I had been waiting all summer for the release date of Miroslav Volf’s latest book, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good. Amidst the political debate in our country about the debt ceiling, whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended, whether or not the EPA should even be allowed to exist, etc, I wanted to hear how a prominent Christian theologian understood our responsibility as Christians to the common good. To me, that phrase... Read more
There’s been some buzz in the Christian blogosphere recently about the questions raised by Christian Smith’s book The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. Calvinist super-blogger Kevin DeYoung pounced on Smith in a review. Then popular evangelical moderate Scot McKnight struck back. I got wind of this conversation by way of Carson Clark. I know these names mean very little to most people who read my blog. What in the world does Biblicism... Read more
I have an unpleasant health condition that occurs whenever I’m under high amounts of stress. It happened during my first year of teaching high school English, but it was absent through three years of seminary, being a youth pastor, and even my first year of being an associate pastor in an über-busy suburban church. Well, the condition came back last Tuesday in the buildup to my first afternoon coaching my son’s soccer team. I’ve been mostly half-joking when I’ve made... Read more
Sermon preached at Burke UMC, September 3rd & 4th, 2011 Text: Romans 13:8-14 My wife and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to sharing food. I feel like if I buy a sandwich, then that means that I get to eat the whole thing. If she wants a taste, then she should buy her own sandwich. Mooch is a word that I use for people who try to eat off my sandwich rather than paying for their... Read more
I know better than to view the comments section of online news articles as a barometer for the moral health of our country, since people who have the need to “sound off” in response to news articles generally represent a more acutely depraved subset of the population. But the responses I read today to an article about middle-class homelessness in Los Angeles offer a helpful illustration of the basic attitude that Jesus came to save us from having. (more…) Read more
Welcome!We say it when company comes. It’s a warm and pleasant word to say, which you can’t really do without smiling. Welcome is a word that we try not to use with insincerity. And yet, it’s a word that’s most often used in the artificial context of trying to sell something. People who go to Moe’s Southwest Grill for the first time are often startled by the cacophonous scream that goes up every 90 seconds from behind the counter: “Welcome... Read more
Whatever else is true about Libya right now, it offers a perfect display of discourse in a post-truth world. At one point in time if you routed your enemy in battle and liberated 99% of the country from his control, then it was safe to say you “won” the war regardless of whether your enemy continued to persist in some miserable bunker for another year or even a decade. This was true as recently as the Iraq war when Saddam... Read more
Today I went to see an older woman from my church whom I’m going to call “Alice.” Alice lives in a nearby retirement home. She had a scary fall in church a few weeks ago and has not been to church since then. It’s been eating at my heart that I didn’t respond to her fall as quickly as I could have when people came to tell me about it. Alice and I have a particularly affectionate relationship. After the... Read more
Psalm 119:97-104 O how I love your law! All day long it is my conversation. From my enemies, your commandments make me wise: for they are ever with me. From my teachers, I have understanding; for Thy testimonies are my meditation. From my elders, I understand, because I have keep Thy precepts. (more…) Read more
My best friend was once dating a herpetologist (reptile biologist). When he heard I was a pastor, he told her to ask me how I thought that the 5 million species in the animal kingdom were packed into a boat about a football field long and 5 stories tall (which are the measurements the Bible gives for Noah’s Ark). The herpetologist was shocked to hear me share my belief that Noah’s flood was not a historical event, but a Hebrew... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In