I am privileged to have members of “the greatest generation” as my grandparents. I am even luckier to have been able to learn so much from them as I grew up. My grandparents on both sides lived until I became an adult. That benefits me in two important ways. I learned a lot from them. I was also able to discern whether or not I believed anything they were saying. I have known many people who were never able to... Read more

Garth Brooks is coming to town. It is funny how associations are made in one’s mind. When I hear the name of Garth Brooks, I think of one fan in particular. His name was Travis. He was a super fan. When his favorite singer came on the radio I could ask who it was. He would dance and yell out the name “Garth Brooks!” I could not let it go. “Who?” I asked. He would shout it again and give... Read more

The Sunday School teacher will stand before his or her class and ask, “What do we mean when we call Jesus the Son of God?” The answer will be either “He is Divine” or less often “He had no human father.” The teacher may then ask, “What do we mean that Jesus is the Son of Man?” Often the answer will be given that “He is human.” And most of the time these answers are acceptable along with the affirmation... Read more

The church as an institution is an organizational structure that almost everyone believes they are against…until it does something they like. This is the reason we experience the constant hypocrisy of people within it. During the early months of 1999, I heard a female church official complain about the sickness of the world in which we live. Why? Because the U.S. Senate failed to remove Bill Clinton from office. A few years later a large fundamentalist church near where I... Read more

Attend Upon the Ordinances of God The eighteenth century was a time of fertile discovery and argument. It was an age of questions. And these questions threatened both the established answers and even the new ones being offered by other thinkers of the time. The major questions concerning knowledge and the nature of moral order always led to questions about how we live out the answers. Even the fledgling American Republic had these questions being answered in different ways by... Read more

Do Good What does it mean to do good? That is an important question. Is the question aesthetic in nature? Does it mean to do good work? Or is it primarily ethical in nature? Does it mean to do good deeds? I believe the majority of people reading this blog would assume the exhortation to do good means to do good deeds. The Golden Rule as given in Matthew 7:12 is contextually about good deeds. “In everything do unto others... Read more

The Wesleyan “General Rules” have been rediscovered in recent years. The late Bishop Rueben Job deserves the credit for this with his book and study “Three Simple Rules.” It is a good study. Personally, I recommend it. What I offer today is my own understanding of these rules and how they may be applied. If one is not familiar with them the rules are “Do no harm. Do good. And attend upon the ordinances of God.” Do No Harm. The... Read more

There is a joke that United Methodist pastor’s tell. “There is a bird loose in the Sanctuary. How do I get it to leave? The answer can be multiple choice. “Ask it to become a member of the church? Ask it to serve on a committee. Ask it to sign a pledge card.” There are probably more. But you get the idea. The answer is not really about birds. It is about people. And it is not about just any... Read more

I really enjoyed reading David Bent Hart’s book Experiencing God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.  A good friend turned me on to this writer wondering if I could make heads or tails of what he was trying to say. Hart makes two important moves in his argument for the existence of God as defined by ancient philosophical theologies. The first move is the one of definition. Hart defines God much the same way as Plato. God is beyond nature and the progenitor... Read more