When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority...
According to the gospels, Jesus wasn’t married. Jesus didn’t have children. People have still allowed him to lead their entire lives. The same is true for the apostle Paul and countless others in the Christian tradition. Should Joan of Arc have her sainthood revoked...
If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.
Beware of anyone in authority who is stoking fear, hate, and aggression into the hearts of their followers. They are only interested in their own power. Seek out those who are sowing love, kindness, and compassion into the hearts of others, while empowering the most...
I propose that the purpose of preaching is not to be defined hierarchically in terms of the preacher pouring out the good news from above to the people below in the way that many claims of the preacher’s authority and purpose have traditionally configured. Instead, in...
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull,...
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an...
The Quaker writer Richard Foster was the first to alert me, I believe, to the important distinction between power and authority. Power is claimed; authority is earned. Power is based on being in charge and having the leverage to impose punishment on others who might...
Jesus beatifies mourning, not moping. He does not counsel the long face. He does, however, bless real sadness, a state that can as easily coexist with an outwardly happy life as do all the other normal contradictions of living. (The deepest joy may reside in persons...
Jesus calls his disciples, giving us authority to heal and sending us out. He doesn't show us how to reliably...make a blind man see, dry every tear, or even drive out all kinds of demons. But he shows us how to enter into a way of life in which the broken and sick...