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Hey God! What Should We Call You?
Christian faith and scripture presupposes we can talk with God. While this is not consistently applied in tradition, there is an expectation that we can directly address God. Even if that address is through Jesus. From the first humans in the Garden chatting with a god who walked among them to Jacob wrestling with God…
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Who Is God?
While this is probably the most important question of them all, it is also the one we are least equipped to answer. We’ll try. Oh yes we will. Over and over. From our experience and our learning. From reading scripture and studying the scholars. We all will try to answer that question. But we can’t.…
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Do I Have a Choice?
The one rule about church we had growing up was that we had to go on Sundays. Not that we had to pay attention or like it. We didn’t have to memorize or make public commitments. There was no witnessing or professing our faith. I never saw this as a hurdle or an unreasonable expectation.…
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Searching For the Organic Jesus is a Life-Giving Pursuit
For years, I’ve been trying to think of a way to help people find the essential Jesus of faith. To strip away all the extra, accumulated stuff of Christianity so that they can focus on the core of the faith. Asking questions, finding what is essential to the faith. And in the end, to decide on what’s…
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Not By Scripture Alone – A Faith Beyond Sola Scriptura
It was an American Literature class. We read short stories and poetry and each day my classmates would slump into their seats unprepared to talk about Hawthorne or Whitman. I could tell when the teacher’s frustration was high because she’d call on me, even when I didn’t raise my hand. She knew she could get something…
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When Baptism Gets In the Way of Being a Good Christian
I’m supposed to want to baptize people. As a Christian and as a priest, I’m supposed to want people to come to the waters. Usually I do. I’m learning to loose my grip on the sacraments and serve the calling of GOD in respect for all the other people called by GOD. It just seems…
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Why Do Christians Always Talk About Sin?
Some Christians seem totally obsessed with it. Some never talk about it. Why? What is it about sin that makes Christians talk about it all the damned time? We have to deal with it because it is a huge part of the faith. The problem is that we often are dealing with the baggage and the…
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How political should your church be?
It’s a simple question. Well, at least many of us treat it like it is. Not at all, we say. Separation of Church and State. A lot, we say. We are called to change the world. How we answer the question often reveals not only what we think of church and politics, but where we…