One Bread, One Body
…each of you is saying, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 It was distressing to hear those words proclaimed during a weekend of unprecedented division and conflict. Not much has changed in the 2000 years since then. Two of my least favorite words are liberal and conservative, which have become code words in the culture wars. It is one thing when they are applied to a specific idea and quite another when they are used to describe a person. They are pronounced by pundits and speakers as if they can sum up a human being's entire body of thought and belief with one word. So and so is a liberal. Conservatives hate women. Liberals want to ruin the country. Some people talk as if "conservative" means virtuous and "liberal" means depraved. Some people talk as though "conservative" ...