We all pontificate, those times when we “speak or express opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way.” Like the pastor who entered the pulpit one Sunday and declared: “I had a great sermon on humility for today. But the crowd…
Jesus and the Virgin Mary … in the Quran? A study of the true definition of ‘family.’
There are many great universal truths in this life. For example: Never trust a dog to watch your food. Or the quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket….
There is nothing too good for the poor
A wealthy woman once gave Dorothy Day a diamond ring as a gift to help support the work of the Catholic Worker. According to some other workers, she slipped it into her pocket for a little while. A short time…
Facts or truth? What’s keeping you grounded?
These days the words of the Psalmist keep coming to mind: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills; From where shall my help come?” I imagine that when he wrote these words, the chaos of his life was swirling around…
Think Millennials are self-focused? Think again.
I don’t know about you, but I view the daily headlines with a sort of fascinated dread. I can’t bear to watch and I can’t turn away. Every day, there’s more bad news for public education, undocumented immigrants and the…
Being sanctuary: Calling churches to holy risk
Practicing faith in community involves helping cultivate imagination for the possibility of living life beyond the restrictive dictates of an oppressive status quo and then faithfully living into that holy vision together. In Harvard Square these days, this means the…
Automobile culture is changing. That means the Church will, too.
My British friend Paul Maconochie was once riding in my car as we returned to my home from a retreat. He asked how far it was to the house. I replied, “Only an hour and a half.” His response was…
Awkward and peculiar: What the gospel calls us to be
There is an axiom among those who study world religions: In exploring other faiths, we see our own with fresh eyes. I recently returned from a pilgrimage to Israel. In a very real way, my trip enabled me to see…
Ash Wednesday (or how (not) to be Baptist in Trump’s America)
For those of us who grew up Baptist in the Southeast, the dichotomy between our faith and our political life isn’t a recent aberration. Instead, it’s the manifestation of a longstanding unwillingness to unite these two parts of our souls.
Living out the ‘fierce urgency’ of the prophets in U.S. culture
Prophets rarely fare well in their own historical setting. Their clarity of vision disturbs the nonchalance with which most people engage their personal context. Prophets scrutinize those policies and practices that most of us blithely ignore, and they shine the…
Ashes to ashes: Remembering where we came from
On the evening of January 18, 2005, the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain, Mass., burned to the ground. The building was one of the oldest in town, with a beautiful Hook organ, hand-carved wooden pews, and a steeple tall…
Is America facing a socio-spiritual plague?
This week, the Huffington Post reported bomb threats against Jewish community centers in 10 states. Sixty-seven such incidents occurred at 56 Jewish centers in 27 states since 2017 began. This week, the Winston-Salem Journal detailed a local meeting where the…