matthew on Ignorance

O God, Father of us all, we praise you for so binding humanity together that we must each lean upon the strength and labor of others. We ask your blessing on all men and women who have worked to build...

People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.

Humility rests upon a Holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. For wherever he turns his eyes on earth, there he sees only the sun. The God-blinded soul sees naug...

As sinners, we are apt to assume the worst about people. We are eager to find favorable comparisons that make ourselves look good at the expense of others. We are quick to size people up and think we ...

Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...

I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility. Humility leads to clarity. Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart. With an open mind and a forgiving heart, I see every p...

A college professor met his new class on the first day of school. He stood before the students and gave a nice introduction to the class and about himself. Upon completion of his monologue, he looked...

In October 2014 Wired magazine reported on the dirty work every social media company must somehow handle: moderating the deluge of exploitative, degrading content posted in unimaginable quantities aro...

Prayer of Adoration Jesus—Immanuel—our God come in the flesh so that we might know You and that You might save us: Thankfully, You watch out for us—help us to watch for You. Give us eyes to see You ...

Righteous God, we receive your grace and forget your justice. You teach us to move with compassion yet we have remained complacent. God, forgive us for our complacency and our apathy. Fuel us with you...

Jesus, as always, gets caught in the middle—along with a good number of his followers. Many people in America today were brought up in strict Christian homes and churches of one sort or another. There...

In the wake of slavery and the Civil War, there was so much ugliness in black life that one would have had to be blind not to see it. And nothing, absolutely nothing, was uglier than lynching in all o...

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act led to what’s known as the Trail of Tears, in which almost fifty thousand indigenous people were removed from the southeastern United States and relocated west of the M...

First, we get our calling wrong when we imagine that God needs us, to be the hero of our own story, rather than Christ. Second, we routinely misdiagnose the problem of our world, underestimating estim...

All: Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment. We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.

In the context of justice, I think what Christians need to confess about their pride isn’t so much about taking credit away from God but from the people we help. One version of this is sometimes refer...

If I withhold mercy, I have lost touch with the gospel. I have lost touch with God’s undeserved kindness and pardon.

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am bla...

In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day, humility was a despised trait. They viewed it as a sign of weakness. And our culture today is no different from that world of two thousand years ago. Maybe it’s...

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

All-Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment.  We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...

A major stumbling block for many earnest seekers is the compelling evidence throughout history that terrible things have been done in the name of religion. This applies to virtually all faiths at some...

Richard Mouw, the former president of Fuller Seminary and a professor of philosophy, shares an amusing anecdote from a lecture by the esteemed Catholic ethicist Charles Curran. During his talk, Curran...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

“Moral”…is an orientation toward understandings about what is right and wrong, just and unjust, that are not established by our own actual desires or preferences but instead are believed to exist apar...

Humility is the garden of all the virtues.

We cannot have true justice unless it is motivated by love, just as God’s greatest act of justice, sending Jesus to die for us, was motivated by love. Years ago, before the emancipation of slaves, Fre...

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

History is not the story of heroes entirely. It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shortsightedness. There are monsters, there is evil, there is betrayal. That's why people should rea...