A few years ago I shared about Over the Rhine‘s Christmas music. It is a little bit melancholy and a lot of gorgeous. I shared then that I had found one of my all time favorite Christmas albums from 1988, “A Broken Christmas,” was and still is on iTunes. There are quite a few albums that […]
Whenever I hear the word priorities, I think of Ron Weasley (in the movie version, at least) saying that Hermione, who privileges learning above all else, “needs to get her priorities sorted.” The comment is a bit subversive, it is very amusing, but I have a more serious challenge today. American Christians: we need to […]
I often flip that line when recruiting students for the honors college (“We are looking for people with not just the smarts, but the hearts as well.”). But as Chris Tilling points out, Christians (and not just Evangelicals) often go too far into the “hearts” side of faith and usually without understanding the biblical concept […]
What does Jesus really mean when he says “whoever is not against us is for us”? This concept comes up in the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, Mark 9:38-40 (Proper 21, Yr. B), and in the parallel in Luke 9:49-50. (Matt. 12:30 and Luke 11:23 have a similar, yet different phrase in a different […]
This past year I was asked by Chris Keith to write a chapter on Jesus in the Talmud for The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries. Last month I was invited to speak at the 1892 Club at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They recorded it and have posted the presentation (and the rest […]
Year B – Season after Pentecost Proper 6 (11) (June 17, 2018) Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Readings: 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13 Psalm 20 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17 Mark 4:26-34 Kingdoms Rise and Kingdoms Fall But We Go On As I was reflecting upon our readings this morning I was reminded of a line, […]
This is the bones of my sermon from this past weekend (Sunday, June 10, 2018). I shared a few more stories interspersed, but this is the substance of the sermon. Mental health issues are as real as cancer and should be considered as such. I have known far too many Christians who view depression, anxiety, bipolar, addiction, […]
Last month we were in Italy for a few days, meeting our daughter who had been studying for the semester in Siena. She is majoring in History, Art History, and Medieval Studies and had reserved for us tickets for the aperitivo at the Vatican Museum. Opening at 7 pm with a drink and small portions […]
I saw this pop up on Facebook today. Even St. John Chyrsostom agrees with me, the Church should be a hospital. A place of remission of sins and healing, not a place of palliative care simply to ease our inevitable death.
This year I have been thinking a lot about the fact that the Church should be a place of healing. That means that, if a Christian community is doing their job right, there ought to be a lot of hurting people in it, needing healing, comfort, and love. If we are honest with ourselves, we […]
