“From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we … Read More
What I Learned from Marilynne Robinson
Hi All, I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and have many fun things to look forward to over the next month. One of my favorite traditions is spending a day in Princeton between Christmas and New Year’s with my boys. One of our annual stops is Labyrinth Books on Nassau Street. Almost two years ago, while browsing about, I … Read More
Defining Christian Nationalism, 2 of 2
“Normal Christian political engagement is humble, loving, and sacrificial; it rejects the idea that Christians are entitled to primacy of place in the public square…” Paul D. Miller, professor of the practice of international affairs at Georgetown University and a research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. I appreciate the feedback I got last week on my working … Read More
Faith in Crisis
Believe it or not, my greatest crisis of faith came thirty years ago while I was immersed in discussions and study related to God and the Bible at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. One day, as I wandered the nearby campus of Westminster Presbyterian Seminary, a solitary PCUSA school with several attractive stone buildings, I even seriously questioned the existence … Read More
Pursue God’s Perfect Heart, Not Moral Flawlessness
There are certain brands of fundamentalism that encourage men and women to be morally flawless based on a literal and surface reading of Matt. 5:48: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (ESV) As I said last week, I think verses like this—especially in red letters—are one of the reasons passages like Eccl.7:16 are not taken … Read More
Reaching Those Who’ve Been Hurt by the Church, Part 1 of 3
***Friends, this is an article I just prepared for Care Net’s network. I broke it down into three parts for the purposes of this blog. Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God.[1] —Dallas Willard Last year, God gave me the fire to complete a book — and a handbook for discipleship … Read More
Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home: Why You Need to Know Them
The… painted perversity of this room had the effect of making him aware, as he had never been aware before, of this room’s opposite. As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence reveals affection, there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and sound. The … Read More
Why I Believe in a Loving Creator
Let the godly sing for joy to the LORD;it is fitting for the pure to praise him…The LORD merely spoke,and the heavens were created.He breathed the word,and all the stars were born.He assigned the sea its boundariesand locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.Let the whole world fear the LORD,and let everyone stand in awe of him.For when he spoke, the world … Read More