Faith Forward

With any luck the mainline church will be dead shortly. As a person who came to faith in the Non-denominational evangelical church and continued in faith in the Mainline Protestant/Liberal Theological tradition this is not an easy thing for me to say. But the truth is that across the board numbers are dropping…

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I awoke this morning to the news that BP’s ‘top kill’ strategy has failed: “In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It’s the worst spill in U.S. history — exceeding even the Exxon [...]

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desire longs for a less mediated reality. – anna smith Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. — David I have this old pair of shoes. The other day as it was pouring down with rain (as it does in England!) I found out the hard way [...]

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“Regardless of our feelings about a particular war or military service in general, Memorial Day invites us to remember the sacrifices of others and the intricate interdependence of life. Our freedoms and lifestyle are not accidental, but the result of the sacrifices of others. None of us is self-made. We all need one another to achieve the most important things in life, whether in relationships, personal well-being, spiritual growth, and business success.” Bruce Epperly reflects on the spirituality of a secular holiday.

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This week I have read several articles about the impact of the oil spill that is now hitting the Louisiana coast. Looking at some of these photos this morning filled me with despair and left me feeling helpless. But the impact of this catastrophe goes far beyond what is happening on the Gulf coast and the solutions we need should go far beyond the endeavours to still the flow and clean up the coastline.

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The ancient Greek word for sin, hamartia, is an archery term that refers to missing the mark. It evokes an image of someone who tries to hit the bull’s eye, who has the intention of hitting it dead on, but who fails. As pure as our intentions may have been, what if our past interpretations [...]

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I wonder if, on Trinity Sunday, many people feel like the sermon is answering a question they aren’t asking. (What does the Trinity have to do with my daily life?) And many preachers may think to themselves, “Here is another occasion when my job is to try to convince people that an abstract concept they never give much thought to is foundational to their lives.” A better approach is to paint the broad brushstrokes of the doctrine and ask, what’s at stake? So what? What’s at stake in claiming that there are three persons and one essence, not just God being called different things at different times?

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In my book Novel Preaching I tell of having lunch with the chair of the English Department at SMU. C.W. Smith. Dr. Smith is the award winning author of several novels and short stories, most recently the novel Purple Hearts, a story set in a small Texas town during W.W. II. Dr. Smith commented to me, “The most difficult thing in teaching 18 year olds creative writing is getting them to notice what they see. The second thing is to get them to have the confidence that what they notice has some significance.”

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I win most “my childhood was so fundamentalist’” debates. In these conversations I usually just have to bring up one name, and the latest round of “Crazy Christian upbringing” goes to me. That name is Jerry Falwell. For most mainline and progressive Christians the name itself is enough to bring weeping and gnashing of teeth. [...]

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Rather than simply escapist television, I would argue that for many fans of the series their experiences of LOST were highly religious in nature. While numerous definitions of religion exist, one rather basic definition could be that which attempts to explain the meaning of life and what happens to us during and after death. There can be no doubt that, according to this definition, LOST functioned as a religious text.

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