I know a Thanksgiving commentary on Friday is a day late, but our publication day is Friday, and honestly, no one would read it on Thursday anyway. I hope you don’t also find it a dollar short! I want to share with you a simple recipe for having a Happy Thanksgiving you can feast on for days to come without having to eat “Turkey Surprise.” 

I was an elected Republican. I will vote for a particular Republican candidate over a Democrat assuming I choose to vote in that candidate’s race at all. But how should Christians respond to the recent news that the Republican National Committee (or at least its Chair) announced a coalition with a “politically conservative” Gay Pride organization? Here’s my answer.

When you add the news this week that you and I have taken a 6.2% pay cut due to inflation to the ongoing news that supply chains problems are making normal consumer purchases more difficult, labor shortages abound, people are being fired for not getting a COVID jab, COVID variants are developing for which we have no cure, our borders are non-existent, and government seems incapable of doing anything about any of it, what more proof could you want that God is faithful to His promises?

The results of the Virginia gubernatorial election should be a wake-up call for Republican elected officials in Tennessee. They ought not kid themselves that Youngkin’s victory was a ringing endorsement of the Republican Party. Just as certain issues stirred voters in Virginia, the just-completed special session over COVID-related mandates may bring about a revolution among Tennessee voters.

This week, enough Republican members of the state Senate joined the Republican members of the state House to call for a special legislative session on issues surrounding COVID. For reasons I will explain, I think we need the kind of special session that will earn for it a moniker like that given one of the Senate Committees on which I served, “The Committee from Hell.”

The COVID special session is put up or shut up time for our state politicians. I know from experience that they are in a tough spot. As a state Senator, I sponsored and passed legislation demanded by the federal government under the expressed threat of having several hundred million dollars in federal funding withheld. The average person has no idea what it is like to have people demanding action that, if taken, will bring the federal government down on the state’s head. There is a way through this, but it will require cool heads and out-of-the box thinking.

For all its deleterious effects on individuals’ lives, COVID-19 has had one potential salutary effect: It has prompted citizens to put a much-needed focus on the abuse of powers by our state and federal governments. As a result, a special session related to COVID-19 will convene by the end of the month. But of all the issues that could be considered, I think one is particularly important to the preservation of our civil, religious, and political liberties.

Last Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito decried the media creating the perception that the Court is a “dangerous cabal.” Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Stephen Breyer also recently spoke in defense of the Court ‘s legitimacy. But I had to laugh at Alito’s comment because of what he said about the Court a few years ago. The Justices are nervous about the Court’s legitimacy and whether its upcoming decisions on abortion, guns, and religious liberty could lead to “court packing.” Here is what the Justices need to do.

At a recent conference, Christians expressed concern that civil government was increasingly infringing on the right to religious liberty. But it became clear that the right will continue to shrink if they don’t change the way they speak about and defend the right.

The other week a preacher called to ask me a question. I emailed an answer and then emailed again to tell him to disregard it. My answer reminded me of a gathering a few years ago following a terrible decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. I realized I had made the same mistake with him that I believe the leaders of that gathering made.