How to interpret the Scriptures
A church member will sometimes ask how I go about interpreting the scriptures. I am tempted to answer, “On the run,” since I preach and teach several times each week. Thinking more about the question,...
View ArticleMr. Irrelevant
Anyone who spends time with me eventually learns that I love football. I don’t like football. I love it. One of my favorite things about football is the NFL draft. For football players, the draft is...
View ArticleGod of love?
It seems that most every time I write something about God not hating gays or about what early Christians believed about hell, I get a healthy amount of reaction from people who feel that it is their...
View ArticleThey are your brothers
The news of late has been enough to depress just about anyone who longs for and fights for justice, fairness, and equality. We have seen states trying to limit a woman’s access to healthcare and limit...
View ArticleCherry picking the Bible
A few weeks ago Neale Donald Walsch had a post on Huffington Posts’s Religion blog entitled “Buffet-Style Bible Believers” to which I’ve wanted to respond, but have had little time until now. The...
View ArticleAt the Table of Christ
Two rituals, sacraments or ordinances lie near the heart of the faith: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism marks the start of one’s journey with Christ and one’s welcome into the great family of...
View ArticleCustomer service and servant leadership
For the most part, I only think about “customer service” when I am the customer and on the receiving end of what I consider poor service. I will not elaborate here. Each of us has a collection of...
View ArticleThe hardest job in the world
A pastor has one of the hardest jobs in the world. When I was a pastor, I was not willing to say that sentence. It seemed self-serving and whiny. I heard other people say how hard a pastor’s work is,...
View ArticleMy Christmas Eve epiphany
I have been driven to a startling conclusion: the God who burns with compassion for the outcast is our salvation. That simple message fueled the ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ solidarity with the poor...
View ArticleWhat’s in a canon?
When I talk about the canon in my New Testament class, I often have students who are surprised that the current list of 27 books that are in our New Testament have not always comprised canon lists. In...
View ArticleThe ethics of Christian blackmail
Yesterday, while pondering the Christian reaction to the initial World Vision decision, I wrote a short article (unpublished) on how (not) to talk about World Vision on the Internet – don’t be hateful,...
View ArticleApril Fools: a treatise on the most un-Christian holiday of all times, ever
Now, Now, Children On the way to school this morning, the following conversation was heard from the back seat of my vehicular transportation, upon which were seated three young ones en route to their...
View ArticleLEGO theology
LEGO building blocks are a wonderful toy. My grandchildren love them. Each kit comes with detailed illustrations to show the builder how to create a particular item. The real fun comes, however,...
View ArticleOn baptism and peace
Baptism was abused and used violently as a form of capital punishment in 16th century Europe, a time of significant Anabaptist persecution. The death method of choice was drowning in order to mock...
View ArticleIt’s not time
It must be nice to live in a black-and-white world in which people either embrace “evolution” (more on that in a minute) or are science deniers who are committed to a view of Scripture that is quaint...
View ArticleHow to interpret the Scriptures
A church member will sometimes ask how I go about interpreting the scriptures. I am tempted to answer, “On the run,” since I preach and teach several times each week. Thinking more about the question,...
View ArticleMr. Irrelevant
Anyone who spends time with me eventually learns that I love football. I don’t like football. I love it. One of my favorite things about football is the NFL draft. For football players, the draft is...
View ArticleGod of love?
It seems that most every time I write something about God not hating gays or about what early Christians believed about hell, I get a healthy amount of reaction from people who feel that it is their...
View ArticleThey are your brothers
The news of late has been enough to depress just about anyone who longs for and fights for justice, fairness, and equality. We have seen states trying to limit a woman’s access to healthcare and limit...
View ArticleCherry picking the Bible
A few weeks ago Neale Donald Walsch had a post on Huffington Posts’s Religion blog entitled “Buffet-Style Bible Believers” to which I’ve wanted to respond, but have had little time until now. The...
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