Current Events

Soul Searching: What Makes a Person and a Country Great?

Leave a Comment / Citizenship, Current Events, Evangelicals and Politics, It All Started in the Garden, Leadership and Spirituality / By /

Part 6 (last) in a series of reflections on the Capitol insurrection and Christians’ participation People must make choices every day about what they will do and how they will act. This is a fact of life ever since Adam and Eve left Eden and became time bound and subject to physical death. We are limited in our capacity and limited in our potential, despite what we may have been taught by affirming parents and teachers. But the truth is, every one has only so much energy and the same amount of time to work with. Perhaps I feel this […]

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Soul Searching: I Follow a Leader, but Not That One

Leave a Comment / Citizenship, Current Events, Evangelicals and Politics, It All Started in the Garden / By /

Part 5 in a series of reflections on the Capitol insurrection and Christians’ participation In the waning days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, I am waiting to see what kind of strings he is going to attach to the Republican Party and his supporters around the country. The author of The Art of the Deal is a transactionalist, very pragmatic in his relationships, expecting to get something from anyone who hopes to gain a favor from him. My curiosity extends to two areas, pardons and a possible 2024 candidacy. If he pardons family members or associates this week, I will be

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Soul Searching: We Are the Church, but Not a Mob

1 Comment / Church, Citizenship, Current Events, Evangelicals and Politics / By /

Part 4 in a series of reflections on the Capitol insurrection and Christians’ participation Christians congregate in worshiping communities called churches. Some churches are small (in fact, most are) and some are large. Their purpose is to practice the sort of fellowship in which people worship God, learn the content of their faith, grow in love for one another, and pool their resources for ministry in the “mission field” around them. The Church (capital C) is the collective fellowship of all such groups and denominations of believers around the world and over time. The Church exists to embody Jesus to

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Soul Searching: I Am a Citizen with a Dual Passport [The Inherent Conflict between Subjection to Civil Authorities and Obedience to God]

Leave a Comment / Citizenship, Current Events, Evangelicals and Politics / By /

Part 3 in a series of reflections on the Capitol insurrection and Christians’ participation A biblical foundation for understanding the Christian’s proper relationship to governing authorities and politics will give us strength to hold to positions that may be unpopular with the current version of evangelical Christianity in America. In my previous two posts, I cited Old Testament historical moments and a simple observation from the New Testament (NT) gospel to start the conversation. Today, let’s look at a few more NT data points that will enable us to bring the mess to order and figure out how we should

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Deep Breathing through a Bad Air Day

1 Comment / Anxiety, Current Events, Personal, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

The San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, has been in the national news of late, due to the lightning-sparked wildfires consuming our state. Our region is surrounded by record-setting fires, and as a result our air has become smoky. The Air Quality Index (AQI) has for days been in the “hazardous for all people” range, with a few respites in the evening as winds change. As a lung cancer survivor, minus one lung lobe and afflicted with asthma, I am hunkerin’ down at home with the A/C and fan running night and day, sealed against the hazy soup that

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Self-Quarantine as Soul Rest

8 Comments / Anxiety, Current Events, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

The strongly-recommended “shelter-in-place” guidelines just issued in our county remind me of a season in the life of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. It would have been in the late 1970’s or maybe early 1980’s—can’t remember—and the pastor Walt Gerber decreed a six-week sabbatical for the entire church. Everything but Sunday worship was suspended because he sensed that the congregation (and he himself, I believe) were exhausted and needed deep soul-rest. Quite a bold move for a church in a period of rapid expansion and program development. Everybody needed adrenalin-withdrawal and blood pressure checks while reinforcing spiritual practices. My recollection is

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The Lord of Loose Ends and Second Chances

Leave a Comment / Current Events, Easter, Gospel of John / By /

Great narrators have a way of keeping the audience’s attention all the way to the end of the story, and gospel writer John is no exception. His carefully organized account of Jesus’ life and ministry left some loose ends. The great climax of the story is the resurrection, of course, and afterwards John breaks our suspense with satisfying details. In chapter 21, John relates Jesus’ appearances to his disciples in various settings. Late in the day of his resurrection, he visited his closest associates to confirm what they had heard after finding his tomb empty. Thomas (the Twin) missed the

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The God of Self Must Stand Down

6 Comments / Current Events, God, It All Started in the Garden, Moral Authority, PCUSA, The Property Clause, Theological Reflection / By /

The human lust for power is a natural outflow of Adam and Eve’s resistance to God’s authority. When a person, a group, or a nation believes itself to be any equivalent of “the center of the universe,” bad things begin to happen. Adam and Eve’s choice may seem innocent enough to modern eyes, but within a generation, murder had entered human experience. The desire of one to dominate another comes out of the irreconcilable demands of two adjacent egos vying for the center of the universe. If a culture adopts the philosophy that all people are free to do whatever

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The Gods We Worship

1 Comment / Current Events, God, Theological Reflection, Turkey / By /

My second prod to think and write about belief in God comes from my experience in Turkey and Greece, where “gods” were everywhere—or at least remnants of worship spaces, icon niches, and other ancient signs of pantheism and Greek/Roman mythology. Walking up the hill through the ruins of Delphi (Greece), we encountered the monument to Argos, the sanctuary of Gaia, and the great temple to Apollo. In Ephesus (Turkey), strolling down the main road made of marble, we saw what is left of the Temple of Artemis (one of the seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World, but represented now

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Good Friday: The News Business vs. the Gospel Project

Leave a Comment / Colossians, Current Events, Lent, The Missional Church / By /

Today is Good Friday, the most solemn day of remembrance in the entire church year. On this day we recall the aftermath of Jesus’ betrayal by one of the twelve, his sham of a trial, his suffering, and his crucifixion in public view just outside the walls of Jerusalem. For secular types in-the-know, Jesus’ appearance for judgment was an uncomfortable intrusion on their “live and let live” policy toward the Jews. For the Jewish elite in Jerusalem, Jesus’ latest offenses—including the raising of Lazarus (John 11) and his claim to deity at the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7-8) for instance—were

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