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 […]
Tag Archives: christianity
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sent on a Spiritual Journey into the World! Back before cell phones, wifi, or even cable TV, we got bored every summer. We invited fun. playing home-run derby with a wiffle-ball or riding our bikes over a little ramp through the sprinkler like Evel Knievel. One day, we were all down at Joey’s when […]
In the year my Aunt Margarette died, and then my father, I began accompanying mother to Camp Nelson, Frankfort, Willisburg, and Rockbridge cemeteries. We cut lilacs, lilies, and Black-eyed Susans from her yard and placed them in coffee cans wrapped in aluminum foil. When mom moved into our home in Tennessee, we cut wildflowers from […]
Jesus’ parables weave a rich tapestry of truths. What does it mean that Jesus answered tough questions and unpacked theological truths with a stories instead of an extended list of rules? When the religious experts sought to define, “who is my neighbor?”, Jesus used the image of a rival Samaritan clan as the Good Neighbor […]
Professing to follow Jesus means we strive to see the world through Jesus’ eyes. We put on our Jesus Glasses. The Gospel becomes a corrective lense testing and adjusting our political vision. Some policies may elledue clear Christian ideals, but Jesus speaks clearly in regards to “Dreamers” or any policy on DACA (Deferred Action for […]
Even after hearing Jesus’ Great Commission “go into every nation making disciples” (Matthew 28); after seeing Jesus gloriously ascend to heaven and hearing his command “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of […]
pastorpaulpurdue 