While in Jerusalem last week, with plans to go to Bethlehem, the US State Department issued a travel warning against US citizens entering the West Bank. There had been violence protests on one street over ongoing Palestinian prisoner treatment in Israel. Disappointed, we canceled our Nativity visit, only to be persuaded to change our mind [...]

For 14 years I have preached an annual sermon series on the Church Fathers, those personalities who over the early centuries of church history fashioned our faith and codified that which we have come to embrace as orthodox Christianity. As there have been numerous noteworthy Church Fathers (and Mothers) it seemed sensible to tackle them [...]

Giving, fasting and prayer are the traditional Lenten disciplines due to Jesus’ mention of them in Matthew 6. I find prayer to be the hardest. I find giving and fasting hard to do too, but at least they seem more tangible. You can see the results of giving and feel the results of fasting. But [...]

Just back from visiting a congregant at his workplace made me think about George Herbert, the 17th century English pastor and poet. He wrote: “The Country Parson upon the afternoons in the weekdays, takes occasion sometimes to visit in person, now one quarter of his Parish, now another. For there he shall find his flock [...]

Aleppo, Syria Jan. 29, 2013 This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Revolution Against Assad’s Regime which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows dead bodies on a street. Syrian activists say at least 65 bodies, some of them with their hands tied behind their back, found on a river [...]

So Lance is finally coming clean, as it were, about doping it up in order to get up those mountains over and over again on his way to his seven former Tour de France titles. Now after being outted by his buddies and banished by his nemeses, he does what any celebrity does when he’s [...]

Well, it’s official. 2012 was the warmest year in United States on record, a full degree warmer than the last record in 1998. In Australia, 113 degree temps are helping fuel raging fires in the southern part of the country, giving new definition to what it means to be “down under.” From NOAA: The year [...]

In circles wherein I tend to travel, this existential question, along with its companion query on human consciousness, serves as a theological bulwark against which atheism crumbles. So naturally I was drawn to Jim Holt’s bestseller on the question. Serving as an “existential detective,” Holt seeks first to define “nothing” (no small task), and then [...]

December 26 is a day marked on the church calendar as The Feast of Stephen. Now some of you hail from countries where December 26 is also known as Boxing Day. Contrary to popular opinion, Boxing Day has nothing to do with boxing up your Christmas trash, with after-Christmas sales or with punching some irritating [...]

As the conversation invariably moved over to gun bans and gun control in the horrific wake of last Friday’s massacre, I recalled Jeff Goldberg’s piece in a recent Atlantic. There are 300 million guns already in the hands of Americans. Another 4 million new guns enter the market each year. The dog is off the leash [...]