"Love your neighbor as yourself" matters most when our common understanding is least.
02982 – Love Your Neighbor
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02009 – Different Types of Courage
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
01875 – How Did Jesus Respond to Suffering?
On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out...
01730 – U.S. Church in Crisis
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...
01669 – Responding to the Divine Presence
This is another trait common to God-bearers or Jesus-types--it isn't that God has preordained them to serve a special function. They have simply developed their ability and willingness to respond to the Divine Presence to a degree that enables them to be particularly...
01499 – One Style, or Two Styles of Worship?
To call for two styles and to find impetus for the wintry sort of search demands boldness. It receives so little attention that anyone who defends it may well express the old reformers' anxiety: Am I alone right, and is the whole church wrong? Why in our era does the...
01286 – Our Common Link
Our most common link is that we all inhabit this planet, breathe the same air, cherish our children, and we are all mortal.
00292 – Soul-less Humanity
There was a common saying in Germany just before the Nazi reign. “The human body contains a sufficient amount of fat to make seven cakes of soap, enough iron to make a medium-sized nail, a sufficient amount of phosphorous for two thousand match-heads, enough sulfur to...
00003 – On Merry Christmas
The most common greeting of the first Christmas was not ‘Merry Christmas.’ It was ‘Don’t be afraid!’ It took real courage and perseverance to be at the manger: Mary’s courage, Joseph’s commitment to Mary, the awestruck obedience of shepherds, and the politically...