National Parks + Stories + Moral Relativism

BUCKET LIST

Earlier this month Lois & I visited four national parks:  Teddy Roosevelt, Glacier, Yellowstone, Badlands. It was our first visit to Glacier & Teddy Roosevelt. To date we have visited 13 national parks.

• Arches
• Badlands
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison (technically before it became a NP)
• Glacier
• Grand Teton
• Hawaii Volcanoes
• Lassen Volcanic
• Redwood
• Rocky Mountain (I've been there; Lois hasn't)
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Voyageurs
• Wind Cave (we didn't actually tour the cave)
• Yellowstone

We've visited Badlands at least five times. We've visited Yellowstone twice. Next summer we've booked a trip to Alaska. If all goes well we'll add at least national parks to our list:  Denali & Glacier Bay.

STORIES

The story of the Christian is one that remembers the very first and the very last moments of a rabbi and his disciples—a child born, a teacher present, a meal shared, a lamb revealed, feet washed by one who claimed to be both king and servant. It is a story that invites its hearers into a kingdom entirely different than the many stories before them, connecting them with a God who somehow reigns within a realm that is here and now, and also approaching. In the Lord’s Supper, Christians are literally “taking in” this biblical imagination, which unites followers with Christ in such a way that helps us to live as he lived in a world of stories. --Jill Carattini, Slice of Infinity

MORAL RELATIVISM

The history of the United States is a history of the ebb and flow of ideas. There has even been an ebb and flow in religious practice and faith. By historical standards, America isn’t as religious as it once was, but it’s still far more religious than it has been for much of its history. It remains among one of the most religious developed nations in the world, and its evangelical community may well be the single-most politically and economically powerful distinct religious community on the globe. That means that there remains within this country a truly immense amount of spiritual and moral capital to deal with the advance of despair and the challenge of secularism. It is not “moral relativism” to protect the very structures that permit the church to flourish and grant it wide access American hearts. --David French, National Review Online