Monday, March 7, 2005
Progressive Evangelicals
Most American Evangelical Christians are conservative Republicans. My husband, my son and I are liberal democrats. We Don't support all of the liberal agenda, but we do support most of it. This makes us unusal in our church. Although we have conservative theology, our theology differs from that of...
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Sunday, March 6, 2005
The Road Less Traveled
I continue to be amazed at how one decision we made three years ago has made in our lives. We decided to give two homeless addicts a place to live in our house. Before that seven years ago, I decided to quit my job as a pastor and leave that church. The decision I made seven years ago has continued...
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Sunday, February 27, 2005
Prayer can be enough.
Christians tend to forget how powerful prayer can be. We have a vague idea of what prayer is for, but we don't pray. Prayer runs right through systematic theology. How we talk to God depends on what we know him to be. God is free and he created us to be free in many areas of our life. We are not as...
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Thursday, February 24, 2005
Closer to God
When I'm going through very difficult things, I am closer to God than any other time. I'm aware of both my need for him and how little I can do about the present situation. People who don't have to deal with mental illness are not aware of how little is avaible for the mentally ill. Private mental...
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Friday, February 18, 2005
Extremism is what interests us.
I can get a lot more interest in my blog if I say that Abortion should be kept legal, than if I write about my own struggles with faith. Yet my struggles are probably of more value to a reader than my point of view on Abortion. I feel like Christianity has been boiled down to three things. We don't...
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Keeping an open mind without letting your brains fall out.
I overstated my case. Being open minded is generally a good thing, except when you are willing to accept thing contrary to your own belief system. Too often we make decisions without investigating our choice and the alternatives. If you need to investigate Mohammed, Moses, Ghandi, Darwin and Bhudda...
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Choosing Christianity over Openmindedness
No matter how you say it, if you are a Christian and claim to be so, you are not agnostic, a seeker, or open to new ideas. Christians choose to follow Jesus. Jesus is a definite person. The reality of following Jesus is that you have the gall to believe in someone who lived and died a long time ago....
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Monday, February 14, 2005
Starting something new versus keeping it going
I generally like to do something new. I get tired of the same o same. But God's work requires both. You need to meet new people and do new things, and you need to follow up with the friend you already have and contiue to encourage them. Churches have a tendency to do one or the other. They either...
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Sunday, February 13, 2005
Pray or Protest
In a denominational magazine, the editor tells the story of how a group of people solve the problem of a bumpy ride. They form groups, committees and national organizations to change the car design. Some propose repaving all of the roads. This gets expensive, so some only repave the roads in their...
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Thursday, February 10, 2005
From the sublime to the ridiculous
So much of religion has to do with ordinary things such as using grape juice or wine for communion. A lot of spirituality seems to be esoteric and outside the realm of ordinary human experience. Not so with religion. Religion is devoted to rules, regulations and customs. Some Christians will say...
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