news companies profited from fear. They are incentivized to instill fear in their viewers. Fear is the goal. Truth is far down the priority list.

I watched a variety of cable news networks over the next several days after this conversation to see for myself all over again. It’s worse than I remembered.

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Four networks:

The first told me a few more days of war could crash the economy and send my 401(k) or other retirement funds into an irreversable tailspin. It told me to watch out for RSV, spreading at an alarming rate. It told me that if I was a young person, forget getting hired. Could I even get an unpaid internship?

The second one told me the war was lost, and with it the entire American ethos. It told me how a weakened America should be on the lookout for invaders ready to take over in the country’s weakness. Could the enemy already be at my door?

The third one told me about an almost-certain commodity shock coming to the states and how I would be lucky to afford basic food items soon. It told me there may be nothing on the shelves anyway due to a looming supply chain breakdown. And, by the way, the medicine I take to keep me from suffering may not be available either.

The fourth one told me to be careful if I lived close to a military base because China could attack. And, of course, it told me that AI was not only coming for my job, but it was coming for me.

I thought about these vulnerable men and women — doing their best to adjust to this life upheavel — being shoveled this for hours and hours per day by these cable news networks.

It should be criminal. It is evil.

These networks are just like the charlatan televangelists who pry money out of the hands of well-meaning seniors. They earnestly believe they are helping people with their donations and those hooked on cable news earnestly believe they are being well-informed.

No medium is without sin, not even my beloved newspapers of the past.

But what is passing for news on television is a complete violation of the word.

It’s not news. It’s pure propaganda and it only takes a few months of your favorite network to shape your entire worldview.

And the seniors are the ones most likely to have fewer alternatives. Of course social media isn’t better. There may be more responsible voices online, but you have to dig deeper to find them.

The ones populating your timeline are the ones who throw out the most extreme takes, evidenced by this graphic from Nate Silver highlighting the accounts with the most enagement.

But cable news irks me the most because it preys on the most vulnerable. Many believe that if their favorite news personality says it, then it must be true.

We learned that isn’t the case when the company that owns the Dominion voting machines sued Fox News for libel. Fox News settled with Dominion for a large sum. We learned in the discovery phase that the network gave credibility to several extreme voices during their shows, then privately trashed those same people in texts between employees.

Bottom line: Many cable news voices don’t believe what they’re telling you. But they know many of us believe it and they know what puts eyeballs on their network.

The fact that so many purposely report things they know not to be true is annoying. What really makes me angry, however, is what it has done to so many of our elderly people who live in a constant state of fear.

More sensible voices are trying to push back, but they don’t get picked up by the algorithm because, unfortunately, more people are attracted to the extreme rather than the sensible.

So, we do what we can.

I’ve written about this many times. You can read some my other posts below when you have the time.

News is Boring: What the news outlets don’t want you to know

How A Little Editing Can Completely Change a News Story

It’s Not Just the Left That Distorts the News

More on the Slow Death of Newspapers

I Gave Alex Jones Some Attention So You Don’t Have To

In the meantime, try to broaden the horizons of your loved ones hooked on cable news, especially if you don’t want to see them living in fear.

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I had not yet turned 17 when I sat in my living room to watch man accomplish something I thought to be nearly impossible.

Man could fly.

Not in a plane. Not in some jet-suit contraption. Not with a pair of hand-made wing gliders caught up by the wind.

Just by the force of his legs, staring gravity right in the face and telling it “not today.”

A tall, skinny kid from North Carolina named Michael Jordan grabbed a basketball and approached the rim from the side as part of the 1987 NBA All-Star Dunk Contest.

He took a couple of dribbles, bent his knees and then … “liftoff … liftoff of the most amazing man to ever clutch a basketball … Jordan has cleared the tower.”

He floated up into the air as he approached the rim and the visual is just as iconic today as it was 39 years ago. Michael Jordan took a horizontal look to the rim as he approached it and slammed the basketball through.

It became known as Jordan’s “kiss the rim” dunk and elevated the Jordan legend to new heights, pun most definitely intended.

My jaw dropped just as far as Jordan leaped. It was as if super slow motion was invented just for that moment.

All I could muster was a “whoa” whispered. It was as if uttering something loud would take away from what I just saw as I stared at every. single. replay.

When I think about a pure definition of awe, I think about that moment.

There have been many others. I remember stepping into Bryant-Denny Stadium for the first time in 1977, never having seen something so big. Although it held 60,000 at the time, it was the biggest thing I had ever seen.

I remember seeing the very first Space Shuttle launch. I remember my first trip to the beach and seeing the Gulf of Mexico. I remember my first plane ride, first roller coaster ride, first kiss.

We are designed to experience awe, and I’m afraid our society is working hard to snuff those moments out.

This was brought home to me this week when NASA launched Artemis II, a manned mission around the moon in preparation for later trips to the moon and beyond.

One of the most awe-inspiring endeavors is man’s reach for the stars.

Until the algorithm does its job.

It’s not about the Artemis launch, or whether we really stepped on the moon in 1969. The fact of the matter is that too many people never want us to have a sense of awe about anything. They want none of us to aspire to anything because they never aspire to anything.

Michael Jordan? He can jump I suppose, but you know he has a gambling problem, right? Tom Brady’s NFL dominance? You know the league is rigged, right?

We’re smack in the middle of the most Debbie Downer society we’ve ever had and it starts at the top.

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None of our leaders are perfect. They’re all flawed, just like the rest of us. But, about the time Michael Jordan was kissing the rim, President Ronald Reagan was telling us to go out and capture the American dream. He was telling us that we can achieve, whether we had a head start toward the dream or had to start several yards behind the starting line. He pushed us to try to see a future that some couldn’t see for themselves.

Today, our leaders simply try to out-insult the other side. We may not lead the free world in aspiration anymore, but we are the hot-take, Don Rickles champion by light years.

Just check your favorite social media platform. We’ve had the Renaissance. We’ve had the Gilded Age. We’ve had the Enlightenment. Now we are in the Age of Villification. There is a race to the bottom and both sides are in a sprint to see who gets there first.

Forgive me for checking out on that.

This weekend we celebrate the most awe-inspiring event in the history of the universe. The creator of everything humbled Himself to take on humanity, live here on earth so we can see how to live, then take on all of our sins in death on a Cross so we can spend eternity with Him.

And then he rose from the dead for complete and total victory over the grave.

You have people that want to take that sense of awe over the empty tomb away from you.

Don’t let that happen.

He Lives. He Lives. Christ Jesus Lives Today.

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I’ve been a late adopter of podcasts.

I’ve started listening to a handful over the past couple of years, mostly when I’m in my vehicle. So, it may take me a week to listen to a three-hour podcast.

One of my regulars is Shawn Ryan, a former Navy Seal who hosts guests to talk about topics ranging from military life to politics to the weird and wild.

At some point after his military career, Ryan had trouble adjusting to civilian life. He became despondent until he had a profound experience that led him to embrace Christianity.

Since that moment, Ryan has been a professing Christian.

He talks about Christ and his experiences often and he celebrates fellow Christians who come on his show.

However, in the midst of a three-hour podcast, Ryan drops the F-word at a phenomenal rate.

So, this Substack is not about cursing per se, it is about my internal struggle in trying to determine whether I am overemphasizing it in the life of a professing Christian.

I’ve never had this particular problem. My parents cursed, as did most of my extended family. So did most of my childhood and adolescent friends. So, my ears are far from virgin. What is off-putting is hearing it used in the midst of his takes on Christianity.

And this isn’t even about Shawn Ryan. There is a new vibe in the influencer realm. It is a vibe toward Christianity and not away from it. This should be a good thing, right? But is it consistent with Biblical instruction about how a Christ follower should live? And I am concerned that while “Christian” is vibing out there, I’m not seeing it backed up in any solid Biblical way. I see and hear a lot of cringe Christianity.

So, let me download my internal struggle for you:

(1) Am I having trouble with this one particular thing because it happens to be one thing with which I don’t struggle? And does that make me look better to myself?

(2) Am I just impatient with Shawn Ryan’s sanctification process, knowing that he is still quite young in the faith?

(3) Is this a culture thing more than anything else?

(4) Or, am I on to something here? Is there good cause to be — at least — annoyed by this?

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I battle with this because I can make good arguments for both.

The Bible is clear that once we put our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord, we become a new creation. We are not an upgrade of our old selves, we are new.

The Bible also tells us that because we remain in the flesh here on earth, we will not completely overcome sin until we are united with Christ in Heaven. So our journey of transformation is gradual while we remain alive here.

It is a mystery. God removes some sinful inclinations in us immediately, while He does not others. Even those who follow Christ very closely still struggle with sin.

However, we struggle with it as we recognize it in us. We know there are things about us that are not right. The Holy Spirit convicts us of this.

So, in this particular instance, I wonder if Ryan feels any conviction. And, again, I wonder if I’m singling this one out unfairly. I mean, a lot of professing Christian influencers lie. They are certainly irreverant. And most definitely arrogant.

I wrote this two years ago, long before I came across Ryan’s carpet bomb of F-words:

Christians have never had a bigger platform. It isn’t just pastors whose Sunday sermons can spread across the internet. It is me and you. We have thousands of social media friends. We can post something and it can be seen on hundreds of timelines within a few minutes. Or, if we don’t want to say something ourselves, we can amplify someone else’s speech by sharing his or her post.

With such a large platform, we should ask ourselves if what we are saying and how we are saying it is compatible with what Scripture teaches. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always hit the mark.

It is comforting to know that God knows we don’t always hit the mark. Earlier in James 3, James notes “we all stumble in many ways” (Verse 2).

But is there a pattern to our speech that identifies us as either someone working to comply with God’s command about our speech or as someone determined to go our own way?

That’s my struggle.

I’m reminded of a book I read many years ago called “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller, who lived in the Northwest and expressed a problem with what he called performative Christianity, which he most likely meant the facade well-meaning Christians put on as a forward face to conceal inner wrestlings.

And Miller came across this church in Seattle called Mars Hill, where the pastor cursed during his sermons. He thought it was cool. The point he was trying to make is that Christianity can become bogged down in superficial rules, religious jargon, and inauthenticity, which can alienate some people from its core message.

That pastor was/is Mark Driscoll. He gained a large following not just because he cursed during sermons. He preached tough sermons. He gave high challenges. He walked to the edge of the cliff every Sunday. Sometimes he stopped in time and sometimes he didn’t. It is worth noting a couple of things: (1) He later repented from his cussing sermon days. (2) His church collapsed, at least in part, due to his inability to control his ego and come under accountability.

So many of those young, grunge kids who came to Mars Hill because of Driscoll’s in-your-face style of preaching (I mean, he cusses during sermons!!!) were left very disillusioned when the church collapsed.

Sometimes, as my colleagues often say on our own podcast The Journey, it is simply about long obedience in the same direction. There is definitely a place for edginess, but within well-defined Biblical guidelines.

So, these are my conclusions as of today. I reserve the right to refine them:

(1) I’m rooting for Shawn Ryan. I think he can be a great asset for Christ. He has a tremendous following of young men. And I’ll continue to listen.

(2) I probably have singled this out due to cultural norms, but my concern is not misplaced.

(3) None of us are perfect. We are all recipients of God’s grace and we’re all at different points in the process of sanctification.

(4) Our speech matters. It simply does. Although our total lives are examples of our new selves in Christ, our speech goes before us. There are too many places in Scripture that tell us how we should (and should not) speak.

(5) I understand Shawn was a Navy Seal and cursing is simply the nature of the business. But I also understand this: Shawn is no longer that guy. He is in Christ. He is a new creation. Behold, the old is gone and the new has come. I have no expectation he will ever read this, but my simple suggestion to him would be to just pray about it. Take it to the throne and humbly seek God about it, and just see what happens.

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I’m struck by a comment one of my colleagues made almost a year ago during a podcast we host where I’m employed.

“There’s a more out there in my relationship with God,” he said. “It’s out there and I want to experience it and I fear I am missing it.”

That’s a paraphrase, but it captures a thought we have discussed on many episodes.

Before we explore more, the Podcast is called “The Journey.” It’s an unscripted weekly chat between four of us on staff at Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Dothan. We usually banter for 20-30 minutes before lighting on an issue or situation that we believe hits home with so many of us on this journey we take in our lives as Christ followers.

Listen on Substack here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Watch on YouTube here.

Our Minister of Discipleship, Chase Faulk, made the comment. It was echoed by Broxton Gannon, our director of Internet Ministries. Chase and Broxton often wind up in the same category. Broxton describes himself as often spiritually frustrated. We’ve coined a term for high stress level among our group. We call it “Chase.”

Meanwhile, myself and Auborn Shepard, pastor to middle schoolers and preteens, are often in the other category. We’re pretty chill. We take the journey as it comes and we don’t sweat it too much.

It would be easy to determine that Auborn and I have the good road on this one. God doesn’t desire stress and frustration in us. However, I often wonder if there is a greater relationship I am missing due to being more passive than active in this area.

Our pastor often says that we have as much of God as we want. Am I losing out because I may be too content?

We talked about this recently in a men’s small group. On one hand, we have numerous verses in the Bible where we read about the positive effects of dwelling, or resting in God.

Psalm 91:1-2
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’”

John 15:4-5 (Jesus speaking)
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Psalm 116:7
“Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.”

The context in some of the verses is that we find solace (peace, rest) in God during times of upheaval. But in others, the position of dwelling within God is continual.

At the same time, there is a pursuit of God, an active component, that is woven into Scripture as well.

Jeremiah 29:13
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

Deuteronomy 4:29
“But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Psalm 63:1
“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

1 Timothy 6:11
“But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

Psalm 119:2
“Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.”

Of course the easy answer is that our relationship with God is not an either/or, it is a both/and.

Just like any journey, there is an active and passive aspect. We appreciate the path. We enjoy the scenery. We delight in the landscape. But we also move forward. We purposely head in a certain direction. We avoid obstacles and pitfalls. We seek to stay nourished along the way. We maneuver ourselves in such a way as to have the best view, the best enjoyment of the journey.

So I am continually reminding myself that it is good to recognize the peace and rest that come with dwelling in God, but that the best recognition comes with pursuing the best dwelling place to experience the most peace and rest.

So you may find yourself in the camp of Chase and Broxton. If so, stop along the way to enjoy the journey. Soak in the promise that God loves you and you don’t have to earn it. Dwell and rest in that.

Or, you may associate more with myself and Auborn. Then pursue God. Seek Him with your whole heart. Take a leap and know there is a God that delights in your pursuit.

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I’m wondering about Jeffrey Epstein.

Probably not the way you think.

Sure, I have some curiosity about the actual details. Did he create a honey trap on a private island? Was he an agent of the Mossad? Did he have dirt on dozens, or hundreds of leaders and influencers?

Was he murdered?

Those are fascinating questions.

Moreso, however, I am fascinated about (a) how this is being covered and (b) how this is being handled within administrations.

The Jeffrey Epstein saga could be considered the conspiracy theory that binds all other conspiracy theories together.

If you have been reading me here, you know that I am not a conspiracy theorist in the modern sense.

I have addressed my view on conspiracy theories here and here.

They do pique my interest, however, because they offer a glimpse into the psyche of the modern day conspiracy theorist.

And the Epstein drama is perfect fodder.

First, let’s recap in brief:

Jeffrey Epstein rises from obscure teacher to financial advisor of the elite, rubbing elbows with practically anyone with worldwide influence on both sides of the political spectrum.

Caught redhanded in 2007, Epstein faced the potential of more than 60 charges dealing with underage females. Later that year, he signed a non-prosecution agreement which allowed him to plead guilty to two state prostitution charges, where he served 13 months of primarily work release. It also granted immunity to any co-conspirators.

He’s basically left alone for the next 10-12 years until he is arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He is found dead in his jail cell just more than a month later and the conspiracy theories hit Mach 7.

So this is what fascinates me:

The Biden Administration’s DOJ took a fairly passive approach to the case. They released files pursant to court orders, but did little beyond that. Conspiracy theorists and some others in conservative circles took this to mean the administration was protecting powerful progressives.

They said this administration would be different.

Dan Bongino was a flame-throwing talk show host before becoming Deputy Director of the FBI. The Epstein conspiracy theory was a frequent topic.

Then there is the now-Vice President.

And famous MAGA online conspiracy theorists who railed the former administration

Trump won the Presidency. The conspiracy faction believed he would deliver on pretty much everything — aliens, JFK and Epstein.

To his credit, his cajoling led the DOJ to release thousands of previously-unreleased JFK files, which amounted to a big bunch of nothing.

UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) hearings are held occasionally on Capitol Hill, but have resulted in nothing of consequence.

And millions of Epstein-related documents have been released, which may be the largest nothing burger of them all. It appears that all of the documents have been released except for the ones that may really matter.

Or maybe they have been released and they redacted everything that really matters.

So far, we’re talking Geraldo-Rivera-in-Al-Capone’s-vault stuff.

I read more than 300 pages of a recent Ghislaine Maxwell proffer. Forty volumes of the recent federal tax code update would have been more interesting.

And those Epstein emails?Almost all of them read more like rich dumb frat kids than invincible genius conspirators.

Even President Trump has said the whole Epstein thing was made up by Hillary Clinton as a distraction:

And that’s what fascinates me.

Trump was elected because he was perceived to be above it all. He was too rich to be bought. He bowed to no one, and the Epstein case was going to be what really proved it all to be true. It would be the most pure example of draining the swamp.

To be clear, this story may be far from over. I’ve been wanting to write about this for more than a couple of years, but the story has been pretty fluid.

Of course this thing has been handled so poorly for so many years, something tells me no one will be satisfied unless this release incriminates every famous person in Hollywood and Washington, which we know isn’t going to happen.

Maybe the conspiracy theorists will be proven right. Maybe dozens of the world’s elite will be perp-walked in a mass arrest just around the corner (a mass arrest that has been “imminent” since 2016 according to the conspiracy guys.)

Most reasonably, however, there are two possible explanations we are where we are with this story.

One, there is nothing really there. Millions of documents point to very little, and this whole story has been taken into the stratosphere by a bunch of influencers who need clicks, views and book sales.

When I say “very little”, I do not mean to infer that there aren’t innocent victims. It appears there are numerous young female victims. I mean that the conspiracy part of this story hasn’t been proven in any of the documents yet.

Take the Epstein murder theory, for example. The FBI director and former deputy director are on board that Epstein simply killed himself:

Trump has called the matter a dead issue and indicated it’s all a distraction and waste of time. So, maybe there isn’t much to the story.

It is worth noting that Epstein’s apparent suicide in 2019 was the first at that prison in 21 years. Of course it could be just as reasonably argued that Epstein’s status allowed him to arrange his own suicide, just as plausibly as his status got him murdered.

And Bongino — no longer with the FBI — has all but said the FBI did not have the evidence that many pepople thought, both about the Epstein death and the Island conspiracy.

Common sense conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro has said that, sometimes, the evidence just isn’t there.

“I’m sorry … when you put Kash Patel and Dan Bongino in charge of the FBI, and we put Pam Bondi in charge of the DOJ, and then it turns out there is nothing there, I don’t know what more you expect. What do you think — they’re all part of the conspiracy? You can always go down the next conspiratorial rabbit hole. That’s the beauty of conspiratorial rabbit holes — when one of them gets debunked, you just dive right in to the next conspiratorial rabbit hole. I’m just going to point out for the thousandth time here … Dan Bongino and Kash Patel were both suspicious of the Epstein list stuff. They were both into the theorizing and then they saw the evidence, and, like the honest people they are, they came to the conclusion about that evidence. If your expectations of a gigantic conspiracy theory don’t come true and you have no counter-evidence — none — except for your speculation … I’m sorry, but that’s on you.”

There is a second possible conclusion that we are where we are with the Epstein story.

There is something there that implicates people Trump doesn’t want implicated.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican, is convinced there is a coverup afoot, or gross negligence at the least. He cites the odd redactions. He believes Patel lied about a lack of co-conspirators. He claims the obstruction began with Epstein’s lenient 2007 non-prosecution agreement under the Bush administration and continued through the Obama, Trump, and Biden eras. He describes it as a systemic failure involving multiple attorneys general, comparing it to Watergate but on a larger scale because it crosses party lines and involves protecting co-conspirators in child sex trafficking.

Massie has seen the unredacted files.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it,” he told Politico. “When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet.”

If that is true, then of course even Trump can be controlled. And, if so, the Deep State is alive, well, and still running the show.

Trump has until the end of 2028 to prove the conspiracy guys right.

Or wrong.

And a small Dothan connection

During the last release of the Epstein files, a 2004 phone bill from the LLC created to purchase Epstein’s now infamous island was among the documents.

One of the calls was made to a Dothan number. It lasted 29 minutes, one of the longer calls listed on the 39-page bill.

First, the bill cover:

And the Dothan call:

The entire bill can be viewed here.

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The NCAA was right.

Maybe it didn’t execute well when the courts told the NCAA that the old way of doing things no longer worked, but the NCAA feared we would be exactly where we are now — trying to govern a professional sport with quasi-amateur rules.

So, everyone’s favorite whipping boy, the NCAA, knew what was coming.

Criticize the NCAA all you want, and I’ve done my share. The enforcement is selective. The punishments are inconsistent. The messaging is quite poor most of the time.

But remember this: It was the NCAA who tried to tell us, poor messaging and all.

We can go back to just about any time, but 2009 appears to be a good starting point.

Ed O’Bannon, a star basketball player for UCLA, appeared on the cover of the popular Electronic Arts college basketball video game.

O’Bannon filed a lawsuit, claiming he deserved to be compensated for the use of his image on the cover and his likeness in the video game. His suit gained class action status.

The NCAA fought this. The NCAA argued that its compensation restrictions were necessary to maintain the tradition and public perception of amateurism in college sports. Paying athletes would undermine this amateur model and it would further separate the athlete from the academic endeavor of a university. After all, college sports were created to assist a person in pursuit of a degree via scholarship.

The NCAA further argued that the scholarship value (both on the face and future value) along with the resources schools used to develop the athlete provided sufficient compensation.

Of course the NCAA lost. In 2014, Judge Claudia Wilken determined the old NCAA rules amounted to unlawful restraint of a person’s right to control his or her name, image and likeness.

But even then, just 12 years ago, the court recognized the road this could travel and attempted to put guardrails in place. At the time, all the O’Bannon case did was allow schools to offer scholarships up to the full cost of attendance so the athlete wouldn’t have any out of pocket expenses. The very progressive Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals even understood the importance of retaining some form of amateurism, rejecting a proposal to provide up to a whopping $5,000 in deferred NIL.

Let that sink in for a moment. The progressive 9th Circuit thought $5,000 in deferred (available when eligibility is exhausted) NIL was too much of a threat to amateurism.

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However, the O’Bannon case was the foot in the door. A flood of lawsuits followed.

The NCAA dutifully fought every one of them for the same reasons it fought the first one. It may seem reasonable to be compensated for the use of your own image. But that wasn’t the point the NCAA was trying to make. The point the NCAA was trying to make is that once that door is cracked open, the sport can’t be policed, no matter the rules on the books.

The NCAA couldn’t police college athletics adequately when boosters were placing $10,000 in a bag and handing it to athletes under a stairwell. How could it possibly police NIL?

The partial victory in the O’Bannon case emboldened others. Eventually, an obscure West Virginia quarterback named Shawne Alston allowed his name to be atop another class action lawsuit that would change college athletics forever.

In Alston, current and former Division I football and basketball players filed antitrust lawsuits starting around 2014. They argued the NCAA’s rules capping or prohibiting certain benefits violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act (which prohibits unreasonable restraints of trade).

And while the Alston case didn’t directly lead to revenue sharing and $30 million NIL rosters, the NCAA knew when it was beat and eventually changed language in its rulebook, allowing players to be “fairly” compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness.

The NCAA knew where this would lead as well, but could no longer afford to lose in court every time. So, just as soon as “fair market NIL” was allowed by the NCAA around 2021, boosters and collectives easily circumvented the rules and began paying players as an inducement.

Maybe we would have gotten here anyway. And maybe the NCAA should have been more proactive in an effort to get a handle on the changing landscape. I doubt, however, it would have changed very much. Once rich college football fans realized they didn’t have to entice players with $100 handshakes under the table and could instead buy a contending team for $25 million, the frenzy began.

So now, schools are poaching players on other teams while they are sitting in class. High school recruits and transfers are asking for signing bonuses, flight stipends, vehicle stipends, Heisman campaigns, scholarships for the girlfriend and field passes for the cousin/agent.

Now, players who played in the G League last week are playing college basketball this week. Why? Because once the veil of amateurism was removed from college sports, it became more lucrative than the G League and even more lucrative than many NBA contracts. So, if college sports is no longer amateur, can these players be lawfully restrained?

Say what you will about the NCAA. It saw this coming.

Writers and commentators hammered the NCAA’s objections to the O’Bannon and Alston cases. They sanctimoniously set themselves atop the intellectual hierarchy, and cast the NCAA as Neanderthals.

But that was then. Now, many of those same writers and commentators are furious over former Alabama basketball player Charles Bediako’s attempt to return to college and resume his athletic eligibility, apparently not realizing they championed the very thing that led to this moment.

College football and basketball are in a state of chaos currently because they are professional sports falling under a mishmash of quasi-amateur rules.

No wonder we are where we are.

The NCAA was right. And there is no solution on the horizon.

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Welcome to Trial by Twitter.

The shooting of Alex Pretti is so nuanced that 10,000 words wouldn’t come close to touching all of the issues, yet people are trying to convince others in 280 characters or less.

Should this matter ever become a criminal or civil case, 500,000 words would not adequately address the issues.

But here we are, fully convinced one way or the other, based on shaky video, that law enforcement executed an American citizen or that a man was seconds away from committing mass murder.

The Legal Matter

There have been a handful of local cases in which officers fatally shot someone. What I learned is that officers have very broad leeway in the use of deadly force.

Why?

Every interaction is potentially deadly for a law enforcement officer.

Since 2019, more than 350 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty in the United States, according to a compilation of reports. Another 1,600 were injured by gunshot.

There are many cases that have established a legal measuring stick for judges and juries. The question seems simple, but it never is:

Was the use of deadly force by the law enforcement officer a reasonable act under the circumstances?

In most cases, juries side with the officer. Police have a tremendous burden. Officers never know if the domestic violence call they answer is, in reality, an ambush. Officers never know if the speeding driver they approach on the side of the road has a gun hidden underneath his sweater, waiting to fire as soon as the window rolls down. Officers never know if the bar disturbance they are called to break up will result in a hail of gunfire between drunk degenerates.

And officers never know if the demonstration they are called to police will result in armed violence.

So the courts have given police a wide swath of legality. Under perfect circumstances, would Policeman A have shot and killed Suspect A? Of course not. But no fatal shooting is ever under perfect circumstances. In a tense, chaotic situation, could Policeman A have reasonably assumed that his life or others could have been in danger based on the circumstances?

If the officers were on trial, the trial would probably last 10 days with loads of testimony well beyond the 15 seconds we have seen.

But, under this test:

• The reasonableness of the force is judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with 20/20 hindsight.

• Courts consider the totality of the circumstances, including key factors:

  • The severity of the crime at issue.

  • Whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others (this is frequently the most decisive factor in deadly force cases).

  • Whether the suspect is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.

• The standard accounts for the fact that officers must often make split-second judgments in tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situations.

In this case, a man inserted himself into a police action while armed, with tensions high.

Officers wrestled the man to the ground and one officer disarmed him, but it appears not all involved officers knew the man had been disarmed. It is believed the firearm discharged in the process of the disarming, causing the officers to react.

While tragic, it appears just based on this short amount of video that the reaction was reasonable under the circumstances.

However, police would also be scrutinized at trial about policy and training.

Did any of the actions of the officers violate clear, defined policy? Did that violation of policy lead to the shooting? Did the officers violate any procedures specifically taught to deal with this situation? Did officers reasonably try to de-escalate the situation before using deadly force? In other words, was the use of force disproportionate?

Nuance and social media don’t really go together, do they?

Yes, there is a great burden on officers to subdue matters without deadly force. But although it sounds unsympathetic, no sensible person would approach a tense law enforcement operation armed, and then attempt to fight or resist. Whether he had a right or not is beside the point. The point is he unnecessarily risked a fatal response in a chaotic situation.

And while we all form opinions about matters we don’t experience first-hand, there is something unique about matters of law enforcement, with the potential for death always being within seconds. That has to count for something.

The Broader Matter

Of course there is this specific circumstance and then there is the bigger picture of how to handle people who are in this country illegally, which sparked the Minneapolis protests.

Prior to the recent shootings in Minneapolis, President Trump enjoyed relatively healthy poll numbers on border security and immigration.

It can be reasonably argued that border security may have been one of the issues that allowed Trump to gain enough swing votes to win the Presidency.

Now, those poll numbers have declined sharply.

Simply put, some people in that swing vote demographic believe the administration is going too far.

Even some ardent supporters of Trump are calling on him to slow down on this issue.

Why?

The midterm elections.

Will Trump heed the advice? Is it too late to save the midterms?

Trump infamously backed off his pro-life stance recently while urging “flexibility” on the Hyde Amendment, which would ban federal funds for abortions.

This occurred during remarks to House Republicans at their annual policy retreat on January 6, where he urged them to bend on the amendment to secure a health care deal replacing expired Affordable Care Act subsidies, amid concerns over premium increases affecting the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump pretty easily caved on the Hyde Amendment to boost midterm election chances. Will he tell ICE to slow down?

There’s plenty of nuance here, too. In addition to the midterms, there is the philosophical discussion about how we should handle those here illegally. Should we just deport the criminals? Should we raid every row crop in the country that uses human harvesters? Maybe we should, but more Americans are becoming more uneasy when they realize going after those here illegally often takes aggression. Sometimes, that aggression looks out of place.

But what do we do? Is it fair that possibly millions remain here illegally when so many are trying to follow the law to locate here? And if we agree that it is fundamentally unfair for one group of people to benefit from an illegal action while another group suffers because it chose to follow the law, would it not make sense to make an active effort to find and deport those who are here illegally?

Maybe it does. But that doesn’t mean you will win elections if the swing voters think you have overreached.

(I wrote about overreach here.)

Trump has to figure out whether going to the mat on this issue is worth losing the House, and maybe the Senate too.

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My fellow Americans:

It is a mostly sunny morning in early January as I bring this address to you.

Quite literally, it is morning in America. As I sit and sip coffee and contemplate where we are, I confidently state to you that it is figuratively morning in America as well.

For me.

And it can be for you as well.

I do not believe it is morning in America because of the indicators typically mentioned.

We are angry at each other as a people. We don’t just passionately disagree about the direction of this country. We are angry. We hate those we disagree with more than ever. We do so because we have chosen to jump into the stream of opinion vomited by influencers — those online who have found a way to make a living by pushing your buttons and those elected who have found a way to strike a nerve in our flawed selves.

Half of you don’t feel good about the economy or its future. You’re paying as much or more for most goods than you ever have. You believe you are shouldering the economic burden for too many other people. You don’t see your wages rising enough to offset the cost of living. The dollar you have is not going as far as it once did and you fear that the more we try to print our way out of this, the worse it is going to get.

You are pessimistic about education in America. You are weary of the bureaucracy smothering most public schools. Your local school board may be bickering and fussing with each other while students exit the system. You may not be able to afford to exit the system and you worry that what your child is being taught are not the most important things to get ahead in life.

You’re even more worried about higher education. You’ve seen other people’s kids come back from college indoctrinated in woke culture, but not so much in economic principles, or established history, or anything else you actually paid to have your child learn.

You believe dark elements are working against you, holding you back. You believe this because this philosophy is reinforced every time you turn on the television or scroll your favorite app. You believe we are one dark decision away from the dissolution of the country.

You see a dark cloud over you. And on your radar is another set of clouds, with another set behind that one, and another behind that one.

You see this because you have been conditioned to see this. You see clouds because the grifters don’t make money otherwise, and the scaremongers don’t get elected.

It doesn’t make money, generate clicks or win elections to tell you that you are among the most blessed people to not only live today, but to have ever lived.

And it certainly doesn’t resonate in this age of victimization to tell you that you are more positioned than ever in the entire history of the world to succeed.

And while we’re already two-deep in unpopular takes, let’s go for the trifecta: The only thing stopping you is you.

You’re not a victim. You’re blessed.

It is morning in America. If you don’t see a sunrise it is because you have chosen to shut the door and close the blinds.

If you are conservative, please know the Deep State can’t stop you. George Soros can’t stop you. Bill Gates, Chuck Schumer and Gavin Newsom can’t stop you.

If you are progressive, Donald Trump can’t stop you. Elon Musk can’t stop you. Your skin color can’t stop you. Your socioeconomic status can’t stop you. Pick an affinity group. You’re not a victim.

Despite our numerous flaws, God has blessed us with the greatest country in the history of the world. God has blessed us with ridiculous wealth. We have safety nets that allow us to swing big, fail, and land on our feet. We have safety nets that allow us to live at a level almost every other citizen in any other country would envy, even if we have zero earned income.

I am fully aware we have issues worth our attention. I’m fully aware of illness, depression, tragedies, etc. Those things exist and have always existed. I’m fully aware of injustices.

However, we fail individually when those things become who we are. Our country would have never gotten off the ground if those first Americans created the defeatist party.

The amazing blessing of our society is that we have the tools to achieve. We know that is true because we see it all around us. You don’t have to be a trust fund baby or have a famous last name. You can immigrate here from Taiwan to one of the poorest counties in America, clean toilets as a kid to have a pathway to school and wind up with a net worth of $130 billion like Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. You can dig your way out of poor choices and homelessness behind a strong desire to succeed like Chris Gardner, who pestered his way into an internship with Dean Witter Reynolds and parlayed the experience to start his own brokerage firm. You can spend your early life in an orphanage, be molded by that experience and work to become a successful car dealer, mayor and adventurer, like former Dothan Mayor Mike Schmitz.

The truth of the matter, however, is that you don’t have to become a chip king, a brokerage owner or a car dealer for it to be morning in America for you.

Your circumstances do not make you who you are. They reveal who you are. It can be morning every day for you if your identity is solidly anchored in the savior of the world.

It is that identity that allowed early Christians to face intense persecution by Rome, yet enthusiastically live a life so different that it changed the entire landscape of the world for the rest of history. If you believe the circumstances of today make you a victim, just look into early church history. There is no comparison.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil. [Refrain]

His oath, his covenant, his blood,
support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay. [Refrain]

When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found:
dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.

• Lyrics by Edward Mote; 1834

So, my fellow Americans, it is morning in America because the Savior is risen. He lives. He lives. Christ Jesus lives today. If you have made a decision to follow Christ, do not allow circumstances to dictate your well being. Rise above them. There are few things more off-putting than a professing Christian with a defeatist attitude, and we have far too many of them poisoning airwaves and the internet. Remove them from your lives.

Imagine, being blessed by the sovereign king of all creation with birth in the best country on the planet, and walk around like a victim.

It is morning in America. Go out and live that way.

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In 2025, people loved trips down memory lane and epiphanies.

Click on the headlines to read the entire piece.

No. 4 — My Escape from Stagnation’s Grip

The New World didn’t come to Columbus. He discovered it by being active. The blueprint for western expansion in the United States didn’t come as a result of inactivity. Lewis and Clark traveled 7,000 miles and came back with maps, journals, and intelligence that provided the framework.

These men explored.

Reading can certainly be a fun way to clear the mind, but it is primarily an exploration of insight.

No. 3 — The Prayer I Pray Every Day, and Why

I have always had a difficult time praying in specifics. I do occasionally.

Most of the time, however, I pray for qualities. I guess I have grown to believe over time that if God blesses me with the qualities I seek, the specifics won’t really matter.

No. 2 — Why I Ranted About a Basketball Mixup, and What I learned from a Stranded Astronaut

Circumstances are not always going to benefit us, through no fault of our own.

I want to be the person who handles those moments like this stranded astronaut.

May we all be.

No. 1 — More Than Bricks: The Dothan Eagle’s People Defined its Soul

The demolition of my 23-year workplace brought back a flood of memories.

We took what we did seriously, but we didn’t take ourselves seriously. If only it were that way today at the bigger places.

My friend Bill Perkins wrote about the building recently, confessing that the building where he spent most of his career didn’t really mean a lot to him.

It was the people that meant a lot to him.

Same here, Bill.

You can read my most-read stories of 2024 right here.

Thank you for being a reader, Feel free to contact me any time.

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