Yesterday I posted a sermon, Seeking a Life of Meaning, and was delighted to receive a serious comment. I say delighted because the tone opened a respectful dialogue rather than some comments I’ve received that deal only in angry rhetoric. Anyway, the commenter, Carl, raises a good point, one I often discuss with my wife. I often say that preaching is a conversation, the same conversation that formed the text of scripture. It is still going on today. When I... Read more

John Boehner resigned the very next day. Pope Francis, surely one of the most sympathetic figures on the face of the globe today, came to visit America. He spoke to Congress saying, “Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding... Read more

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that Jesus was right. I’m going to assume that when he envisioned the “Kingdom of God,” a reign where the merciful obtain mercy, where the meek, that is those who reject the use of coercive power as a means to even the most legitimate end, inherit the earth, where the peacemaker is called a child of God, I’m going to assume that when he cast his eyes into the... Read more

There it was. Someone had told me about it, but to see it right there in front of me as I raced through Philadelphia International Airport well, the desire to buy it overwhelmed me. I am now the proud owner of Bobblehead Pope Francis, the pinnacle of American kitsch, the ultimate expression of the consumer culture the man abhors. My wife doesn’t understand it, and I’ll grant that I have an off beat sense of humor, (a product of my... Read more

My father is coming up on 99 years of age. When he was born we thought there was only one galaxy. Can you imagine how much bigger creation has become? No . . . that’s the point. It’s becomes biggeer than imagination. Dad remembers being carried through the streets of Philadelphia celebrating Armistice Day at the end of WW I. He saw the rise of the car, the phone, and refrigeration. He was around for the stock market crash in... Read more

In 1938 Nicolas Winton, a stock broker, took a two week vacation from his home in England to Czechoslovakia. Those two weeks were spent productively. He ended up saving the lives of 669 mostly Jewish children from certain death in the Nazi camps. An apparently humble man, he didn’t even mention the effort to his wife when he married her years later. She found out when, looking around their attic, she found a scrap book that told the tale. When... Read more

It’s interesting to me that Brooks did not speak to the progressive Christian community. Why? Maybe he just thinks we should just keep on keeping on, but I wonder if he doesn’t sense some power there that he doesn’t see in our neck of the woods. I wrote a post some years ago, “An Open Letter to Evangelicals.” I’m frequently surprised to discover what I’ve written when I search my own archives, but this one was different; this one stuck... Read more

I’d like to think that New York times columnist, David Brooks, reads my blog but I know it’s not true. (Right David?) His recent column The Next Culture War, is gently, respectfully asking the church to move on – to stop fighting about sex. He offers strategic rather than principled reasoning for his request; he isn’t trying to change anyone’s mind on same-sex marriage for instance. He’s just saying that tactically this battle is lost, at least for a time... Read more