Last week we observed Shoah, or Holocaust, Remembrance Day. It is well, then, to consider the original sin of the church. If America’s original sin is slavery, the original sin of the church is anti-Judaism and antisemitism. Before the New…
Who do you say that I am: ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’?
“Jesus Christ, Superstar, do you think you’re what they say you are?” A memorable lyric from the 1971 Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. And also a poignant question for today as American Christians seem to gravitate…
Autocracy as heresy
During the social revolution in South Africa that brought an end to the era of apartheid and a government of white supremacy, Allan Boesak, a Black South African theologian, wrote, “Apartheid is heresy.” And not only that, he later wrote,…
The recovery of prayer at the turn of the age
It is becoming clearer by the day that we are living at a turn of the age, as one era ends and another is beginning — religiously, socially, politically and globally. The words of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats in…
The urgency of humility for the healing of land and hearts
As we enter 2022 with no little trepidation, I write of the urgency of humility for the healing of our land and hearts. Someone has quipped, “Few speak of humility humbly.” Nevertheless, I proceed. The word “humility” comes from the…
The birth of Abba’s Jesus
As we kneel at the manger to worship the infant who would be Savior of the world, let’s turn our minds to the God Jesus called Abba, the One whom theologian John Cobb called “Jesus’ Abba.” Abba was the Aramaic…
In praise of Shiprah and Puah and all their descendants
The Bible is full of women heroes, exemplars of courage. We do not give them attention, and very few end up in the stained-glass windows. Two of these heroes are Shiphrah and Puah, Hebrew midwives in Egypt during the Hebrews’…
Being Christian in an antediluvian age
Antediluvian: adj. of or belonging to the time before the Flood. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus had these words of warning: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man….
The recovery of empathy
The lowest form of knowledge is opinion. It requires no accountability and understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our ego and live in another’s world. — Plato Recently I was reading the…