bible and theology on Gatekeeping

We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one n...

No one is mandated by God to be a heresy hunter. When we are walking in judgement and a critical spirit, we can stumble into an unhealthy infatuation with looking for the enemy, instead of seeking the...

To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.

When you pass beyond good and evil, you pass into the realm where might is right, and where anything that reminds you of the old moral values—for instance, a large Jewish community—stands in your way ...

I grew up attending churches designed for church people. No one said it, but the assumption was that church was for church people. The unspoken message to the outside world was, “Once you start believ...

Alvin Plantinga, the Christian philosopher, endorses a view inspired by Calvin and Aquinas, against which he anticipates the objection that the view is "fundamentalist. But isn’t all this just ...

The New Testament scholar Craig Evans makes a compelling observation about how the academy can sometimes hinder the church through overly skeptical scholarship: Some scholars seem to think that th...

It is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfections, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others.

Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself.

If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.

A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

Conforming to boundary markers too often substitutes for authentic transformation. The church I grew up in had its boundary markers. A prideful or resentful pastor could have kept his job, but if eve...

Ethnocentrism is the technical name for the view in which one’s own group is the center of everything and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.

A predominant characteristic . . . of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach...

Practicing confession is one way to guard against paternalism in both extreme and more subtle ways. For example, we can tell stories of justice in a way that discounts other people’s agency—that is, t...

The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.

Jesus’ parable [of the banquet in Luke 14:16-23] makes it clear that there are business and career invitations . Some people had real estate that demanded attention, and others had invested in ox...

We didn’t have a lot of rules [at the food pantry at St. Gregory, an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco]. You could be a drunk or junkie, but you couldn’t volunteer if you were high. You couldn’t...

The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value-systems.

Keeping sabbath may involve us in relinquishing certain kinds of power on behalf of other kinds. If we allow it, sabbath may bring us to true authority, true power. The road is that of letting go, rat...

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

A person who wields power cannot see truth; that is the privilege of the powerless.

Disagreement is refreshing when two men lovingly desire to compare their views to find out truth. Controversy is wretched when it is only an attempt to prove another wrong. Religious controversy does ...

We must put away our convenient notions of God—the one who always agrees with us, the one who always favors our nation or political agenda, the one who feeds us candy and never vegetables.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

It is just as much a matter of discipline for a church member practically to deny his stewardship as to deny the divinity of Christ.

When we are regularly shamed away from thoughts that venture near spirituality and transcendence, we learn to avoid it altogether, even in our thoughts. We develop a resistance to thoughts that would ...

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!