micah on Open-Minded

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...

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...

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...

Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us.  …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...

“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...

Generous giving begins with the posture of total humility.

God of wisdom, we come before you in humility. Too often we choose our own way, discern our own path, without looking to you. We ignore the prompting of your Holy Spirit, and choose what is easiest, m...

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...

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

Love to be unknown.

Gracious God, you have given us great mercy through Jesus, yet we have withheld mercy from others. Our hearts have been hardened by the world and our sin. Would you soften our hearts? And give us a de...

[I]f we have compassion without capacity, we have human frustration. If we have capacity without compassion, we have human alienation. If we have compassion and capacity, we have human transformation....

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...

One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions lack civility.

Interpretive strategies have gone through cycles of strict-constructionist (or Originalism) and broad-constructionist (or Living Constitution) perspectives. Originally the procedure of interpreting th...

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...

Gracious God, give us humble, teachable, and obedient hearts, that we may receive what you have revealed, and do what you have commanded. Amen.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

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...

A common trait of human beings is a fear of failure. Most of us find ways of coping with it, but whenever failure rears its ugly head, it’s difficult not to experience the sting of feeling like we are...

Faith and pessimism are incompatible. To be sure, we are not starry-eyed idealists; we are down to earth realists. We know well that sin is ingrained in human nature and in human society. We are not e...

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence.

A House for All People Every summer my church hosts a week-long summer camp where children experience the beauty and majesty of the Lord. The first year we sent our daughter to it, she loved it and l...

Father God, you see us; you have compassion; and you care for your greatest creation – people. You have also called us to notice, to listen, and to love others. Yet in our selfishness, we have ignored...

There is something in humility which raiseth the heart upward.

As you go forth from this place, may you have the courage to confront the dark places. May you trust in God’s goodness to lead you to the living water. May you act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly ...

If you wish to improve be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.

To remain neutral in a situation where the laws of the land virtually criticized God for having created men of color was the sort of thing I could not, as a Christian, tolerate.