Category: christian life
-
The 2,500 Year-Old Battle Cry
We all heard the battle cry loud and clear on Saturday, October 27th. “All Jews must die!” the gunman said before he mowed down worshippers at Tree of Life (Etz Chaim) Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 and wounding 6 more, including four police officers. The Anti-Defamation League reports a marked uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in the…
-
Review: Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Man and woman are made in the image of God, so we should long for complementarity in our friendships as we seek God above all things. – Aimee Byrd The thesis of the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally is that a man and a woman can’t be friends. Sexual attraction will always be a third…
-
What’s In The Stack, Summer 2018 Version
Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. – Anna Quindlen I’ve been honored to receive a great big stack of wonderful books during the last couple of months – some from publishers, others from friends who know that books are my plane,…
-
Doctrine? Music? Or Relationships? Why People Stay In A Congregation
I’ve always heard faith in Jesus is about relationship, not religion. The relationship to which this statement refers is having “personal relationship” with God. Though that kind of language is not found anywhere in Scripture, it is a shorthand way to refer to being born again and committing to follow God wholeheartedly rather than relying…
-
Why Respond When You Can React?
One thing the current American political climate has revealed in many followers of Jesus how easy it is to react to events, and how difficult it is to respond to them. While social media fuels the problem, and highlights our flea-sized attention spans and hippo-sized thirst for hot takes, I believe it is also a…
-
Who Do They Say That You Are?
You’re the smart one. You’re the lazy one. You’re the pretty one. You’re the useless one. Those kinds of messages from our respective families of origin form us. I’d heard throughout my childhood that I was ugly, and responded by (a) becoming promiscuous to prove them wrong (b) seeing a deformed image of myself every…