Last week I wrote that a proper understanding of faith, hope, and love provides a common story for the Church by acknowledging our real life connections to community, nature, time, and place. I quickly got a marvelous critique from Lupe that raised three challenging questions about the relevance of my thoughts. The first two stem […]
I promised to share some of my friends’ understanding of modern Christian community. Kerry Walters is a retired philosophy professor whose words often appear in the Huffington Post. I think his following Facebook post speaks for itself. I’d be interested in hearing your critique of his understanding of the Church. Why I am an American […]
The sacraments remind us that Christians claim that God is more than spirit. Although most of us can remember having defined God as a spirit at various times, the Church has insisted God is a person. And we all know a person is body as well as spirit. I can appreciate what our theologians are […]
Christians believe the Risen Christ is still among us. The Creed lists several ways this takes place in its third article that describes the work of the Holy Spirit. Whereas the Old Testament claims that Spirit filled certain leaders, the New Testament proclaims Pentecost made Christ available to all believers. Significantly, the article first mentions […]
We always hear we need authority in order to keep unity in the Church. Those making the claim usually mean they have the proper theology to which everyone else must conform. However, this kind of authority has done little to heal the divisions in the Body of Christ and, for the most part, has led […]
Let’s resume examining Practical Christianity, that part of the Christian life that does not necessarily involve the supernatural. In my ministry, I found many people came to church or sent their children, not because they wanted to worship, but because they sought a community that would give meaning to their lives– a place where they […]
The third practical way Christianity offers for overcoming suffering and evil is a loving, sharing community. Lupe observed suffering can be made “less terrifying when families envelop each other in love.” Certainly the New Testament sees this extending beyond the biological family to the entire Body of Christ. One of the many places Paul mentions […]
Finding myself on vacation, I plan to be more anecdotal in the next couple weeks. Well, perhaps it has to do with more than my vacation. I think we have come to where we truly live our lives. That means speaking of experience more than theology. When I want to check whether an inspiration is […]
I can best explain my position on suffering by enclosing below a short paper I wrote decades ago to start discussion at a Lutheran conference. I think the Christian faith is contrarian by nature. We have some trouble seeing that, because it is so closely aligned with Northern American society. Most of the time I […]
Let me build on the very, very fine discussion taking place in “Comments”. Juan laid the foundation observing that our lifestyle gives witness to the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Bob suggested that lifestyle is necessarily divided into worship and ethics. Anne pointed to the need for community, succinctly defining its role as giving support […]
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