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…
Will gender equality prevail?
Many of us are still sleep-deprived after two weeks of political conventions. Part pageantry, part spectacle, and part the inevitable chaos of democracy, these quadrennial gatherings summon our collective hopes and fears and urge us to take the long view….
Nonviolence and a different future with God
“Deliver us from evil.” Most Sundays we pray these words, but rarely do they sound the resonance we hear in these anarchic days. Evil seems unrelenting, incapable of exhausting its ravenous power. Who can withstand its voracious appetite for destruction?
After 30 years, advocate still sees need to step up for religious freedom
Brent Walker can see the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court building when he arrives at work. And that’s appropriate since he often finds himself heading over to those two buildings, as well as the White House and other…
Why churches and Christian nonprofits need entrepreneurs
Read any current text on leadership and you will encounter the urgency of entrepreneurial thinking. As we move into a progressively unpredictable atmosphere, traditional incremental approaches are not cutting it. Ian C. MacMillan, director of Wharton’s Sol. C. Snider Entrepreneurial…
The ecstasy of God’s inner life is the model for human community
We seem to sing it better than we conceptualize it. We can muster a hearty rendering of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” probably pondering more about the “early in the morning” wording than the theological verities. I am speaking of the blessed…
Where is Jesus? Exploring what the ascension means in our time
I had the opportunity to teach Sunday school on Ascension Sunday in my Jubilee Class at Prairie Baptist, where they manage to keep me on the roll despite my frequent absences! The celebration of ascension is sorely neglected in the…
Prairie burning and new life
On a recent road trip through southern Kansas, I witnessed a spring rite, the burning of the prairie. The billowing smoke and red glow of distant fires are quite the vista — and a sign of renewal. The distinctive smell…
Works — the fitting response to God’s lavish grace
Have you considered what you want on your tombstone? The husband of a close friend said she would have these words, “I am fine, really!” Mine will probably be inscribed with a limerick: Here lies the theologian named Molly T.,…