I wonder if the participants in the original Christmas story ever dreamed that the celebration of Christ's birth would become so hassled and hurried. The shepherds? The angels? The wise men? Mary and Joseph too?

Clinging to our faith encourages us to trust God wholeheartedly, therefore giving us the endurance and strength to care for and serve our loved ones.

Some life experiences are disorienting and overwhelming. Maybe it’s your first day of a new school or job or your first time in a new city. You look around and don’t recognize anyone, so you don’t know what to do. To see a familiar face can make a huge difference, bringing relief and comfort. Suddenly, unfamiliar situations don’t seem so strange, and the burden of facing the unknown eases. The letter of James can be a disorienting book. It sounds so different from other parts of the Bible, and we may not understand how it fits within our theological system. Yet if we know what to look for, we’ll find familiar biblical “faces” that help us get our bearings and navigate James’s five chapters. James is closely related to other Scriptures—from both the Old and New Testaments. If we can identify how James echoes other portions of the Bible, we can gain our interpretive footing and see that this letter isn’t as strange as it seems. Here are four familiar faces. 1. James’s Name The name “James” has rich connections to the Old Testament. In the Gospels, Jesus has two disciples named James, including one of his inner three. The James who wrote this letter is different; he’s Jesus’s half-brother. What may be lost in English translation is that the name is the same as “Jacob.” Jacob was one of the Old Testament patriarchs. He was also known as Israel, and he was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. In this light, notice that James (Jacob) wrote to the 12 tribes of the Dispersion (James 1:1). It’s the letter of a New Testament Jacob to the 12 tribes of Israel who follow Christ in the new covenant era. James is the letter of a New Testament Jacob to the 12 tribes of Israel who follow Christ in the new covenant era. 2. Lord of Glory One of the most important passages about Christ in James comes in 2:1, where Jesus is identified as the “Lord of glory.” This designation also has an Old Testament background—it likely echoes the language from Psalm 24:7–10 that speaks of the Lord as the King of glory. For instance, Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah (v. 10) James identifies the resurrected, glorified Jesus with the Lord of the Psalms, which is consistent with how other New Testament authors speak of Christ in exalted terms (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:5–6; Phil. 2:5–11; 2 Pet. 1:1). 3. Under Foot Closely related to James’s view of Jesus as the Lord of glory is the possibility that he alludes to Psalm 110:1 in his critique of the covenant community showing favoritism to the rich. They shouldn’t say to the poor man, “Sit under my feet” (James 2:3; author’s translation), for that dishonors the poor man. This may also be an allusion to one of the Old Testament passages most often quoted and alluded to in the New Testament. Psalm 110:1 speaks of Christ’s exaltation and of his enemies being placed under his feet (see Acts 2:34–35; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 1:13). Perhaps the favoritism James’s audience shows in the church is inconsistent with their commitment to Christ as the glorious Lord—the One who will have all things under his feet. If so, James may be using this passage in a surprising way: all things are subject to Christ, but by asking the poor to sit “under foot,” we’re treating them as second-class citizens in the church. Such behavior is inconsistent with Jesus’s present reign. 4. Royal Law The Gospels are another familiar face for contextualizing James. Notice that James uses the phrase “royal law” and then cites Scripture in James 2:8. The quotation stems from Leviticus 19:18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the second great commandment as designated by Jesus. It is the royal law because of its connection to Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom of God (Mark 12:31). By asking the poor to sit ‘under foot,’ we’re treating them as second-class citizens in the church. Many of James’s statements reflect the teaching of Jesus. In addition to James 2:8, James’s mention of the poor who are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom (Jas. 2:5) reflects Jesus’s teaching that the poor are honored in the Kingdom (Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20). Similarly, James’s encouragement for the humble to boast in their exaltation, and the rich in their humiliation (Jas. 1:9–11) also speaks about life in the Kingdom of God. Get Your Bearings Don’t stop with these four faces. Look for others as you read through James. See if you can detect how it echoes other Scriptures, and don’t forget to use your Bible’s cross-references. These can point you to a whole host of recognizable faces. James was intimately familiar with Scripture, and the more familiar we are, the better we’ll understand James.

An excavation on the east coast of Corsica has uncovered the remains of a tile workshop dating to the 1st century A.D. Archaeologists from INRAP have been excavating the site on a small hill overlooking the Étang de Diane, a lagoon exiting to the Tyrrhenian Sea just north of Aleria, since July in advance of a real estate development. Remains of an Early Iron Age pre-historic settlement is the first evidence of occupation the team unearthed. It was a good-sized village with about 50 structures, some of stone others of perishable materials from which only post holes remain. Archaeologists found abundant ceramics of local manufacture and several examples of Etruscan imports. (Etruscans founded the nearby town of Nicaea, while Aleria was founded by colonists from Phocaea in Ionia, Greece, in the 6th century B.C.) The excavation also revealed pits containing fragments of large stone tools (millstones, grinding wheels). To the immediate south of the pre-historic site almost on top of the water, archaeologists found a full-fledged tile production workshop. Every stage of production took place here, starting with the decantation of the clay (when it is separated from water by allowing the clay particles to settle) in a large tile-lined basin. The tiles (architectural tegulae) were then fired in a kiln with a double-vaulted heating chamber. The kiln was inside a large masonry building with walls made of pebbles in lime mortar. Next to the kiln building was another structure with thick walls supported by buttresses. Archaeologists believe it was the warehouse where the finished tiles were sorted and stored. A number of large pits dug outside the perimeter of the structure contained waste from the kiln and misfired and broken tiles. On the outskirts of the tile workshop area, the excavation uncovered eight funerary structure. Most of them feature tile architecture (formwork lined with tiles or gable with tile roofs) with stone wedges for support. No bones survived due to the acidic soul, but one funerary urn was found that may contain cinerary remains. It is still filled with soil and due to its fragility will be excavated in laboratory conditions. A few pieces of pottery and glass balsamaria were found within the tile graves. They have not been conclusively dated yet, but given the connection to the tile workshop, the graves probably date to the same period. The second round of excavations will continue into December, but after that the land, which is privately owned, will be returned to the developers. All the movable archaeology will be recovered and studied in the laboratory in early 2025. A multi-disciplinary team of experts (ceramologists, anthropologists, geomorphologists, palynologists, etc.) will analyze the archaeological materials and date the burials. 

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Law and Order Will Policing D.C.’s Buses Stop Fare Evasion? Probably, but only through sheer force. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images) Right now it costs $2.25 to take the bus in Washington, DC. But soon it will cost you a lot more if you attempt to ride without paying. Starting the week after Thanksgiving, Metro police will crack down on fare evasion within the bus system, which in the last year has reached an almost unbelievable 75 percent. This is big news locally, though it was largely lost amid the other upheavals in the capital this month. Last week at a press conference, Randy Clarke, general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, announced that WMATA plans to aggressively police the bus system with a combination of uniformed police officers, undercover cops, and a whole new system of video surveillance. He employed the same strategy—with the crucial addition of virtually unhoppable fare gates—on the Metro rail system last year to great success, driving fare evasion down 82 percent. But the bus is harder to police than the trains, as I have written in these pages before. As there are many more bus stops than train stations, and as there are no fare gates on buses, the only way to enforce order within the system is to flood it with cops. During the pandemic and in the aftermath of the summer of Floyd, there was little energy among Washingtonians for that kind of hands-on policing. But now that service is lagging and crime on the bus is visible even to those who don’t use it, attitudes have changed favorably to a harsher regime.  Where mild strictures fail, force often succeeds: I have no doubt that posting police officers all over the city’s bus systems will bring down fare evasion rates. In fact, it may be the only way to confront the problem (leaving aside the popular, brainless idea of making the bus “free”). But already I can sense the beginnings of a public relations disaster for WMATA.  “We are going to go after the bus system much more significantly with a data-driven, targeted approach on bus fare evasion,” Clarke said at the press conference, adding that he plans to post Metro police at crowded bus bays and along the lines with the “lowest compliance” on fares. Those who attempt to sneak on the bus will be physically prevented from riding. “Basically, if you don’t pay, you’re not getting on,” Clarke said. And WMATA has begun eyeing bus lines for increased police presence, among them the P12 line in Prince George’s County and the X2 line in D.C., which runs from Minnesota Avenue through the so-called H Street Corridor behind Union Station.  If you have any familiarity at all with the socio-economic spread in the Washington metropolitan area—and if you know what the phrase “data-driven” is usually a euphemism for in law enforcement—then you can guess what I am getting at here. The new system may work, but it is built on a shaky foundation, at least as far as public perception goes. It will take just one nasty interaction between a Metro police officer and a fare evader on the P12 or the X2 or any of the other bus lines where the “data” finds “lowest compliance” for the whole system to come undone. A decade ago Eric Garner became a martyr over loose cigarettes. In the coming years, some poor fare-evader in D.C. could become a cause célèbre in much the same way. No one wants something so horrible as that to happen, and yet such incidents seem depressingly inevitable. It’s not just in D.C. The problem of American law enforcement is like a swinging pendulum: When crime is rampant, the public demands active policing. But when cops out on the beat have a nasty run-in with someone who didn’t deserve to die, demands swing the other way. And so on, back and forth, ad aeternum.  The only people who come out on top here are those privileged few who slide through the system, no matter the reigning policing fad. When WMATA announced the coming crackdown, Fox 5 sent a camera crew to Tenley Circle in Northwest D.C. to talk to people at the bus stop. In a telling interview, the Fox television reporter stopped a young man wearing Georgetown University gear and asked him if he had ever gotten on the bus without paying his fare. “Yeah,” he replied, with the nervous laughter of someone who knows he has done wrong—but is confident that he’ll get away with it. The post Will Policing D.C.’s Buses Stop Fare Evasion? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Will the Post-Trump GOP Have a Money Problem? In 2028, the Republicans won’t be able to coast on celebrity. Donald Trump is an enigma. Had he not raised a single dollar in his presidential campaign, he would still have dominated the airwaves and the social media feeds, appearing everywhere from massive rallies to Joe Rogan’s podcast (over 51 million views on YouTube alone) to a McDonald’s drive thru window or a garbage route near you. The man is a master of the media, able to appear on every phone, computer, and television in the country without spending a cent. Add in the fact that, even before his first term as president and multiple nationwide political campaigns, he was a household name from The Apprentice, Trump hotels and high-end condos, and decades of celebrity status. It is unquestionable that Trump is no ordinary political candidate. He simply doesn’t need the same campaign apparatus to get his message out to the voters. Yet even for Trump the media genius, money does matter. True, Trump needs no improvement in name recognition and therefore it might not be particularly important for Trump to spend cash on t-shirts, yard signs, and media buys. But the get-out-the-vote effort matters and that costs money too. We saw this in 2020 and 2022, as the Democrat machine mobilized armies to chase mail-in ballots and stuff drop boxes while Republicans remained extremely skeptical of early voting. The results speak for themselves. In 2024, Republicans caught on and promoted early voting throughout the country. Republican efforts, led by everyone from Elon Musk to Charlie Kirk and Scott Presler, paid off. Early voting surged in Republican strongholds and the Democrats lost their advantage of banking votes before election day.  Though Harris outraised Trump both in donations to the official party committees and to aligned PACs, Trump made up for the campaign cash deficit with his ability to attract influential people and dominate the news cycle. This superstar campaign attracted online influencers, extremely talented political operatives, and powerful billionaires into the fold. The result was astounding: 312 electoral votes. But more importantly, the realignment that conservatives have been talking about for over a decade. Latino voters broke hard for Trump; the black vote shifted; religious voters abandoned the Democratic party; and even the Amish came out to stop the Democrats from winning the White House. Republicans can solidify their new status as the party of the working class (not merely the white working class), the party of peace, and as the party of normal, healthy living. This is a coalition that can win elections and wield power. But what will happen when Trump is gone? Will there be a money problem that will render 2024 a one-off rather than a sea change? The likely answer is “yes, there may very well be a money problem for the GOP after Trump.” But the problem is not insurmountable. As corporate America has veered left, it is no longer a reliable source of GOP money. The Democrats have control of Hollywood, the corporate class, and most of the wealthy elites. The Republicans, transitioning to this new working class coalition, need to take stock of the situation, reassess their sources of political funding, and allocate resources efficiently to address the realities of modern campaigns. If money was necessary to mount an effective voter registration and “get out the vote” campaign for a celebrity candidate like Trump in 2024, money will become an even more necessary issue to deal with for the GOP in 2028 and beyond. Republicans need to find an effective strategy for both major sources of donor dollars as well as small-dollar donations.  On the former front, Republicans need to navigate the ongoing realignment and find demographics within the corporate world and among wealthy individuals that will invest resources into GOP campaigns. While Silicon Valley brings concerning secular and libertarian values that threaten the social conservatism necessary to a healthy conservative movement, it remains a necessary part of the new coalition. Silicon Valley executives and companies bring a vast amount of wealth, coupled with a growing skepticism towards wokeism and excessive government burdens on the market and on individual liberties. Again, this coalition needs to be managed in tension with conservatism, but it is a vital source of campaign revenue. JD Vance, with his ties to Peter Thiel in particular and the Silicon Valley tech/venture capital crowd in general, offers a path to managing this coalition and strengthening these ties with needed donors to combat the corporate money pouring in on the left. There are also gains to be made among certain labor/union coalitions, especially as the GOP continues to take its place in the new political alignment as the party of the working man. Small-dollar donations are also a challenge the GOP needs to continue to solve. Again, as the GOP moves from the party of big corporations of decades past to the party of the everyman, it needs to capture this reality in dollars. Massive corporate donations have moved to the left and ordinary people of ordinary means are increasingly the GOP base. Yes, the Republicans have quite the operation of spam text messages and emails soliciting donations, but there needs to be a culture shift, not just a scattershot marketing campaign.  There needs to be a concerted effort to create a culture where the MAGA base realizes the stakes. The party that represents them cannot win on ideas and memes; at the end of the day, the number of operations on the ground to register new voters, flip Democrats to Republicans, chase early and mail-in votes, and get out the vote on election day is an absolute necessity. Popular parties and ideas do not win unless they master and dominate the election process. These ordinary, working-class voters need to be convinced of the importance of campaign dollars to win elections and enact their policy preferences. Every dollar counts. Finally, the GOP needs to continue to overhaul its electioneering approach and tailor it to the 21st century. If campaign funds are already a challenge and Democrats are severely out-fundraising Republicans, Republicans need to master efficiency and spend every dollar where it matters most. T-shirts and lawn signs? Useful tools for local candidates to boost name recognition. But for presidential candidates, they make little sense: everyone knows who the two candidates are and nobody is changing his mind about who to vote for over a cluster of signs on the freeway or his neighbors’ lawns. It might be prudent for campaigns to maintain an online store where they can sell the campaign paraphernalia, but campaigns should not be spending precious resources on swag for the fans.  Republicans need to skip many avenues of legacy campaign spending (I’m not just talking lawn signs but ineffective, outdated, and overpriced general consultants as well), take advantage of free media (why pay for so much primetime TV airspace if Joe Rogan invites you on the podcast?), and focus campaign dollars on the ground. Republicans need to organize and spend their money on voter registration drives, ballot chasing, and election day get-out-the-vote efforts. That push to translate platform and popularity into votes on election day is where the money needs to be focused. Hope is not lost for the post-Trump GOP, but the financial strategy needs to be intentional. When the GOP loses its TV star front man, we will need to address that the Democrats out fundraise and outspend us. We need to acknowledge that and adapt: adjust fundraising strategies to the ongoing political realignment, assess where money needs to be spent, and create from the ashes of the old GOP a lean, mean, election-winning machine. The post Will the Post-Trump GOP Have a Money Problem? appeared first on The American Conservative.