Expressions of Faith

an outlet of encouragement, explanation, and exhortation

Evaluating Government Policies and Laws

July 21, 2025 /

A few weeks ago I was speaking about how we should evaluate laws and policies of our government. As a Christian, we might well evaluate laws according to Christian ethics and purposes. Do they privilege a powerful few at the expense of many? And so on. There is much room for exposing laws and policies to a Christian critique. However, such a critique may well be compelling only to Christians.

And so I proposed another approach to evaluating government law and policy on a basis that is not specifically Christian. I don’t mean to abandon Christian ethics or the teaching of Jesus – not at all. Neither do I intend to imply that Christians should not evaluate policies using Christian teaching as their standard. Rather, I intend only to say that there are ways to evaluate government policies or laws that a wide majority of our fellow citizens might find compelling even if they follow another faith or do not have religious belief at all. Often these more widely acceptable approaches to evaluating policy are sufficient.

The first level at which one might evaluate is at the level of the intended purpose of policies – is the purpose or intended effect of the law just and right? Is the policy or law having the intended impact in our society? Why does the particular policy exist and is it achieving its stated purpose? Does it even have a stated purpose?

A second level is at a very practical level. How is a law enforced? How is the policy implemented? Is the implementation done fairly without cruelty or brutality? Are the accused given a fair hearing to respond? Is whatever legal process may be involved open and transparent so abuses cannot easily be hidden? Is enforcement bringing increased peace and order and well-being to society? Or, is the action of implementing the policy disrupting normal life and harming the community?

I suppose some might say this second level of evaluation involves Christian ethics. That is, the idea that we should avoid cruelty and brutality, which is certainly a Christian teaching. On the other hand, I think most of our fellow citizens would agree that this is desirable even if they are not Christian; it is a teaching of other faiths and philosophies and likely to be held in common by most others.

In any case, it seems we are putting into practice policies that fail on both of these levels of evaluation. One has to ask why – and why so many tolerate or even advocate for bad government.

Listen to an Excellent Episode of the Esau McCaulley Podcast – Patriotism, Big Churches, and “Human”!

July 4, 2025 /

The last episode of the Esau McCaulley podcast (as of July 4, 2025) is really excellent. I highly recommend it.

There’s a wonderful discussion of patriotism with a really helpful metaphor – the best I’ve heard yet! You’ll recognize it when you hear it. That conversation is followed by a discussion of big church vs. small church – the advantages and disadvantages of each. (Spoiler: To be fair, it is a discussion weighted towards small church.) Lastly, there is a closing segment discussing Peter Thiel’s philosophy and what it means to be human – a certain kind of techno-false gospel.

Listen in your favorite podcast app or watch it on YouTube or listen here in your favorite web browser.

On Becoming an American

July 2, 2025 /

Kieran Healy is a Professor of Sociology at Duke University. I really don’t know much about him, though he seems to have written a bunch of interesting articles and writes a blog. I found an intriguing quote from his latest blog note in an email newsletter of Alan Jacobs and followed up by reading Healy’s essay on the process of becoming an American citizen. Appropriately enough (and deeply appropriate for our times) it is entitled American.

In his essay, he reflects on what one learns and is tested on in the citizenship exam that one takes to become a citizen. I found his reflections both encouraging in their content and deeply troubling when compared to the reality of our current federal government’s approach to immigration.

I was captured by the portion of the Healy essay that Alan Jacobs quoted:

I know the nationalities of my fellow oath-takers because of the next stage of the ceremony. This was the Roll Call of Nations. I did not know this was going to happen. Every country of origin represented was announced in turn. As your country was named, you were asked to stand up, and remain standing. Afghanistan came first. Then Algeria. The last person to stand, immediately to my left, was from the United Kingdom. There were twenty seven countries in all, out of only fifty or so people. For me this part in particular was enormously, irresistibly moving. It perfectly expressed the principle, the claim, the myth — as you please — that America is an idea. That it does not matter where you are from. That, in fact, America will in this moment explicitly and proudly acknowledge the sheer variety of places you are all from. That built in to the heart of the United States is the republican ideal not just that anyone can become an American, but that this possibility is what makes the country what it is.

Wow. That’s what I learned growing up in the heartland of America. It’s inspiring. And that’s why the present treatment of so many where I live in LA County is so horribly depressing and awful and unAmerican. This drumming up of conflict by deporting contributing members of our community is just not what America is about. It divides us and induces fear. It’s wrong in so many ways. Iranian Christians dragged out of church to be deported? A student deported as he graduates high school? A resident of 47 years detained to be deported? The stories from torn-apart families are piling up; it’s horrifying to witness. And it’s even bad for those who are empowered and ordered to arrest and detain these people who are not criminals. It is not the American in which I grew up and learned American values.

And I haven’t even begun here to evaluate what is happening by uniquely Christian standards… Read American.

A Gentle Explanation of how Large Language Models are Developed

June 30, 2025 /

I ran across this helpful video explanation of how large language model systems are developed. ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini…. and so on that you hear about in the media are large language models – what passes for “AI” these days. It’s by Jacob Andreas of MIT CSAIL published in 2023. The explanation is light on details and does not assume a technical background. There are two youtube videos, a 16-minute part 1 and a 12-minute part 2.

Resources for Studying Immigration

June 21, 2025 /

In a talk I recorded for Long Beach Friends Church on June 22, 2025, I mentioned that there were some really good resources to understand migration issues. This sort article is written to provide links to those resources. I used these resources in preparing that message.

For a long-term historical survey of migration contextualizing present-day migration, far and away the best research is included in a book by one of the world’s leading scholars of migration, Hein de Hass. It is entitled How Migration Really Works: The Facts About the Most Divisive Issue in Politics. I highly, highly recommend it. It is well-written and covers a great deal of ground. I found some of the things I believed about immigration were simply not true. This is not a partisan book. (I don’t get anything if you use that link above to purchase from Amazon. Purchase where you will.)

Evangelical Immigration Table is a Christian organization that connects followers of Jesus with the world of American immigration in a way that strives to honor Jesus’ teaching.

USAFacts is a non-partisan organization to present statistics about immigration in the United States. Steve Balmer seems to be the primary driver of this organization. They present the unspun statistics about immigration to the United States.

Pew Research has a short article on unauthorized immigrants living in the United States.

Featured image for this post is from Heitordp, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kylie and me
Kylie and me

Ted Chiang says “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”

June 16, 2025 /

Ted Chiang wrote an article on large language models a couple of years ago that was published in the New Yorker. It is a really excellent conceptual introduction to what passes as “Artificial Intelligence” these days. He is an outstanding writer, whether it’s technical writing or his world-class short stories. This time, it’s technical. Chiang clearly presents several fundamental concepts clarifying large language models in about as straightforward and clear a manner as I have yet seen. I highly recommend it.

(Note that the article applies to all large language models, not just to ChatGPT)

2024 Election… A Mandate? Landslide?

April 28, 2025 /

You decide. Here are the bare facts:

  • Kamala Harris received 75,019,230 million votes.
  • Donald Trump received 77,303,568 million votes.
  • The other candidates received 2,878,359 million votes.
  • No candidate received 50% or more of the 155,201,157 popular votes cast.
  • Roughly 85.9 million eligible voters did not vote for any presidential candidate.

Sources: The American Presidency Project and Environmental Voter Project. Of course, this information is available from a myriad of sources.

Interesting Interviews with Drew Holcomb

March 27, 2025 /

I have recently come to appreciate Lee C. Camp and his No Small Endeavor podcast (among other endeavors of his). His most recent podcast episode (as of March 27, 2025) was with Drew Holcomb. Drew Holcomb, Ellie Holcomb, and those Neighbors of theirs are some of my favorite musicians, so I decided to give it a listen. I’m glad I did.

Prior to this, my awareness of the Holcombs was primarily because I appreciated their music. They both have music careers of their own and often work together, which is the music of theirs I appreciate the most. I learned that Drew Holcomb has a masters in theology from St. Andrews University. I learned that there is such a genre of music as Americana – I’d never heard of it before. (I suppose that says more about my awareness of the music world than anything else.) I learned some things about Drew Holcomb’s backstory that deepened my appreciation of his music quite a lot. I note that Lee C. Camp is a hospitable interviewer who opens the way to deeper conversation than is the norm. All in all, it was an interview that made my morning. Quite encouraging!

There’s an earlier interview of Drew Holcomb on this same podcast that is, shall we say, a bit more emotionally intense. It addresses the subject of vulnerability in art. I listened to it earlier. Of course, that led me to listening to the more recent interview this morning. A second portion of this earlier episode is an interview with Audrey Assad.

The triggering event for all of this was Lee C. Camp being interviewed by Skye Jethani on the Holy Post podcast (at about the 56 minute mark). That interview was also quite good, motivating me to connect with No Small Endeavor, where I noticed Lee C. Camp had interviewed Drew Holcomb, among many others I find intriguing.

Maybe my note here will trigger your interest in No Small Endeavor, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, or Ellie Holcomb. All are worth checking out. The Holcombs have topped my music listening list for two or three years now.

I was Blessed by Joshua Luke Smith!

February 28, 2025 /

I don’t know Joshua Luke Smith. Never heard of him before today. I just read a brief article about him (he’s an MK). He’s a poet and rapper who works in prisons. That’s all I know except for the experience of hearing him read a couple of his poems.

What shoved me towards his work was Brian Bakke posting on social media a link to a recent reading of one of his poems which I think is entitled Sunflowers in Babylon. (Either that or Uncle Terry’s Legacy. I’m not sure.) Brian’s advice is serious business for me, so I decided to check it out. I’m not one who is much for poetry, but for eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds Joshua Luke Smith had my full, rapt attention. After he finished, I wanted to read the words of the poem and ponder a bit. I found a transcript here. Wow.

Then, I wanted to find out more about this guy. He’s got a website. The first video on the page “My Work” was a blessing. Would that I could bless like that! And he’s all over the common social media.

Then my granddaughter Malea arrived, walking to our house from her nearby elementary school. I told her I just saw a great video on YouTube. She wanted to see it. It held her attention for all eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds, too. She wanted to know why he wrote it. “Did he write that for a funeral?” I said perhaps it was inspired by his uncle’s passing, but that it was not performed for a funeral. She said she liked it a lot. Then her Dad picked her up to go home.

So this note is my recommendation to pursue some of his poetry for yourself. Planting a sunflower seed? It’s me, one who was deeply encouraged pointing to the source of the blessing. We need some blessing, some hope, some direction just now. The other events in the news out of DC today… Well, I’m not going to go there. Joshua Luke Smith. I’m going to recommend some time with his readings.

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