Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” All three of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) report the conversation between Jesus and the scribe/lawyer who asked the question. It’s intriguing to compare these three accounts (Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-40; and Luke 10:25-28). I would assume that Jesus often… Continue reading
Often, in an attempt to correct bad theology, I will ask Christians if they know people who are better than the God contained in their belief system. Most often they reply defensively, “Of course not! No one is better than God.” My response is, “I didn’t ask you if humans are better than God. I asked if you have known people who are better than the God you believe in.” They look puzzled by this question and ask for clarification. I then point out the inconsistency I see in their theological affirmations regarding God. Continue reading
Perhaps the most agonizing question in theology is how to justify a belief in a good, loving, and powerful god in a world where there is so much evil, injustice, and suffering. Continue reading
(11 minutes) Many modern/postmodern people are reluctant to talk about sin. Part of the reason is because of the sick theology from much of the church regarding that subject. Emphases on original sin, trivial sins, threats of hell, exclusive claims regarding salvation, and a judgmental, punishing God are a turnoff… Continue reading
I lament both the lack of knowledge about the Bible in our culture and the various ways in which it is misused within so many churches and in secular society. On one side, we have fundamentalist Christians who insist on the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. On the opposite… Continue reading
(This sermon was preached 39 years ago. I was a college professor teaching religion in a Baptist college. Fundamentalists had chosen me as their target in that college with the intention of having me fired. Susan and I decided that we were no longer Baptists. The straw that broke the… Continue reading
“I pray God to rid me of God (Meister Eckhart 1260-1329) Having surpassed by five years my allotted “three score and ten” on this earth, I am still puzzled by so much in Christianity. Let me get some of these puzzlements and frustrations off my chest. The problem in a… Continue reading
I decided to start referring to God as “She/Her” instead of “He/Him/His.” My rationale for such a decision was the following: for two thousand years God has been referred to as male within the church (with a few exceptions found in such groups as the Rhineland Mystics). I suggested that for the next two thousand years, the church should refer to God as female. That’s only fair, isn’t it? And then maybe after four thousand years of existence, the church can get beyond the question of God’s sex and simply let God be. Continue reading
Have you ever wondered what that first night was like for Mary and Joseph? We, of course, focus on the birth of the Son of God and all that goes with that miracle. We understand Jesus’ birth from our own vantage point of faith. He came to save us, to… Continue reading
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but recordOne death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word;Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. (James Russell Lowell)… Continue reading
