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What is the effect of Christianity on compassion?
Atheists are more motivated by compassion than the religious. This finding a few years ago was surprising. It led many to wonder if rising secularism would lead to a better world. Particularly when we start to see how conflict follows the religious around like a puppy. But another finding complicates that view and makes it even…
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Full of Love
My parents were going out on a date and I was old enough to be left home without a babysitter. Just not old enough to make good decisions. I was asking them about going to a friend’s house (he’s moving the next day! I pleaded. I won’t see him again!) They weren’t going to be home anyway,…
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Hearts broken open
Why do they kill Stephen? Our lectionary jumps in at the very end of a two chapter story. A story about Stephen, our patron saint. After all the explanation of who he is, what he says, and why it makes the people angry enough to kill him, then they jump in. So let’s back up…
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Choose to Love
Or How to Build the Blessed Community This is an honest question. How many times have we heard a Christian, a follower of Christ, a disciple of Jesus say “an eye for an eye”? A lot, right? These are among the least surprising words to come out of Jesus’s mouth or the mouths of any…
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Waters Shall Break Forth
God’s message draws us to the margins Advent 3A | Isaiah 35:1-10 When I first visited my grandparents in Green Valley, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was in grade school, 8 or 9 I think. And what I knew of the desert is that it’s covered in sand and there is nothing.…
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Don’t do nice. Do love.
Monday night, I gathered with many others in a prayer service on the eve of the election. We prayed for unity and hope and an end to division. This morning I pray we continue to pray. But to also guard against “cheap grace”. The one thing this campaign has made plain is that this was…
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Life, death, and me; or am I SOL if I kill somebody?
Many of us are taught that God loves us no matter what. Then hear how God hates us and wants us dead. Something seems to get lost in the translation.
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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…