A number of churches have been going through what some are calling the “worship wars,” which is a conflict between those who favor hymns and those who lean more toward the praise choruses. Churches even have split over the issue while others have traditional services alongside contemporay services. Some have blended their worship using both hymns and choruses. All this reminds me of a couple of stories sent to me by Father Rick Hatfield of Florida:

There’s been a good deal of controversy this past Christmas season regarding the season itself. John Gibson wrote a best-seller whose subject matter is the “war on Christmas.” Some businesses forbade their employees to wish customers “Merry Christmas,” and public schools have secularized the words to religious Christmas carols.

I don’t wade out into the political waters too much these days. For one thing, I did my time in politics 20 years ago, serving as a vice-president for a local party in the county. For another, politics is a dirty, gritty, thankless business that often results in people being demeaned, defamed, and destroyed. I do vote. I tend to lean to the right of center on most issues and have no hesitation speaking out on moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and the like.

Traditions can be wonderful. In fact, traditions can give meaning and permanence to life.

Who, to this day, can’t remember their school colors and name the school mascot? Our high school colors were maroon and grey, we were the Indians, and the band played the school song each and every time a touchdown was scored. Even now, after nearly four decades, I can hear the song in my mind.

Upside-down Christmas trees, removing “Christmas” from the public venue, a public school rewriting the lyrics to “Silent Night” and substituting secular sentiments — what’s next? Well, for starters, how about large evangelical churches just doing away with the Christmas worship service on Christmas Sunday morning altogether?

At the University of Wisconsin, the concept of academic freedom and the right to free speech apparently does not exist for Christian students who happen to also be senior resident dorm assistants or RAs.

As strange as it seems now, there was a time when I wouldn't allow a Christmas tree in our house. Well-meaning Christians taught me that the symbol was pagan and had no place in a Christian home. Yet, the story of the Christmas tree is part of the story of the life of St. Boniface (born 680 AD in Devonshire, England).

I don’t watch too much Christian television these days. It’s not that I’m against it and I know that thousands of people are helped and ministered to by the different programs. I do watch the EWTN network some (the Eternal Word Television Network, a Roman Catholic broadcast) and I watch some of the local Atlanta-based church services once in a while. In general, though, I’ve become disillusioned with much of the offerings.

While it’s fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share a few comments about the movie “Jarhead.”

The term “jarhead” refers to members of the United States Marine Corps and comes from the idea that the “high and tight” haircuts of the Corps (spelled “corps,” never “corp”) look like the lids on a mason jar; hence “jarhead.”

My wife and I have this ongoing disagreement. I have come to grips with the realization that this disagreement will never be settled and, at the end of our days, she will still hold her position and I will hold mine. The subject is “nurses’ caps,” or the lack thereof.

"Where are you from?" he asked. The question came from a businessman in Peachtree City not long after I moved to the area during the summer of 1983.

I don't wear a wedding ring. It's not that I don't want people to know that I'm married, which I am, to the same woman for over 34 years, but I hocked my wedding ring.

First of all, a few disclaimers: I have not personally spoken with any city official past or present about the circumstances in this article. Although I am a police chaplain with the Peachtree City Police Department, I have not sought information about the facts of this situation from police officials. This is not an oversight because I know and am friends with individuals in the government and the police department. If any “sludge or bio-solid” is to be flung, I don’t want it hitting them. Fair enough?

The Major League Baseball playoffs are here. Yawn! I dont even know what teams have made it to the final six or final four or whatever.