Promises of Baal

Idols of power and deadly force have bequeathed to us a different kind of America. In my childhood many Americans never locked their doors, they took walks and sat on their porches at night; children played in their neighborhoods after dark in the city. When I was ten years old my parents often gave me a dollar and my buddies and I, all by ourselves, got on the streetcar and made two transfers so we could go to Briggs Stadium to watch the Detroit Tigers. Those are not society’s norms today. In our inner cities most people stay inside, children do not go out at night or even play near the windows; they are often afraid to go to school. How could it be otherwise when we merely lament our mass shootings, but do nothing substantive to prevent the acquisition of high-capacity guns that make mass-shootings possible, even probable?—America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose, page 120

<idle musing>
Similar to the promises of Baal in the book of Hosea...Baal promised fertility and fecundity, overflowing harvests and abundant wine. The results? A devastated land.

Will we ever learn that worshiping false gods always results in destruction?
</idle musing>