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Is Jesus the only way to God?
It’s funny that this one choice we make may be the single biggest divider of them all. Is Jesus the only way to God? Well, watch your step. Most of our questions about the nature of God, Jesus, and their relationship exist in multiple dimensions of analysis. Like in seminary, when I would sit in…
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If We’re All Into One Church, How Can There Be Denominations?
Every Sunday we declare our belief in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. And every Sunday I wonder if we really do. We were in a heated conversation on Facebook. The sort which was shifting wildly from the substance of the original post. So I wanted to ground us in something real. I wanted to…
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How Come I Never Hear About Christian Hope?
Christian Hope? Really? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Christians were the world’s most pessimistic people. The world is always ending. But not in that good way. In the hold-off-the-armies-of-satan way. The depictions of Christians in the news are often our most deplorable people. The ones always after minorities to change their behavior…
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What should we do with sex, gender, and the culture war?
Talk. And not in some slimey know-it-all way. Not with some “The Bible clearly says…” bullshit certainty of what God thinks about your naughty bits and where you put them. But we need to talk in a way that deals with the stuff of life. So let’s talk. When we talk about sex, gender, and…
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What Happens In the Eucharist?
I have a sacramental view of faith. So I believe that it is about vibrant living. That what is behind the sacraments is that we live and breathe and have our being. And not so much magic priestly hands or enlightenment-fueled intellectualism. Both are total crap. What matters is that we’re in this together. I…
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Let’s Talk About the Sacraments.
As much as the flavor of one’s faith is defined by the things they believe, it’s the practice of that faith that reveals. The tactile, experiential is where the proverbial rubber of faith hits the road of life. And hazarding to stretch the analogy beyond its tensile strength, the rubber of our faith is the way…
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Does My Justification By Faith Mean I Can Do Whatever I Want?
I sat there, soaking it all in. My professor, with a voice full to the brim with boredom, introduced us to the controversy that wouldn’t die. Often described as The New Perspective on Paul, he guided us through a church fight over a single word. Now I understand why he was over it. At the…
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What About The Law?
If the doctrine of the Trinity is our biggest mess, then our biggest lightning rod might be the Law. When we say the Law, we are speaking of Torah, not the thing escaped convicts flee or Bo and Luke Duke try to give the slip by jumping the General Lee. OK, maybe there’s more to…