An Unfortunate False Assumption

A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take photos of an immense forest fire in the United States. Smoke at the scene hampered him, so he asked his home office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made, and he was told to go at once to a nearby… Continue reading

The Problem With Fundamentalism

Humility, uncertainty, and doubt are not found in fundamentalism. Faith is equated with unexamined belief in certain “fundamentals” which must never be questioned. Such an understanding of faith overlooks the two primary meanings of faith in the Bible: trust and fidelity to God and the way of the God we trust. Continue reading

A Decline in U. S. Christianity?

On September 13, 2022, the Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey released some alarming statistics.  In the early 1960s, approximately 90% of the U S population identified as Christian (this percentage included children). In 2020, only 64% identified as Christian. The number of people who identify as religiously… Continue reading

The Scourge and Gift of Time: Part Two

(9 minutes) In Part One of this two-part series, we saw that the great Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel observed that our later years can be regarded as “formative years, rich in possibilities to unlearn the follies of a lifetime.” In that article, we saw how those autumn and winter… Continue reading

The Scourge and Gift of Time: Part One

(10 minutes) I have never met anyone who would like to live his or her live over again with the same repetition of experiences—a perpetual “Groundhog Life” repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum.  At times, I’ve wished I could live my life over again knowing what I know now. I would… Continue reading

They Saw it Coming

I often find the wisdom and insights of people in the past to be more relevant than current analyses and predictions. In my reading this past week, I discovered three examples of such discernment:  An objective analysis will one day see the Reagan administration as a powerful factor in turning… Continue reading

The Wild, Radical, and Extremist Early Followers of Jesus

One of my favorite authors to read is David Bentley Hart. Hart is an Eastern Orthodox theologian and philosopher. He writes profoundly and is often difficult to read. (Even though I have a fairly good vocabulary, I keep a dictionary by my side when I read his works. Sometimes, I… Continue reading

Indigenous Worldviews Offer Hope to a Besieged Planet

Indigenous Peoples can offer us ways to heal this earth as well as hope for a future that is a desirable alternative to the nightmare predicted by climate scientist if we continue our present patterns of greed, production, and consumption.  Continue reading

The “So What” of the Last Things: Part Two

For most people the word “evangelism” conjures up images of tent revivals, pleading evangelists, threats of hell, promises of heaven, and “getting saved.” Evangelism is all some churches and Christians want to talk about while in other churches it is one of the most uncomfortable topics imaginable.  One of the… Continue reading