Was my father right to embrace predestination?
If we take the doctrine seriously, then we dare not draw the circle of salvation along religious lines. Or any lines at all.
Enraging good news
Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and still wet from his baptism, comes back to his home synagogue, publicly claims that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy, and is praised by everyone. Then, within five verses, everyone in the synagogue is filled with rage. They drive him out of town so that they might hurl him off a cliff.
What happened?
Training our eyes and ears
Our firstborn son came into the world seven years ago with red hair, blue eyes and keen perception. We discovered this early on.
We’d be out for a walk and Jonah would start pointing and saying, “Woof, woof, woof!” (i.e., “Mama, Dada, over there, a doggie!”). We wouldn’t see a dog anywhere, but he never lost his resolve. “Woof, woof, woof!” And sure enough, six, maybe seven blocks up, off in the distance we would see it: a big black poodle, or a cream-colored golden retriever. He was right every time. We were the ones without eyes to see.
Sunday, February 3, 2013: Luke 4:21-30
Indiana’s fiery love affair with basketball began just a few years after James Naismith taught his Massachusetts gym class to toss a soccer ball into an elevated peach basket....
Sunday, January 27, 2013: Luke 4:14-21
Breast-feeding is quiet and holy work—rocking, comforting, studying each other’s face and skin-to-skin bonding....
Protecting people with words
Excellent Christian preaching names and explores the shadows in order to declare that the light shines in the darkness.
Now I see
It's a truism that Christianity lives and breathes as much (or more) through music as through preaching or teaching, to say nothing of dense theological texts--so Christian preachers and teachers should be on the lookout for ways to incorporate the great hymns of the tradition into our sermons, lessons and other theological work.
Sunday, April 3: John 9:1-41
Three centuries ago in the village of Olney, England, a new parish priest came to town....
From the wilderness
Whenever the Israelites' "wilderness wandering" comes up, it presents a golden opportunity--especially in the current U.S. political climate --to talk about immigration.
Sunday, March 27, 2011: Exodus 17:1-7
Why not lead these refugees directly to safety, milk and honey? Why the desert, the wandering, the long years so far from home?
Sacramental sex: Divine love and human intimacy
What if everything we taught our kids about sex were grounded in a vision of God’s love in everyday life?
How to Train YourDragon
The first ever Academy Award for Best Picture was given in 1929 to Wings, a World War I aviation drama full of groundbreaking aerial sequences....
Up in the Air
"We are not swans,” declares Ryan Bing ham (played by George Clooney), summing up human nature to a crowded conference room. “We’re sharks.”...
Unholy rites: What's wrong with worship
God says no to supposedly right worship, and yes to genuinely right living.
The problem with The Passion: Braveheart Christianity
The Buddha once remarked that understanding his instruction is like “trying to catch a poisonous snake in the wild”: it’s all too easy to get bitten....