These Things Shall Never Die by Charles Dickens The Bright, the Pure, the Beautiful That stirr'd our Hearts in Youth The Impluses to Wordless Prayer The Dreams of Love and Truth The Longing after something Lost The Spirits Yearning Cry The striving after better Hopes -- These Things Can Never Die. The timid Hand stretched…
July 4 — The Spirit of Liberty
As a ministry student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, I was bombarded with the idea that theology should be public. What exactly that meant was part of the great debate, which is still ongoing. Nevertheless, it seems to me that a church in Michigan, (the Christ Community Church of Spring Lake) is actively…
June 27 — Faith and Noncompossibilities
Galatians 5:1; 13-23 Luke 9:51-62 I want to proceed this morning by making a few comments about the first reading from Paul's letter to the Galatians and then a few comments about the lesson from the Gospel of Luke. I want to do this in order to help us make an important distinction that I…
Faith Saves
Instead of a sermon this morning, I'm going to read the scripture lesson from the Gospel of Luke in line-by-line style and invite you to reflect with me on some of the questions that arise as we read it. But before we do that, I want to provide a direction for your thoughts – they…
May 30–Supra-Nationalist Moral Imagination
When I was a boy, I was really interested in the physical sciences. I set up a lab in my bedroom where I did experiments on all sorts of things. I remember being fascinated by the flammable qualities of birch-bark. Much, I'm sure, to the horror of my parents. I burned holes in my clothes…