faith on Status Quo

The Danish philosopher and contrarian Soren Kierkegaard once compared Christians of his time to a flock of geese in a barnyard. Every week, they listened to an eloquent speaker who recounted the stori...

It takes a great deal of freedom and love to be therapeutic with a group. Many years ago when Emil Brunner, the great Swiss theologian, was lecturing in this country, it was reported that when he prea...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Broader Context of Philippians Paul is concerned that Judaizers (those that require Christians to follow the Torah) are going to corrup...

Cultural commentator Richard Sennett has claimed that the primary architectural emblem of contemporary life is the airport departure lounge.

Context This Sunday’s passage takes place during Jesus’ long final journey to Jerusalem (which takes up over a third of Luke’s Gospel). In the preceding pericope the disciples have asked Jesus to in...

Context This Sunday’s passage takes place during Jesus’ long final journey to Jerusalem (which takes up over a third of Luke’s Gospel). In the preceding pericope the disciples have asked Jesus to in...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Remembrance and Gratitude AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Ancient Boundaries The world of Jesus and of the early church sa...

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

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...

Pragmatism may be defined simply as the approach to reality that defines truth as “that which works.” The pragmatist is concerned about results, and the results determine the truth. The problem with t...

If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora...

This is the end - for me the beginning of life.

In Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat , the narrator encourages the imprisoned Joseph not to despair because “I’ve read the book and you come out on top.” Unfortun...

Far too easily we settle for holiness rather than wholeness, conformity rather than authenticity, becoming spiritual rather than deeply human, fulfillment rather than transformation, and a journey tow...

When we speak of being the steward of our life, something else must be stressed. We are called to be the steward not of some ideal life or even the life we wish we had; rather we are called to be stew...

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself w...

Most secularists are too politically savvy to attack religion directly or to debunk it as false. So what do they do? They consign religion to the value sphere—which takes it out of the realm of true a...

When I remember that the literal translation of the term gospel is “good news,” I recall a wonderful encounter with her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. In the summer of 2001, I f...

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination o...

A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

Lord, help us to be a people known for the ways in which we live out our faith by loving and serving all people, even those who, in the world’s eyes, have little to offer us. By treating them with dig...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

The scholastics used to say: Homo non proprie humanus sed superhumanus est —which means that to be properly human, you must go beyond the merely human.

Advent 2023: Make some noise Alive, Awake, and Alert AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? The Worst Is Yet To Come I wonder if some of Jesus’ Galilean crew regre...

If you go against the grain of the universe, you get splinters.

The Enlightenment was, among many other things, a protest against a system that, since it was itself based on a protest [the Reformation], could not see that it was itself in need of further reform. (...

My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morni...

Life is always dull and insipid to those who have no great works on their hands to do and no lofty ideals to elevate their spirits.