Huma Abedin doesn’t know how that stuff got on her husband’s computer. Not knowing how it got there may be as bad as it being there! This spin is dizzying, and perhaps that’s the point of spins. Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she doesn’t know how her emails ended up on her estranged husband’s computer, according to The Washington Post. Abedin says she did not regularly use the computer, the newspaper reported, citing a person familiar with the... Read more

It’s not new but it’s not talked about. I’m talking about the choice of so many to exercise their rights of free speech by calling out someone on social media — Facebook, Twitter, blogs — who said something they didn’t like, did something they didn’t like, or created a situation they didn’t like. What was said or done in private is made public. The person going public perceives himself or herself of naming an injustice, setting the record straight, calling... Read more

Before digging into the text of Job is is helpful to understand the roles played by the major characters in the book. Section two of the recent book How to Read Job by John Walton and Tremper Longman III discusses each of the players. There are chapters dedicated to God, Satan, Job, Job’s human advisors, Job’s advocate, and the use of Behemoth and Leviathan. Their discussion will undoubtedly challenge the assumptions of (almost) every reader. The most important thing to... Read more

By Michael Thompson Walter Brueggemann. God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016. Image A recent publication by well-known Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, has caught my attention. Drawn from a lecture series presented at Fuller Seminary in 2015, this brief work explores the connections between justice, mercy, and the public good, especially in the life and law of ancient Israel. Unsurprisingly, these same connections are in desperate need... Read more

More than one friend has told me Trump supporters are not true Republicans and I countered with this: “That circle of voters brought Reagan into the Oval Office and did the same for both Bushes.” Yes, from what I have gathered from polls and statistics, many if not most of the Trump folks were former Southern Democrats. What is clear to me is that traditional Republicans do not like them and they don’t like traditional Republicans, and it goes without... Read more

For some religions are all doing the same basic things. Varieties and differences notwithstanding, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — or jumping back in time — Roman religions and gods and worship and Judaism as well as its mutation, Christianity, are all doing the same. This is how religion scholarship addresses world religions and it is how such historians see the 1st Century. But comparison of religions to find similarities only approximates accuracy; one must also note their differences, differences... Read more

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. BCP Read more

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO, AGAIN? By Garrett Sheldon Garrett is John Morton Beaty Professor of Political Science Professor at the University of Virginia (Wise). He is the great-grandson of Charles Sheldon, the author of the legendary, In His Steps. In 1896, Rev. Charles M. Sheldon published the book In His Steps which raised the question for Christians to ask when facing decisions: “What would Jesus do”?  The book had a faulty copyright, immediately went into the “public domain” where anyone could... Read more

Last Saturday night, in the Cubs’ game clinching win over the LA Dodgers, we saw again this crew of umpires — led by PhD in theology Ted Barrett — huddling to pray before the game began. I’m not sure if they were saying the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Creed, or going spontaneous but the removal of hats, huddling, and praying embodies faith before 42K fans. Grateful to Ted Barrett. (By the way, the bald African American in a blue sweat... Read more

By John Frye in his series on the preacher’s temptations. A troubling spin-off of the welcomed return to narrative theology is the reduction of preaching to “telling stories.” The Bible is a library of stories. Yes. N. T. Wright has helped us see that even the Book of Romans expresses the startling completion of Israel’s story. Jesus was a masterful storyteller. Yes. The parables tell us so. Our human minds are wired for stories. Yes. Our minds construct stories to... Read more