” There’s more to life than living and more to death than dying.” Those are the intriguing words on the cover of Finding Frances, a 2010 novel by Janice M. Van Dyck. Frances is a 74-year-old woman who, beset by…
The plight of the Palestinians
As you know from my recent article , this month I made a week’s visit to the country of Israel. My daughter Karen, who is a professor at the University of Arizona, was going to an academic conference in Tel…
Proud/Ashamed of the Southern Baptist Convention
The 2015 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is scheduled for June 16-17 in Columbus, Ohio. The business will be conducted by Ronnie Floyd, the SBC president whom I recently mentioned. For many years it was a thrill to…
Treasures in Heaven
Most of you know well Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures…
What about those who are trans formed?
Things used to be so simple when it came to gender issues. Boys/men were males who liked girls/women and girls/women were females who liked boys/men or at least wanted a good one for a husband and breadwinner/caretaker. In all the…
Was Jesus insane?
What a preposterous question: was Jesus insane?! Those who are pious Christians may even be offended that such a question is raised. On the other hand, those who are highly anti-Christian may think the answer is obvious: in most likelihood…
The culture of poverty
The term “culture of poverty” was introduced by Oscar Lewis in his seminal 1959 book Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. (If you don’t know about Lewis, 1914-1970, as I didn’t until very recently, he was…
God’s Funeral
Although I don’t know that he said anything about a funeral, perhaps the best known statement about God’s demise was made by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who declared “God is dead” in his 1882 book “The Gay Science” (with “gay” being…
How should we read the Bible today?
Although he wrote it back in 2001, eminent biblical scholar Marcus Borg declared, “Conflict about the Bible is the single most divisive issue among Christians in North America today.” We don’t know if he would say the same thing now,…