Over the weekend, torrential rains caused “epic” flooding in Louisiana, requiring 30,000 rescues from 40,000 damaged homes in what appears to be the “worst flooding in Louisiana history” and the “worst natural disaster in the United States since Superstorm Sandy that hammered the East Coast in 2012” (AP, August 16, 2016;  LA Times

For adolescents caught up in the transgender quagmire, the side effects of hormone therapy include: increased risk of cancer, increased risk of osteoporosis, decreased fertility, unknown neurological side effects, increased risk of blood clots and stroke, irreversible side effects and more (PBS, June 30, 2015).

The tragic plight of hundreds of girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria have been in the news for nearly two years, but there has been little mention of some 10,000 boys kidnapped by Boko Haram to use as child soldiers (Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2016). Boys as young as age five have been taught to fight and kill by teenage boys fearing for their own lives. Many of these boys have been sent into battle unarmed and often under the influence of opiates.

What sections of the Bible do you enjoy reading most? If you are like me, it is the narrative sections. We all like a good story. Boys like hearing about David and Goliath, Moses, Daniel, Joseph, Jonah, and Joshua and the destruction of Jericho, to name a few. Girls also like to read these popular stories, along with the accounts about biblical women: Miriam with baby Moses, Adam and Eve, and, and…hmm? If you are a parent or grandparent of girls, you have discovered that there aren’t as many books written about women in the Bible.

Television and Internet news is littered with images of demonstrators holding “hater” signs and chanting a mantra of “Don’t be a hater!” Is it wrong to disagree with the beliefs and the ways some people live and act, and even to hate things that are wrong?