In an age when, through athletics and diet and the intensity of exercise, we have rediscovered our physical bodies, we have neglected the “body” of our Christianity. Liturgy is the sensuality of the Christian experience, and the muscle of our mysticism. And we have...
How will we teach Christianity’s specialness if the music in our worship services imitates the superficiality and meaninglessness of the general world and our sermons talk about subjects that those in the pew can learn from psychologists, sociologists, and the local...
To say that we believe that God loves the poor, judges in their behalf, wills their deliverance but do nothing ourselves to free the poor, to hear their pleas, to lift their burdens, to act in their behalf is an empty faith indeed. To say that God is love and not...
Jay hugged me hard when I left. He was going back to Colorado in a few days. “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “But sometimes when I’m up in the mountains above the tree line, it’s like whoa, you know: There’s a big, big love.” “I know,” I said. Christianity wasn’t...
It wasn’t the morality of the Sermon on the Mount which enabled Christianity to conquer Roman paganism, but the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In an age when Roman senators vied to see who could get the most blood of a steer on their togas—thinking...
Sometimes the course of one’s entire life is determined by a solitary incident—some kind of defining moment that changes everything. Mary’s decision to anoint Jesus’ body for burial on the third day after his death was just such a moment. When she arrived, she found...
Pro Tip: It’s possible to get an A in Bible and still flunk Christianity.
Enemy occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening in...
With an abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of formal knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into practice; but it can never be followed in personal obedience. Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably...
I haven’t always been a Christian. I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port wine would do that. If you want a religion to make you really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.