The friend standing next to me at the firing predictor was torn to pieces by the bomb that left me unscathed. That night I cried out to God for the first time: "My God, where are you?" And the question "Why am I not dead too?" has haunted me ever since. Why are you...
Poverty, ultimately, means an early and unjust death. Poverty is not only a social issue. It is a human issue, and consequently a challenge to faith and thus a challenge to theology.
I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands --...
Redemptive suffering is ghastly theology. Seldom is suffering redemptive and if it were, surely humanity would be redeemed by now.
Christians, we have maintained, are those who through confrontation with death are given new freedom from the sting of death and so a new freedom for voluntary service to others. Surely if this claim has any truth in it, then it is not our own suffering but the...
The claim of John 14:6-7 becomes problematic when it is used to speak to questions that were never in the Fourth Gospel's purview. To use these verses in a battle over the relative merits of the world's religions is to distort their theological heart. It is a...
The experiment with faith is the work of a lifetime, a continual openness to change, a permanent quest. What I learned serving at the altar was not which Eucharistic theology was "right." What I learned, and must always be learning and relearning, is who Jesus is, and...
Why are people indifferent? Don't people understand that indifference is probably the worst plague that exists in life? It is worse than despair. Despair is a beginning. Despair can inspire you to create great works of art, music, literature, philosophy, theology....
Mother Teresa spent forty years ministering to the poor and dying of Calcutta. Though she never directly challenged orthodox Catholic theology, her willingness to care for Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims brought her criticism, especially since she never insisted on...
I have no doubt that many of the people who press for particular styles of music in worship are motivated by a desire to help us be more culturally relevant in the liturgical life of the church. They believe our musical expressions in worship needs to sound more like...