Life's Inanities and Ironies

  Before she was Ishtar, she was Inanna of Uruk. The Sumerians sang to her. The Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians carried her name across the river plain and into the courts of kings. Her planet was Venus, the morning star and the evening star, and that double appearing already told the truth about her. She was desire and destruction in one person. Love and war. The bed and the battlefield. Hymns said battle was a feast to her. The same tablets called her the patron of the prostitute. She was not a quiet mother-goddess of hearth and harvest. She was the power men invoked when they wanted pleasure without bond, and victory without mercy. Her great temple was Eanna in Uruk, and she had houses in nearly every important city from Ur to Nineveh. Daily offerings of food, incense, and flowers went up to keep her favorable. At the New Year the city rehearsed her descent into the underworld and her return, a dying-and-rising drama meant to restart life in the land. The center of that re...

Speaking Truth with a Heart of Love Friends, today we’re stepping into some challenging waters—drag shows and homosexuality—topics that stir up strong feelings in our world. As followers of Christ, we can’t dodge these conversations. God’s Word has something to say, and it’s our job to listen and share it, not with anger or judgmentalism, but with the same heart Jesus showed: firm in truth, overflowing with love. Think of the boldness of a preacher like Billy Sunday, but softened by the Savior’s call to the lost. That’s where we’ll stand today Drag Shows: A Step Away from God’s Plan Let’s start with what scripture says about gender and identity. In Deuteronomy 22:5, we read, " A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this." God set up a beautiful order when He made us male and female, and this verse reminds us He cares about that distinction. Drag shows—where men dress as women or women as men—move a...