deconstruction
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Pastor or Priest?
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8 min read
My friend and teacher, the Rev. Dr. D. Jay Koyle teaches that identity and worship is connected with belief and choice. We make decisions for our personal piety and liturgical acts from a place of understanding the purpose behind the choice. Much of our tradition is inherited through piety and local custom, rather than historical…
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Cross or Crucifix?
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8 min read
I still don’t know why Christians wear crosses. The cross was a Roman torture device. The cross was the vehicle the state used to kill insurrectionists and rebels. It was like the medieval head on a pike. It wasn’t reserved for normal criminals or representative of criminal justice in the first century. It was how…
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Peace
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7 min read
I’m not sure there is a more foundational element to the Christian faith than peace. We want peace, we crave peace. Peace to us is safety and security. It is silence and quiet. It is solitude in chaos. It is the sound of birds chirping and streams bubbling when we are resting in the grass.…
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Absolution
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7 min read
For some churches, it’s all about sin. For others, it’s all about that grace. And for still others, there is the regular insistence that we don’t talk about one without the other. We don’t talk about Good Friday without Easter. It makes a certain sense, doesn’t it? that we so often tend to focus on the…
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Adult Formation
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9 min read
A friend recently said that the church is always 10 years behind. When he said this, I nodded as I thought through all the ways we are behind the world. Technology, marketing, human rights, anti-institutionalism, shifting political landscapes, family trends including divorce rates, break-ups, and coupling outside of marriage. I frequently point out that many of…