Sometimes the people who are most endangered by their own misbegotten rational capacities are Christians who have studied a whole lot of Bible and theology and think of themselves as merely applying the truths they have learned.
Christians are to be people of service. They are not to think they came into the world to sit at a banquet, but they are to wait on their Master while he sits at the table. Too many consider that the services of the sanctuary are intended merely to feed them. They...
God is not a Christian. God is not a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist. I honor my tradition. I walk through my tradition. But I don't believe my tradition defines God. It only points me to God.
Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own image.-------------------------------------Gender-neutral version: Much...
With the mistaken view of God as a Punisher-in-Chief that most Christians seem to hold, we think our own violence is necessary and even good. But there is no such thing as redemptive violence. Violence doesn’t save; it only destroys all parties in both the short and...
The crisis in the U.S. church has almost nothing to do with being liberal or conservative; it has everything to do with giving up on the faith and discipline of our Christian baptism and settling for a common, generic U.S. identity that is part patriotism, part...
While I gained much from conversations about faith from my fellow travelers through the landscape of the Christian faith, I have found that my personal faith is now enriched and deepened mainly by reading books. from Mere Discipleship
At my Christian elementary school, we sang, “Jesus loves the little children…red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.” In alignment with this song, white people often professed, “I don’t even see color,” reassuring me that I would be safe from...
At such a moment, hesitancy in speaking out faithfully on behalf of the good news of Jesus is inexcusable. There are...issues thrown at Christians today, and the world is both owed an answer and is actually waiting for the answer that only the church can give—even if...
The central truth of the Christian gospel: life springs from death, not only at the last but also in the many little deaths along the way. When everything you count on for protection has failed, the Divine Presence does not fail. The hands are still there -- not...