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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]