'Faith Sees Best in the Dark'

How to Really Help Transgender People To say there is a tremendous amount of sexual confusion in our country has become a gross understatement in light of the transgender bathroom debate. Amid the self-righteous anger and fear spewing forth from all sides, I find the occasional article that brings some rational insight into the controversy. Like this piece by a man who underwent and deeply regretted a sex change operation. He explains the deeper psychological issues associated with gender dysphoria, and why it really has little to do with LGB concerns.

A Picture that Is Worth Much More than $20 If you're wondering about what some Atlantic editors think about Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, read this. If you need a refresher on who Harriet Tubman was, read this, written by yours truly back in the day. It doesn't take much imagination to see that I think this is a good move by the Treasury Department.

Death and Compassion Among the Taliban This week's long read is an intriguing short story in Granta magazine. It's about a man in Afghanistan, sympathetic to the Taliban, whose job is to care for the bodies of slain combatants—including American soldiers. He believes it is his duty as a Muslim to honor the dead in this way, even as the Taliban leaders remain unsympathetic to his work. It begins, My wife will tell me I smell of death tonight. She will leave two plastic tubs of water beside our door, one for my clothes and the other to bathe myself. She does not allow me to enter our home on nights like this, until I have shed the odor of the dead. My friends snicker when they see the steaming tubs of water, which she heats to break the chill. They laugh because my wife tells me when I must clean myself. My neighbors respect me, though it is true that a woman directing a man is unusual. But these men do not know what I owe her.

'Faith Sees Best in the Dark' This is one thing that Vice President Joe Biden says when he talks about the untimely death of his son. It originates with Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, as American philosopher Gordon Marion reminds us here.

Grace and peace,

Mark Galli Editor, Christianity Today