Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • It’s a good question. If we believe God is love, how can there be so much hate? In the world? Among Christians? What does it say about us when we consider the old song “They will know we are Christians by our love” or Jesus’s instruction in John 13:35: By this everyone will know that…