The values, priorities, and character traits Jesus calls for in what's known as The Sermon on the Mount don't align well with much of what drives Americanized Christianity today. Merciful? Pure in heart? A thirst for righteousness? Hardly. Peacemakers? Willing to...
The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the...
Christianity is not about “right beliefs.” It is about a change of heart. It is about the transformation of ourselves at that deep level that shapes our vision,... our commitment,... and our values.
The invitation to work for social justice is one of the essential, nonnegotiable pillars within Christian spirituality... Social justice has to do with changing the way the world is organized so as to make a level playing field for everyone. In simple terms this means...
Grant that I may not look to the probabilities of success, but to the wisdom of being faithful. Inspire me to be committed, persistent, and enduring in my devotion to live by values that are sacred; rather than calling sacred whatever may be my values. And so may I be...
Before doubt, I thought that faith was a matter of correct beliefs. My religious teachers taught me so: that if I didn’t hold the right beliefs, or at least say that I held them, I would be excommunicated from my community, and perhaps, after death, from God’s...
Slow me down, Lord.Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with...
One thing healthy religion does is challenge us. I don’t mean the strident castigations of the street preacher or even the social justice rally-er. Great traditions excel at the soft challenge, the friendly nudge, issued predominantly through the mode of story....
It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short, from the...
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.