“Men make distinctions because they don’t understand God’s perspective of sin. Someone who knocks down an elderly woman and takes her food stamps is labeled a hoodlum, while another who misappropriates millions from some corporation is called a white collar criminal. When the long arm of the law apprehends both felons, the food stamp thief will be sentenced to a lengthy prison term. The embezzler, on the other hand, will have access to high-powered defense lawyers.

Wealthy friends and business associates will testify that he is a fine, upstanding member of the community. Justice though supposedly blind, removes her blindfold when the defendant is wealthy. The recent well-publicized U.S. trials and acquittals of several wealthy defendants illustrate this all too clearly. But in the sight of God there is no partiality, for “all unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17).

—“Break Through Prejudice,” by Rawdon E. Brown, Sr., Message, May June, 1985

etween June’s Strawberry Moon, and this spring’s visible and complete Solar Eclipse one has to wonder, what else is to come this year? Aurora Beaurealis, an occurrence and a destination, is on my bucket list, an exotic excursion that would have required extensive funding, outfitting, and preparation to travel to Norway or Iceland to see, were visible in Texas, Florida, and even in parts of my state of Maryland.

People in Texas don’t usually see the Northern Lights, and certainly, most of us don’t see an eclipse. Somebody has to say it? What’s going on?

I am not here contending that these signs in the sky create a new strain in the time continuum, or a branch in the prophetic timeframe. It may have been some time since you’ve revisited the biblical wonders foretold, that have clicked into the cipher of science. Several texts in the Bible point our gaze at the courses and phases in the observable heavens and the nexus to the coming of Christ.

There is a consensus that UPFs are not good for you. In the United States, it is estimated that children have increased their intake of UPF to about 70% of their diet, with a disproportionate increase seen in non-Hispanic black children.

What is ultra-processed food? The history of research in this area dates to the mid-1990s when a group of researchers in Brazil noted that their children had increased rates of obesity. They conducted food surveys and found out that the country was migrating from basic food staples to prepackaged processed foods. Dr. Monteiro and his team came up with a grading system called Nova (new in Portuguese) for food groups widely used today.

or the purposes of this conversation, I want to create a blueprint for healthier sexuality.

First, as a foundation, recent studies indicate the destructive and harmful results following consumption of pornography. In a 2023 article published by Michal Privara and Dr. Petr Bob, online pornography consumption, mainly in the male population, is closely linked to compulsive sexual behavior. Further, porn leads to conflicting emotional experiences and identity problems. These, in turn, significantly increase the vulnerability to more addictive sexual behavior and pornography consumption.

If we believe that men are the only ones who digest pornography, a 2020 article published by Athanasia Daskalopoulou and Maria Zanette should debunk that theory. Women have as much interest as men in the transgressive and the visually objectifying dimensions of visually erotic content.

Many individuals, arguably, experience sexual ill-health or dysfunction, or may have never learned about sexuality in its proper context.

Long before she co-founded this outfit with friends from her Vermont Law School, White-Williamson, occasionally criss-crossed Sampson County with colleagues from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on what she called “Toxic Tours.”

The tour passed by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that densely dot the map of Sampson County. It also included the pink, foamy-looking, open-air “lagoons” filled with hog waste. The man-made mountains of the county landfill could be seen against the idyllic countryside. And, regulators and researchers got to see first-hand impact of the forest clearing operations connected to a wood-pellet manufacturing giant. This toxic tour-guide can rattle off sobering statistics about the area’s environmental threats…

“What makes our community become environmentalists,” said Elena Gaona, communications director for the Chispa (Spanish for “Spark”) branch of the League of Conservation Voters, is that for them, the issue “is more urgent and more connected to the life and death of their children and of themselves and of their neighbors.

“While climate change is here, it has been here longer and felt more deeply by communities that are Latino in the U.S.,” she said.

Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of race and ethnicity research for Pew Research Center, said that Latinos report being more impacted by environmental issues and more concerned about climate change than the general U.S. population.

“Latinos are poised to be leaders in their communities and nationally on environmental issues,” he said.

Verbal expressions and statements that “Mamma is in a better place,” or “Daddy is looking down on us,” are commonplace at many funerals and memorial services for departed loved ones. Yet, the Bible is very specific as to the condition of the dead.

Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” For Bible-believing Christians, this text clearly substantiates that man didn’t evolve from a “monkey” or “big bang” theory, but man was created by God.