Current Events

“Hot Off the Press”: One Way to Organize Sensitive Discussions on World Topics

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In earlier posts, found here and here, I shared a couple of methods for generating discussion on topics needing theological reflection. I used 4-MAT and Case Studies often in the Fuller Seminary classes I taught. Versions of both have been helpful in the church Sunday school context, but I fell upon a less formal approach that got excellent traction in the last church I served. Years ago, I started an adult Sunday school class we called “Hot Off the Press.” The idea was to engage in discussion of world and national events from a faith perspective. My agenda was to […]

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Information Overload

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One of the 21st century’s greatest blessings is also its greatest curse. I’m speaking of information technology that has given us the Internet, the World Wide Web, not to mention social networking. It used to be that one found out what was happening in the world by radio broadcast or newspaper. As an aside, one of my all-time favorite museums is the Newseum in Washington, D.C. (next door to the Canadian embassy). Worth the price of admission is the amazing collection on Level 5 called the News Corporation News History Gallery. This display covers more than 500 years of news

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Unspeakable Sadness

3 Comments / 221st General Assembly (2014), Current Events, Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

Going back to my original list of reasons for not blogging this summer, today I address the experience of sadness. Several things piled on over time and rendered me still before God, downcast in spirit: • my mother’s death after a sudden and short illness, in early April • the developing news of my friend Steve Hayner’s pancreatic cancer • actions of General Assembly, particularly regarding same-sex marriage • the beheading of innocents at the hands of ISIS • the escalating death toll due to Ebola in West Africa • devastating wildfires in California, at or near some of my

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The Acceptance of Tragedy

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Our newspaper has been covering two tragic situations in the last month, that warrant some reflection in light of my previous series on dying and death. The first involves a fourteen-year-old girl Jahi McMath, who died after sudden complications from surgery to remove her tonsils and repair sinuses. I—and the state of California—say she died, because in the course of this medical emergency, her brain ceased all function to the point of “brain-death.” This is not a permanent vegetative state but the complete stoppage of all neurological activity in all areas of the brain. The complicating factor was that she

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The Seventh Day of Christmas: A King Blinded by Pride

2 Comments / Christmas, Current Events, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

It is a Naegeli family tradition on New Year’s Eve to pass the hours between dinner and midnight by watching the 1995 A & E version of Pride and Prejudice. It never ceases to delight and vex, and we have our favorite lines to recite from memory as they pop up in the course of the five-hour-fifteen-minute presentation. If we plan it just right, the wedding bells begin to ring right on the stroke of midnight; great fun. The two main characters struggle with communication-choking predispositions:  Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) is a sulking, prideful man who is fixated on class

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Freedom in Confinement

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The week’s news has been dominated by the death of Nelson Mandela and the celebrations of his life. His greatness is measured by the impact of his personal transformation on a nation sullied by apartheid. His vocal and powerful political advocacy prior to his incarceration was silenced by imprisonment, supposedly; but as we all know, his was a witness of presence in his absence. His body was in the dungeon, so to speak, but his will and his spirit escaped into the conscience of a country and the world. The most remarkable feature of his life turned out to be

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Do We Want to Pray for Boldness?

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Had an interesting experience last night. I, along with three others, was asked to give feedback to a seminary intern on a sermon he is going to deliver at our church in a couple of weeks. The text was Acts 4:23-31: 23After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them [which was ‘not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus’].  24When they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the

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Why Do People Do What They Do?

Leave a Comment / Current Events, Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, It All Started in the Garden, Personal, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

A couple times a week I join a few fellow “gym rats” for coffee at the local Peet’s. This group of women frequents the fitness center and then gathers for a coffee klatch before heading home. They come from diverse backgrounds culturally and geographically and represent the gamut of religious views, from lapsed Christian to Sihk to Jewish to complete blank slate. Every once in awhile, one of them will turn to me for advice, knowing I am a pastor. Lately, however, there has been a communal handwringing over recent events. When the bombs went off in Boston, the questions

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What If God Were Watching?

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This past weekend I had the joy and privilege of speaking five times for a church’s family camp at Mount Hermon. The topic was “Hearing the Voice of Jesus,” and my objective was to demystify the mystical, if you will. If God is alive and active, then surely God continues to communicate with his people. Prayer, after all, is not monologue but dialogue. The question is, How does God “speak,” what is he saying, and how do we know it’s God? I relied heavily on two favorite books: The Voice of Jesus by Gordon T. Smith and Hearing God by

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Pope Francis and a New Reformation?

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When a friend posted on Facebook “White smoke!” I turned on the television today and wrapped myself in the NBC coverage of the announcement of the new Catholic pope. As a cradle Catholic (who changed lanes into the Presbyterian church at age 22), I have witnessed the election of five popes in my lifetime. Experience as a Presbyterian pastor, leadership of a session, and organizational executive roles have given me only an inkling of the burden this man will bear as leader of over 1 billion souls worldwide. If that thought is staggering to lowly me, imagine how the question

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