(This article is written for college students who may be struggling with issues of faith as they are confronted with the “stretchings” of higher education.) It still sends chills down my spine when I think about that moment of revelation fifty years ago. I was on my way to one… Continue reading
These words from Genesis are very familiar to us. They have been read from outer space by astronauts as they circled the earth. Perhaps these words are too familiar. When anything is too familiar, we have a tendency to take it for granted. It ceases to amaze us. Scholars tell… Continue reading
In the spring of 1206 C E, early in St. Francis’ career as God’s troubadour, the saint entered the little chapel of San Damiano. This shrine, located three-quarters of a mile below Assisi, was in ruins. However, there was still suspended over the altar a simple crucifix. St. Francis knelt… Continue reading
I’ve always been fascinated by words and their origins. I remember learning at Halloween in elementary school that the word “lunatic” comes from the term for “moon” and reflected the belief that one could become insane under the influence of that reflective object in the night sky. In college I… Continue reading
(26 minutes) Go into any “Christian” bookstore and you will find many books on the “end times” and the “last things”—books on the Rapture, heaven and hell, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and Armageddon as well as books with charts predicting the order and nature of what will come… Continue reading
Few passages in Scripture trouble Western contemporary Christians more than these verses from the Book of Acts. On the one side we have those who insist that the pattern found here (where everything is held in common) must be the practice of the faithful church—a sort of spiritual communism. Anything… Continue reading
(This is a Fathers’ Day sermon I preached years ago. What I remember most about this sermon was the response of men of all ages. Some wept. Others deeply pondered their lives. Some men reflected on their own experience as a father while others began to look at their fathers… Continue reading
If you had been one of the Gospel writers, how would you have ended your Gospel? Mark ends his Gospel with the women running from an empty tomb and from the announcement that Jesus has been raised from the dead. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for… Continue reading
Introduction to the “First Things”: Genesis, Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, and Historical Context The opening chapters of Genesis raise a lot of questions for many people. How do we square the earth being made in 6 days with what we now know about the age and progression of the universe?… Continue reading
Introduction to the “First Things”: Genesis and Science For centuries the opening chapters of Genesis have provided a battleground on which the church and science have viciously fought. There was a time when the church persecuted those who believed that the earth circled the sun. The church, based on teachings… Continue reading
