The Need for a Change of Doctrine: ‘Hell’ and Other Forms of Spiritual Abuse
The Need for a Change of Doctrine: No Room for ‘Hell’ and Other Forms of Spiritual Abuse in a Healthy ReligionPerhaps the best test of a true faith is not whether long-held beliefs are held...
View Article"Thoughts on the ‘Real’ Christmas"
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her...
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Blessings: Given and Received
Blessings come in packages we are often not expecting. What we may want for ourselves, and what we end up with are often very different things. Whether it is divine providence, serendipity, chance,...
View ArticlePeople of Faith and the Trust that We Can Change Our Character
Can people change? Can murderers, and those who torture or abuse others, change? Can they change dramatically? Can they ever be trusted once they have committed such heinous crimes? Our culture says...
View ArticleMemorializing Our Country's Core Values
I can still remember being taught about our country's core values while growing up as a boy. I recall how proud I was that we were a country that sought the freedoms, rights, and fair treatment of...
View ArticleAwakening Our Consciences
Fifty years ago, August 28, 1963, “The Million Man March on Washington, D.C., for Jobs and Freedom,” woke America’s slumbered conscience to the inequalities between Blacks and Whites, and poor and...
View ArticleEpiphanies, Seasons, and Life Lessons
We are in the season of Epiphany. While we already celebrated the holy “day” back in January, we remain in this season often associated as light amidst darkness. I like that we have...
View ArticleA Biblical Case for Virtue Ethics; or, Why Virtues Supercede Principles
How easy it is to latch on to those Biblical quotes that make us feel good about ourselves or to see the shortcomings of others. How much more difficult to attune our minds and souls to those more...
View ArticleHope for Those Who Feel Hopeless
Sometimes the best stories are the ancient ones. They provide us enough distance to help keenly see another people's dilemma, and thereby see our own. Such is the case of the imaginative story found...
View ArticleThe Discipline of Love
The Biblical mandate throughout the Old and New Testaments is to love others – as God loves you; as you love yourself (or at least as you are supposed to love yourself!). It is the same grounding...
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Are the 10 Commandments Still Relevant?
The Ten Commandments Exodus 20.1-17 NRSV20Then God spoke all these words: 2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out...
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Becoming Your Best Self
Philippians 4.5-9; The Apostle Paul, NRSV5Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let...
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Goodness: The God We Can See
Exodus 33.1, 3-2333.1YHWH said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham...
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Torture Defiles Our Moral and Spiritual Values
Isaiah 61.1-4, 861The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the...
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The Attack on Religion – More from Within than from Without
Religion is said to be under attack from many sources. And there is some truth to this. We are indeed becoming a more secular society, such that the largest religious preference is “none” or...
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Lent: A Call to Convictions and Commitment to One's Values
The Bible, Gospel of Mark 8.31-38 (NRSV)8.31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be...
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What Is Good about Being a Christian?
Many today look down upon those of us who attend church and proclaim ourselves as Christian. And many of us ‘insiders’ have at times been ashamed to tell others that we are church members. But it...
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A Poem on Our Dreams
Dreams: Crucified or Resurrected? “It is rarely others that kill our dreams, but usually our own selves.It’s not so much their derision as our diffidence that is the obstacle...not so much their...
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The Connection between Ethics and Mental Health
Have you ever considered how living rightly day by day and practicing goodness for a lifetime may actually lead to better mental health? In Seminary I had two majors: Social Ethics, and Pastoral...
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The Need for Moral Courage and Apologies in our Society
If you were running for public office, especially one as revered as the Presidency of the United States of America, would you correct a supporter of yours who publicly made misleading and bigoted...
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