I pray a lot for the college kids from our church. In addition to the concern that they will fall away from the faith, I worry about whether they will fall in with the wrong crowd of Christians. Every year, aggressively friendly campus fellowship groups storm the dorms to meet the kids who signed their clipboards at the activity fair. And many times, the result is four years of beautiful friendship and spiritual growth. But it can go very wrong... Read more
Since the gun debate is back in the news, I figured I would pull this old post out again. I’m not terribly interested in whether the Democratic sit-in is a publicity stunt or an act of political courage. As a theologian, my primary concerns are always theological. Over the past several decades, it seems like the two highest priorities of many Christians in our country have been keeping the government from taking away our guns and stopping gay people from getting... Read more
One of my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd songs is “Mr. Saturday Night Special.” The US Senate’s decision to disregard the will of 92% of the US population today regarding mandatory background checks for gun sales makes it apropos to share the lyrics on my blog. I used to blast Lynyrd Skynyrd on my car stereo in tenth grade when I wore cowboy boots and a Texas Ranger belt buckle to school every day. It used to be okay for wannabe redneck... Read more
If you want to know who God is really angry at, maybe you should read what Jesus has to say about it: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. You yourselves do not enter, and you stop others who are trying. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make him twice the son of hell that you... Read more
I was recently made aware of a debate going on in the neo-reformed Gospel Coalition corner of the world that I tend to avoid. Doug Wilson, a megachurch pastor from Idaho, argued in his book Black and Tan that the abolitionist movement was wrong and the Civil War should never happened, because if Southern slave-owners had been allowed to implement the Bible’s teachings on slavery, then a more humane transition would have taken place through “gospel gradualism.” So a Caribbean... Read more
Well it’s Tuesday but it’s still my Monday Merton for the week since I like alliteration. I’m continuing to step through No Man Is An Island. Today’s set of quotes has to do with selfless love. (more…) Read more
I’ve got issues with how people talk about heaven. It bothers me that the most popular Christian books are “proofs” of the afterlife instead of accounts of how people have lived out the kingdom of God here on Earth. Last week, part of my sermon text came from a passage in Hebrews 11 that refers to the hope of the Israelite patriarchs: “All of these died in faith without having received the promises… They desired a better country, that is,... Read more
In the wake of the amazing Missio Alliance conference, I wanted to continue to wrestle with the question of how we talk to strangers about Jesus on airplanes and other places. This reflection was started by Rachel Held Evans’ post on the topic a few days ago to which I responded with a comparison of Rachel’s reflections with street evangelist guru Ray Comfort of Way of the Master. A reader cried foul because it seemed like I was making a... Read more
People hate each other for all kinds of sinful reasons. In my life, I’ve hated people unfairly before, usually out of some sort of envy or paranoid presumption about what somebody else thought of me. It’s different when people hate out of devotion to God. Two nights ago, when I took a look at Way of the Master evangelist guru Ray Comfort’s account of his airplane evangelism, it was jaw-dropping to see the contempt he held for the people he... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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Should Christians weigh in on other peoples’ tragedies?
A friend of mine who recently had a major shift in his theology wrote the following comment on his Facebook page in response to the Boston Marathon tragedy: Tragedies like the one in Boston seem to divide people into two camps. One clings to the “natural goodness” in humanity and swoons over the stories of heroism and chivalry while the other sees this as further evidence that our hearts are desperately wicked and in need of a Redeemer. I was... Read more