Standing for Christ

I listened with great sadness to last week’s news about the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians by ISIS in Libya.  While I have not tracked all of the “public” murders ISIS has performed in the past, it seems that – besides punishment for unpaid ransoms – they often target journalists and unsuspecting aid workers, and […]

Read More

I Believe, Therefore…

Over the last couple of months, I began thinking about my Christian faith in a way I have never done before.  I have been a Christian for a long time, with the typical highs and lows that come with the seasons of the soul.  I know that is normal, yet I found myself wanting more […]

Read More

Symbolism

Because I had the time to do so, I spent many hours yesterday in front of a television screen, watching various 9/11 ceremonies around the country.  What struck me about these events – whether they were carried out in a field in PA, Ground Zero in NYC, the Pentagon, or right here in our area, […]

Read More

God’s Story

Spending the Memorial Day weekend in a rented cabin one block from gorgeous Lake Tahoe gave me a chance to ponder the earth’s beginnings once more.  Of course Genesis 1 has led to much speculation about how the earth was formed and how long it took.  But I think we too often let that debate […]

Read More

Advent – Waiting and Preparation

I remember going to a camp once very shortly after my first profession of faith.  Some of my friends and I were bedded down in sleeping bags in a large dining hall lit with old fashioned looking wagon wheel lights overhead.  The first night I had a dream of heaven.  The dream was very real, […]

Read More

Hell

Even written in story form (see my last post), hell is an uncomfortable subject.  Our post-modern culture tends to either scoff at the idea of hell, or, if someone insists that hell is a real place, skeptics fire back that if God is good, He would never send anyone there.  So assuming God is good, […]

Read More

Is “Radical” Too, or not Enough?-Part 2

In the preface of his book, “Crazy Love” (published 2008 by David C. Cook), Francis Chan tells this story: We all know something’s wrong. At first I thought it was just me.  Then I stood before twenty thousand Christian collegestudents and asked, “How many of you have read the New Testament and wondered if we […]

Read More