An End Better than the Beginning
I love my 2013 Hyundai Tucson, which we bought new. It has 112,000 miles and has needed no major repairs. Until a recent beautiful summer day here in Martinez, California. I was driving on the …
Christianity
Breaking Out the Sacred Lunchables: Protecting the Sacredness of Communion
Two Sacraments Most Protestants practice two ordinances upon which we can all agree to a certain extent. My own denomination observes three ordinances, and both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches count seven, …
Christian Sexual Ethics for Singles in a Changing Culture
Several of the people I have been working with professionally have recently declared their commitment to the Christian faith to be absolute. They have complete buy-in, they have proclaimed. I have consequently felt at liberty …
My friend wasn’t supposed to die
“Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do it might be the last time. Every Christmas is last Christmas.” -from Dr. Who 253, “Last Christmas,” written by Steven …
Bent over at Bethesda, listening to the night
You’re not swearing when you say it’s been a Hell of a year. You put it down on paper, and it doesn’t look like much. But things add up. Things bleed you, leave you weak. …
Fireworks on My Parents’ Driveway: Grace, Judgment, and a Nation at 250
Today is the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It is our nation’s 250th birthday!! This is a momentous day. Yet I find myself sitting here with a profound and unexpected …
Get on your knees and fight like a man: Shifting from world peace to spiritual warfare in contemporary Christian music
The contemporary Christian rock group Petra dedicated an entire album to the theme of spiritual warfare when they released This Means War in 1987. With a title track that channeled John Milton’s Paradise Lost in …
Reconsidering what it means to be Pro-life in America
For over a decade, the United States of America was a dry nation. The Volstead Act was a nationwide constitutional ban on alcohol in all its forms, and while statistically, the consumption of alcohol did …
Considering everything, God chose beauty and pain
There’s a funny thing about living with chronic pain. Eventually, you get used to it. I don’t mean that it goes away. I don’t mean that it no longer hurts. But there comes a point …
Insiders until they’re not
Martin Luther stood in peril of his earthly life and possibly his eternal soul. The energetic Wittenberg firebrand challenged more than he realized when he issued debating points to the popular indulgence seller Johann Tetzel. …