Compulsive liars shouldn't frighten you. They can harm no one, if no one listens to them. Compulsive believers, on the other hand: they should terrify you. Believers are the liars' enablers.
03204 – Greatest Danger: Fail to Love
The spiritual stature of a person's life is measured by love, which in the end remains “the criterion for the definitive decision about a human life's worth or lack thereof”. Yet some believers think that it consists in the imposition of their own ideologies upon...
03183 – Overplaying vs. Underplaying
Fundamentalist and evangelical biblicism taught believers to overplay the Bible and underplay extrabiblical ways of learning and knowing. from After Evangelicalism
02958 – Jesus: The Kind of Friend we Need
The great heresy in American popular religion is the notion that “religion is a private affair,” a secret contract between the believer and God. This individualistic heresy makes Jesus into a close, personal friend who listens, comforts, sustains, confirms, agrees,...
02859 – Imitating Heaven
Gathering with other believers to worship remains one of the most significant things we do, because it’s our way of imitating heaven. Worship is the business, the lifeblood, the heartbeat of heaven. Spirit-led worship here and now gives us a taste of heaven unlike...
02759 – Biblical Inerrancy: The Problem
The problem with biblical inerrancy is that it tends to dissolve on contact with what is in the Bible itself, thus propelling many devout young believers into unnecessary crises of faith. We need a more realistic understanding of the Bible. from After Evangelicalism
02646 – Faith Must be Evaluated in Community
While all were granted the right of conscience in matters of faith, Luther still stressed the necessity of evaluating faith in community. Indeed, for Luther, the very freedom of the Christian was paradoxical as the believer is both freed from all in Christ and at the...
02210 – Using Gender-Inclusive Language
As the father of two girls (now also grandfather of three), I have cringed listening to some preachers and teachers in the church make perfectly good points while using solely male pronouns during their exposition... There are, indeed, “hidden figures” in our...
01338 – Adjusting Our Concerns
Here is a peeving, depressed preacher who is mad. God sent a little gourd to grow up and make shade over the preacher's head. He is so thrilled at that nice little, leafy plant. Then God sends a little cut worm like the one that cut off your tomato plant last spring....
01200 – Conversion Keeps on Happening
The newly-converted Saul is welcomed, baptized, and shares in the table fellowship of the church. Paul says that he was given "the right hand of fellowship" (Gal. 2:9). The enemy is addressed as "Brother Saul." Conversion is not an individualistic attainment or...