As I mentioned in my last post, I’m starting a series called “Cut from the Sermon” (or, per my wife Anne’s suggestion, “Left on the Vestry Floor”), consisting of snippets that I had to cut from my sermons due to length or relevance considerations. Here’s the first one, from the sermon I preached on Sunday (part of a series on the book of Amos; you can find earlier sermons in the series here and here.) This excerpt came in the... Read more
As I suspected it might be, posting has been pretty infrequent over the last few months. There are several reasons for that, but first and foremost: we’ve moved to South Africa! The picture above is the view from one of our bedroom windows. (It makes our place look a little more stereotypically “African” than it actually is: we brought the well with us from Canada, the lawn is dirt because the landscaping was redone before we arrived and the grass hasn’t... Read more
I delivered my final sermon in the Dawson Creek Church of the New Jerusalem this past Sunday. Certainly a bittersweet experience – it was great to give one last sermon in that building, and of course sad to say goodbye (we do have one more service, but it will be an outdoor service at a campground, together with the group from Grande Prairie). It’s been a blessing to serve here. The topic of the sermon was the two essentials of... Read more
Here’s the message on forgiveness that I delivered this morning at the Church of the New Jerusalem in Dawson Creek. Sermon audio is available here. Readings are Ezekiel 33:10-20; Matthew 18:21-35; and the following excerpt from Arcana Coelestia 9014: It is believed by many within the church that the forgiveness of sins is the wiping out and washing away thereof, as of filth by water; and that after forgiveness they go on their way clean and pure. … But be it... Read more
I have a new post up over at New Church Perspective on how to act in a way that opens us up to belief (as opposed to forcing ourselves to believe in an artificial way). The post was partly inspired by a great conversation a few months ago between Ross Douthat, Rod Dreher, David Sessions, and Noah Millman, exploring the connections between life and faith (or lack thereof). The main question they were discussing was the extent to which our... Read more
I delivered the Palm Sunday message yesterday at the Dawson Creek Church of the New Jerusalem; for the sermon, I focused on the Lord’s first act upon entering Jerusalem as recorded in the gospel of Matthew: to enter the temple and cast out all those who bought and sold there. Sermon audio is available at the New Church Audio site. Sermon text is below; reading the readings is highly encouraged! (For more passages and thoughts about “the wrath of God”... Read more
My last post quoted a long conversation in the afterlife among several “learned” people from the 1700’s, who reached the conclusion, basically, that they would never reach a conclusion on anything. I mentioned the parallel to postmodernism – that the conversation illustrates the kind of silliness that results from never reaching a conclusion on anything. The thing is, though, it’s not REALLY postmodern in that the assembled folk were trying to reach conclusions, but never did. Postmodernism asserts that there aren’t absolute conclusions... Read more
The idea that we can never come to any firm conclusions on whether or not something is true is a hallmark of our postmodern age. But apparently something of that attitude has existed for a bit longer than just the last few decades. The conversation recorded by Emanuel Swedenborg in this vision of the afterlife sounds eerily similar to quite a few conversation I’ve heard (OK, and participated in), particularly among the academically inclined. It was first published in the... Read more
Yesterday we reached the conclusion of our sermon series on the Days of Creation. We focused on the final day, the day of rest, and I talked about the difference between temporary peace and eternal peace, or worldly peace vs. the peace that the Lord offers. Here’s the sermon, in audio and text. Readings are Genesis 2:1-3; Psalm 85; Mark 2:23-28; and Arcana Coelestia 10360; as always, I highly recommend reading the readings before listening to the sermon. Feedback is welcome!... Read more
Over the past six weeks here at our church in Dawson Creek we’ve been following the story of Creation from the first chapter of Genesis. Yesterday we reached the sixth day: the creation of land animals, and ultimately, the creation of man, male and female, in God’s image and after God’s likeness. We’ve been following the interpretation of the story as laid out in the Doctrine of the New Church, specifically in the book Arcana Coelestia, which describes these days as... Read more
Good and Truth
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