In the first of this series, I noted that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison begins with a 1943 essay titled “After Ten Years,” written the year before he was imprisoned by the Nazis. In it, the German theologian/preacher/teacher…
Bonhoeffer moment No. 2: ‘I am now praying quite simply for freedom’
In a letter to his close friend Eberhard Bethge, written from Tegel Prison and dated Nov. 18, 1943, Lutheran pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: I am finding (I expect you are, too) that the most difficult thing is getting up in…
Nativity scenes, inflatable Santas and creeping secularism: What’s in your yard?
Advent and its expectant incarnational witness doesn’t belong to shopping malls, town councils, Congress or even the U.S. presidency. It abides with the church of Jesus Christ.
Love the church you have
Churches must be courageous and open to change. But sometimes, amid all the pulse-taking, evaluations, strategy planning and critiquing, we forget to love the church we have.
Churches in America: too fragile to fight (at least with each other)
The American Church is in crisis, largely because of multiple crises, few of which are momentary. We’re in it for the long haul.
Is the rise in anti-Semitism one of the Church’s unpaid bills?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer told his seminary students, “Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants.” As Christian worshipers stand to sing on Sunday, we would do well to remember Bonhoeffer’s confession.
The dangerous demands of uncritical loyalty
It is worrying that valueless loyalty has achieved a stranglehold on much of the American psyche, having really ratcheted up in this current era of cable news. But even more concerning is that It has also firmly taken hold of evangelical Christianity and propelled it to unsightly levels of hypocrisy.
Reflecting on CBF life in the midst of hope and ashes
If I read my Bible correctly (and if I read my American history correctly), the only real hope we have for reconciliation isn’t actually through reading our Bible correctly. And it isn’t through winning an argument with someone who disagrees with us. Reconciliation only seems to happen in one way — through carrying crosses.
Making God smile through music
During the recent Advent season, I challenged my congregation to savor the music of the holidays, and to listen with fresh ears to both the lyrics and melodies which carry our deepest longings and joys. As usual, in attempting to…