The great Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a spiritual genius, suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 1972. A friend came to visit him in his New York City apartment. Heschel said, “Sam, when I regained consciousness, my first feelings were not of…
The stampede out of the church and the people of God and Christ outside its walls
“Stampede” may be an exaggerated word for the exodus out of the church in America, but no one can escape the reality. A date has been attached: 2070, the projected date when there will be more non-Christians than Christians in…
Connected sectarianism at the end of an age
In his seminal work After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre closes with an arresting and memorable paragraph : A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up…
Batman going home from the Barbie movie
My wife and I were driving home from the new blockbuster movie Barbie. It is a transformative journey, a sneakily subversive movie, a women’s anthem that may help us male types too. We began to muse about it, and fanciful…
The SBC and its sacrament of power
The Southern Baptist Convention continues on its crusade to rid Baptist churches of women in ordained leadership of any kind. I have looked with dismay at its inexorable path of patriarchal power and the denigration of women. So churches with…
The whole gospel of God for a church and nation in crisis
In a piercingly truthful and honest op-ed in The New York Times titled “What Christian Nationalism Has Done to My State And My Faith Is A Sin,” Susan Stubson, a prominent Wyoming Republican, for whom her conservative politics and her…
The broad way that leads to life
“Enter by the narrow gate,” Jesus said, “for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. … For the gate is narrow and the the way is hard that leads to life.” Sometimes the gate…
The great breakup in the American church and the political uses of religion
In a recent article in Politico, Joshua Zeitz begins with the decision of 400 Methodist churches in Texas alone to leave their parent denomination, The United Methodist Church, to join the new, more conservative Global Methodist Church. This reflects the…
Jesus and Buddha are talking with me about loving and blessing my enemies
I seem to have a larger list of enemies these days, those I find it harder to love and bless. But Jesus is insistent about how we relate to our enemies: “You have heard it was said ‘You shall love…