worldview and perspective on Allegiance

The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. It was used in two ways at the time. First, it described the oath taken by soldiers in the Roman army. It was a sacred pledge of allegiance....

While sexual sin, financial scandals, and toxic work environments hurt pastoral credibility, a more subtle, and probably more common danger is carelessness with the truth. Intellectual integrity matte...

We can “know” something to be true, and then find it is not true after all. I recall confidently assertive to a student that, of course, the name of the region Perea (to the east of the Dead Sea) appe...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

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.

Every soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and com...

The English word "truth" comes from a Germanic root that also gives rise to our word "troth," as in the ancient vow "I pledge thee my troth." With this word one person en...

Who will tell you the truth? An enemy who hates you bitterly, and a friend who loves you dearly.

Ignorance is the mother not of devotion but of heresy.

Assurance grows by repeated conflict. . . . When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again . . . and when these things have been repeated to us an...

In Christ there is no East or West, In Christ no South or North; But one great family of love Throughout the whole wide earth. In Christ shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find; H...

Your steadfast love, O Lord, Extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your judgments are like the great deep; You save all of...

Your religion is what you do with your solitude

A people can be judged as better or worse according to what they love, and their nation can be assessed as healthy or unhealthy according to the condition of what they love.

Locked into captivity by an airplane seat, a kindly disposition of keeping a friend company, or a telephone connection, we become ex officio confessors to those with troubled consciences and traces, o...

Ancients married in order to have children, to cement alliances, and to gain strategic relationships.

Silence is evil's closest ally.

How great an honor will it be to a person to have God at the day of judgment owning a person, declaring before all men, angels and devils that that person is before His all-seeing eyes and that he sta...

Let me be on my guard when the world puts on a loving face, for it will, if possible, betray me as it did my Master, with a kiss.”

Our race would not have gotten far, Had we not learned to bluff it out And look more certain than we are Of what our motion is about.

To tell someone what you believe may be to answer the wrong question—better to say, instead, what the church believes, better to use the language the church has bequeathed to us to shape our experienc...

Prayer of Adoration Lord, our Lord – How excellent is your name in all the earth. Because of who you are – we praise You. Because of what you’ve done – we thank You. You are a Father to the fathe...

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is... that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life...

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...

At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, an...

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

The most insidious deception in human history is the lie that says, “God is against you.”

My kids love the movie Remember the Titans . It’s the story of the integration of the TC WIlliams High School Football Team in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1960s Civil Rights era. The white players a...

Obedience to God's will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God's will that brings certainty.