My friend, John, is a rocket scientist; yes, literally a rocket scientist. John has degrees in Aeronautical Engineering and is a distinguished professor the University of Tennessee Space Institute In Tullahoma, TN. John told a version of this story to a group of high school seniors. John was working with NASA on a multi-year review […]
Moses caught a grand vision of how to liberate his enslaved during worship. Let’s just ponder that: Egyptian slavery starts to crumble as Moses turns aside, takes off his shoes, and stands on holy ground listening for God to call out from the bush. Holy Ground: Paul tells us that creation itself groans longing for […]
A few weeks ago, we took our family plus two on vacation to New York City. While there we visited several churches, even paying $42 for the six of us to tour a certain anonymous grand cathedral. While admiring the impressive grandeur of the sanctuary, I zeroed in on a stone fresco depicting Christ’s Easter […]
Over 30 years ago, I left my childhood denomination and joined the Methodist church. When people asked me, “Why did you become a Methodist?, I usually answered with one word: “Grace.” In seminary, when I read about Wesley’s idea of “being made perfect in love”, I wrote “this is idiotic. perhaps blasphemous” in the margins […]
Eleven year old Emily headed out with her mother to share “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” She met judges, assistants, and clerks who worked with her mom and especially enjoyed helping the security guards scan courthouse visitors. She went to some meetings but had to sit out others, so she walked around the […]
Somewhere during college, I began struggling to fit the pieces together. Growing up as literalist, I found it harder and harder to work the Biblical puzzle. For example, how can Paul say in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent,” when […]
When we moved to Tennessee, a friend said, “you must go to a UT football game- it’s like a religious experience!” We tailgated and did the Vol walk, the band leading us in. It was fun. Now I grew up in Kentucky, and Big Blue Nation wears a lot of blue, you just notice the […]
After a severe beating, what gives Paul the strength to sing and pray while shackled to the floor of a Philippian Jail? Is Paul a Super-Apostle? What lifts us up, when oppression, injustice and evil push us down? “When Paul and Silas had been severely beaten, the authorities threw them into prison and ordered […]
This week Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, spoke “to our church friends” reminding the nation of Paul’s injunction to “obey the government.” Sessions did not keep on reading in Romans 13, where he might have heard Paul call us “to pay taxes” or to the deepest moral law to “love our neighbors as ourselves”. Now, how […]
As a people of the cross and the flame, we face a profound choice. We can stand with the legalists or literalists, or we can follow the Spirit who leads us into all truth. We can cling to the letter that kills, or be renewed by the Spirit who gives life. (2 Corinthians 3) Let […]
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