Ponderings on a Faith Journey

PAUL: A Biography. By N.T. Wright. San Francisco: Harper One, 2018. Xiii + 464 pages.

As the title of one book puts it, Jesus Have I Loved, But Paul?It is common place to hear people declare that Jesus did wonderful things and had great ideas. It’s too bad Paul messed things up. There is only one problem with this scenario, Paul’s writings came before any of the Gospels were written, whether canonical or not. I will grant that there are those whose quest for the historical Jesus leads them to believe that they have ascertained the “true words” of Jesus, but these are reconstructions based on presuppositions that may or may not hold true. In the meantime, there are the letters of Paul, some of which may have been written within two decades of Jesus’ earthly life. This fact makes the attempt to skip over Paul to get to Jesus problematic. Although Paul can be frustrating and even infuriating at times, he can also inspire us to spiritual heights and he contributed greatly to what became t…

1 John 4:7-21

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” That may be true, but what is love and where does it come from? Do we need to just sing some silly love songs, because, as Paul McCartney put it, “some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs, and what’s wrong with that?”  
If what the world needs now is love, then we need to define our terms. Is love a feeling, an emotion, or something else? The love songs that fill the air usually speak of tender feelings between two people, because “when I fall in love, it will be forever, or I’ll never fall in love.” If we’re honest with ourselves, each of us has probably “fallen in love” a couple of times. It’s possible that we have found a love that  “will be forever,” but perhaps not. 
When Jesus shared the two love commands, which he drew from the Hebrew Bible, he had more in mind than feelings. He used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate neighborly love. You know the story, a person gets mugged, and one by one th…

Last night I attended the Unity Forum sponsored by the Troy-area Alliance Against Hate Crime (this is an excellent organization I had a hand in founding, and I'm pleased to see where the current leaders have taken it), as well as the city of Troy. The focus last nigh was on "Interrupting Bias," and among the three panelists was my friend Saeed Khan. Saeed talked a bit about Islamaphobia as one expression of bias. Then when I got home and began reading the front section of the Detroit Free-Press and I discovered both a major article detailing bigoted anti-Muslim conspiracy theories shared by one of the four Republican candidates for Governor, Patrick Colbeck (a state senator). Colbeck appeared at a forum of some type and made wild accusations against a Democratic candidate for Governor, who is a Muslim, accusing him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood intent on taking over the country and imposing Sharia (Islamic law) on the nation. This is a common conspiracy the…

You may have heard about the effort on the part of the current administration to build a wall on our Southern border to bar entry to the country on the part of our Latino Neighbors. You may have also heard about the slowness of our governments response to the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. You may have also heard concerns being raised by some white Americans about "those people" who are threatening our traditional way of life. Yes, Nativism is on the rise. The fact is, Latinos comprise the second largest ethnic/linguistic community in the country, and their numbers are growing (not only from immigration!). Martin Marty cites articles about "Our Latino Neighbors" published in the current issue of the Jesuit magazine - America. The essay is brief, but it does provide some consciousness raising that is necessary as we navigate a new future in which non-Hispanic European Americans hold an overwhelming hold on our demographics and culture. Take a read. It's a good…

TENDING THE TREE OF LIFE: Preaching & Worship through Reproductive Loss & Adoption. (Academy of Parish Clergy Guides to Practical Ministry). By Richard W. Voelz. Gonzalez, FL: Energion Publications, 2018. ix + 130 pages.

Note:  Richard Voelz's book Tending the Tree of Life first appeared as an e-book. The review appearing below was written with that format before me. In a conversation with Rich at the Disciples General Assembly we talked about his desire for a paperback version, and I suggested he might let me publish it in the Academy of Parish Clergy's Guides to Practical Ministry series published by Energion Publications. Rich agreed and the book is now available through Energion Publications. I believe that this book can be of great help to clergy seeking to minister to those who have experienced reproductive loss or who have pursued adoption. I invite you to read the review, which led me to pursue the publication in our series.   *******
There are some life experien…

Acts 8:26-40 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:  “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,     and like a lamb silent before its shearer,         so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justi…