He 'made room for the terrible and the beautiful.' How Fred Buechner redefined the art of not preaching
CNN
When Fred Buechner died last week at 96, admirers paid tribute to one of the most innovative pastors of the 20th century. Two attributes make his voice more relevant than ever.
Rutledge was a 21-year-old college senior when his father was stricken with pancreatic cancer. His dad, Paul, was his hero. Paul was an anthropologist who gave his son bear hugs while telling him "I love you," teared up when he watched stories of suffering on the evening news and still took romantic walks with Rutledge's mother, Suzanne. Within two months of that diagnosis, his father had died at 47.
Friends tried to console Rutledge with platitudes like, "your father is in a better place," and "everything happens for a reason," but those words only deepened his grief and anger.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.