When I recently told a colleague that I was writing a brief piece on the Seven Last Words – or Seven Sayings – of Christ, he responded: “Isn’t that a bit old school, Bruce? Why bother with something that is obviously inaccurate and outmoded in terms of current theology?” His response gave me pause, but I decided to go ahead with the project because these words still are meaningful in the Good Friday and Lenten rituals of many Christians, including members... Read more
Holy Week encompasses the full spectrum of public and private life – adulation and abandonment, celebration and conflict, integrity and suffering. Read more
On this St. Patrick’s season, embrace God’s circle of care and inspiration. You are always in the dynamic circle of divine adventure. Your life is a holy adventure in companionship with an adventurous God. Read more
Baptist preacher and author Chad Norris and I both recognize, despite very different theological starting points, that faith and prayerful intercession, open up the doors of perception, elicit new possibilities, and bring forth greater energies that can transform us, those for whom we pray, and our world. Read more
God feels our pain, from the inside as a companion not the outside as a spectator or cause, and God provides possibilities, inspirations, and energy to do the good work that is our calling in an open-ended, love-supported universe. Read more
Lent is a journey and even a reflective and deliberate thinker like me can take small steps that may lead to great transformation and to sharing in our vocation of tikkin ‘olam, partnership with God in healing the earth. Read more
What is the “next great thing” that God is injecting into the realm of possibility? Will we have the courage and insight to recognize a pathway in the wilderness and journey with God in creating a way where there was no way? Read more
Lent involves becoming aware of the detritus – whether we call it sin, imperfection, ambiguity, lack of commitment, dis-ease, guilt, and shame – that stands in the way of celebrating divine abundance in ourselves and the world. Read more
Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 When I reflected this week on Jesus’ parable of the lost son (popularly known as the prodigal son), my mind wandered to Bob Dylan’s classic “Like a Rolling Stone,” the story of a young woman’s fall from a life of ease to a hardscrabble life on the streets, perhaps, due to addiction, “on your own with no direction home.” As a sixties child of the San Francisco Bay Area, I recall many of... Read more
Contrary to public opinion both among critics and many Christians, Christian faith is intended to be imaginative rather than restrictive. Some people obviously believe some version of the following, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” But, such understanding of scripture and the Christian life makes the words of scriptures dead letters; the end of discussion rather than the beginning of a holy adventure. Faith is a way of experiencing reality. As Alistair McGrath says, in... Read more
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