Todd's Blog

Image: Pixabay Well, that was a popular post.  My previous essay was viewed more than 5,500 times, and the feedback has been mostly (and cautiously) positive.  But my social media feed still encourages me to "wake up" and see what's "really going on." There were a few questions and criticisms, which I thought were worth talking about. Shouldn't we carefully weigh the lives threatened by the shutdown against the lives threatened by the virus? Yes, those in charge of these decisions ought do this.  And remember that it's not just the economically threatened people in danger but others as well.  Domestic violence, mental illness and suicide, and even the willingness to seek basic emergency healthcare will be impacted by the shutdown.  Our situation does not reduce to "lives threatened by the virus vs. being inconvenienced at home for a few weeks."  Nor is it "horrendous, life-threatening economic disaster vs. a harmless flu bug.&qu

Image: Pixabay Did I get your attention?  Excellent.  Some of you have been asking me about my thoughts on the pandemic.  Well, I'm sorry I haven't been able to get back to you as quickly as you might have liked, but here's what I think. I spent Thursday morning recording the final lessons of the year for my high school students.  For the past four years, I've been teaching Bible part time to students at Rhea County Academy, our local Christian school.  Distance learning was not the way I wanted to end these classes, but God had other plans for us. Wrapping up New Testament, I taught how early Christian heresies contrast with the sacred writings that would become our New Testament, and while I was teaching, I had a kind of epiphany.  You see, the Gnostics believed that salvation came through enlightenment and special knowledge (the Greek for knowledge is gnosis ).  They believed that our physical reality is actually evil, and only the spirit world was good.  To