A Darkness That May Be Felt
Monday, March 9th, 2015 Posted in The Sermons | Comments OffSome of you may like my latest essay at Image, about the 21 young men murdered by ISIS in Libya. Here's an excerpt: These stories are now fantasy to us, or nearly so. Abraham holds the knife to Isaac’s throat, Jacob ...
Easing the burden
Friday, March 14th, 2014 Posted in Faith and Life | 18 Comments »"I'm sorry I shot you in the face with my Nerf gun. Do you forgive me?" My son knows he is supposed to ask for forgiveness, just as his brother knows that sooner or later he will be expected to say ...
The Cave of the Heart
Tuesday, December 24th, 2013 Posted in The Sermons | Comments OffHere's an excerpt from my Christmas Eve post over at Good Letters: When I read about the boy hiding under his bed, first inviting the world he knew to watch him die, then hiding from it in that darkened place, I ...
Gentle disagreement
Tuesday, June 25th, 2013 Posted in Theology | 1 Comment »I've been wrestling for weeks with how to be at peace with fellow Christians who also happen to be harmfully heretical (and popular) teachers. On the one hand, we're all supposed to love one another and get along. On the ...
On feeling Godforsaken
Friday, March 29th, 2013 Posted in Faith and Life, The Sermons | 3 Comments »Some of you might like my meditation on what Good Friday means to the parent of a dead child. Here's an excerpt: "It is a great mystery to me, how God can know what it means to be forsaken, and because ...
On the separateness of preaching and healing
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 Posted in Faith and Life, The Sermons | 2 Comments »Preach and heal. This is what Christ asked of his apostles, before sending them out in pairs: "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out ...
The scandal of the evangelical intellectual’s mind
Thursday, February 21st, 2013 Posted in Theology | 1 Comment »A reasonable response to the accusation that the evangelical mind is insufficiently expansive is to ask to what dimensions its critics would like to see it expanded. That question springs to the lips when considering Biblical scholar Peter Enns's contention ...
The Christianity of Chris
Thursday, February 16th, 2012 Posted in The Artful Life, Theology | 4 Comments »This is not one of those reflections on the death of Christopher Hitchens, in which the writer labors to bolt his meager little meteor to that man's literary supernova. I've read enough of those to make me retch, if not ...
Christ v. Christian
Monday, March 19th, 2007 Posted in Curmudgeonry | Comments OffThough I expected Michael Lewis's Blind Side to do for football what his Moneyball did for baseball, I found my stomach churning as I read the story of Michael Oher, a black child neglected for years in the slums and ...
Nice Church
Monday, February 19th, 2007 Posted in The Sermons | Comments OffAn acquaintance once told me about a wealthy benefactor in his church, a man who likes to point out that he "isn't one of those Bible thumpers." He just believes that it's a good thing for families to go to ...
