Happy New Year! My celebrations started early when I read that Andy Crouch (author of Culture Makers, a book I highly recommend), had reviewed my book, Penelope Ayers, as one of his favorites of the year. Click here to read the review (scroll down once you get to the page), and I encourage you to poke around his website and order his book too. It’s a mutual admiration society, apparently, because if I had taken the time to write my... Read more

When God raised Jesus from the dead, God proved that everything Jesus had claimed about himself was true. He wasn’t just a remarkable and inspirational teacher who died an unfortunate death. He wasn’t just a man who offered forgiveness from sin. Rather, the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus was who he said he was. He was God-with-us. And he didn’t just die for us. He didn’t just die for the forgiveness of sin. He died to overcome, once and for all,... Read more

Jesus died a criminal’s death. He was executed in the most brutal method the Romans had at their disposal, crucifixion. And his closest friends were very afraid that their death was next. Other than John, the men who had been in his close band of disciples didn’t even witness his execution. The women were there—Mary, his mother, and other women followers. But the men were hidden away, afraid that their death sentence would come next. Within a few years of... Read more

I have written a lot about the benefits of Christianity, but if Christianity is just about satisfying my emotional needs, well, how do I know that it’s true? Maybe it’s just a powerful story that makes me feel good, much like the comfort of watching a movie where it all turns out right in the end. Maybe it’s just a fairy tale. I do believe that Christianity fulfills our emotional needs. We do need healing, and comfort, and joy. We... Read more

(Note to readers: the posts that will go up this week come from a series of talks I gave last month. If you’d like to read the earlier talks, go back to November and look at posts named Life With God, Life Without God, and then in December, Life with God.) As regular readers of this blog may remember, we’re big fans of the HBO series The Wire. It’s set in inner-city Baltimore, and it focuses on the drug trade.... Read more

One quick note: I’ll be out of town for the next week, so I’ve scheduled some posts from afar. But I’m not tech-savvy enough to know how to update my Facebook and Twitter status to demonstrate that those posts are available. So you can just check in throughout the week, or go ahead and subscribe to these posts (it’s a simple process–just use the form to the right of this post, under the profile text– and you end up getting... Read more

No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flowFar as the curse is found,Far as the curse is found,Far as, far as, the curse is found. Sin isn’t a hot topic at Christmastime, or, for that matter, any other time of year here in 21st century America. I believe that sin is real, and yet I still hesitate to talk about sin, and curses, and sacrificial offerings, and all those other seemingly... Read more

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. It’s a theme that runs through the Bible, this idea that the natural world sings God’s praises, even if we humans forget or neglect to do so. St. Paul talks about creation groaning, in labor, waiting for the return of Jesus. Jesus himself says that if humans don’t praise him, the rocks... Read more

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room,And Heaven and nature sing,And Heaven and nature sing,And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing. “Let every heart prepare Him room.” It struck me this morning that there are three aspects to the waiting we do in the season of Advent. First, there is the waiting of longing, yearning, the waiting expressed in the mournful tunes like “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” This... Read more

It’s a little late in the game, but I’ve been meaning to recommend a book: God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. It’s a beautiful (including color pictures of major works of art throughout the centuries) book with reflections on Advent by poets, theologians, and other writers, including Kathleen Norris, Eugene Peterson, Richard John Neuhaus, and Luci Shaw. A wonderful gift for yourself or anyone else who might want help remembering Advent in the midst of American holiday cheer.... Read more