trust
The better part of faith
It’s possible to stop believing, but we can’t live without trust.
by Samuel Wells
Faith is a gift to relax into
The Greek word for faith, pistis, isn’t about assenting to beliefs. It’s about trust.
Can clergy earn back the public trust they’ve lost?
Respect for pastors is at an all-time low. What would help?
The Easter Maybe people
Some of us church insiders have more in common with the undecided folks than we often say.
Stepping out: Matthew 14:22-33
Matthew’s story of Jesus walking on the water with Peter can spawn bad theologies.
Measure of faith: 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
An emphasis on the decision character of faith has a long and deep history in the American psyche going back to our Puritan and evangelical ancestors. From Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney to Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and their successors, faith, as encountered in the idiom both of born-again revivalism and of religious “progressives,” has served as shorthand for “I have decided to follow Jesus.” But the biblical meaning of faith cannot be reduced to individualistic voluntarism.
Sheepish?: Psalm 23; John 10:22-30; Revelation 7:13-17
Although the images of shepherd and sheep wind their way through these lectionary texts, they are difficult images for the contemporary church to embrace. I recall many of the adults in one congregation cringing during a children’s time a few years ago, when a well-intentioned volunteer tried to teach the children a song that had them “baa-ing” for Jesus. What are we teaching our children, some of us wondered: To follow the crowd without question? To have no mind of one’s own? To expect someone else to take care of us?