Human nature, when it is seeking power, wants either to play the victim or to create victims of others. In fact, the second follows from the first. Once we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we will soon find someone else to blame, accuse or attack—and with impunity!...
When we celebrate Christmas we are celebrating that amazing time when the Word that shouted all the the galaxies into being, limited all power, and for love of us came to us in the powerless body of a human baby. My faith is based on this incredible act of love, and...
Nothing is quite so uninteresting as a religious moralism that is always on the side of the angels but never fights any particular evil; which advocates brotherhood, but never in a specific situation; and which admonishes men to be just, but never hazards an opinion...
Public good doesn't automatically follow from private virtue. A person's moral character, sterling though it may be, is insufficient to serve the cause of justice, which is to challenge the status quo, to try to make what's legal more moral, to speak truth to power,...
The more we are drawn into the light of Jesus, the more we have our eyes opened by the gospel. The more we have our eyes opened by the gospel, the more things we see, the more we see how the old world is captive to the powers of darkness and the forces of death, the...
I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The...
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...
The feeble gospel goes back to Jesus as our model, our example, and is much concerned with moral injunctions. It sees his teaching as a fine set of ideals at which to aim. It may not do much harm but it has no power to change your life: it is a faith built in sand...
Jesus’ violent end was the logical conclusion of his proclamation and his behavior. Jesus’ passion was the reaction of the guardians of the law, of justice and morality, to his action. He did not simply passively endure death, but actively provoked it. His...
Why is racism morally wrong? Because it is hostile and indifferent to the good of the other. It is our moral duty to have regard for the well-being of every human being and to promote and protect it insofar as our attitudes and actions have power to affect that...