Today is Easter. Here in honor of that memorial are some difficult but worthy lines from one of my favorite thinkers (from The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, Peter Taylor Forsyth, 1909, London)...
Author - Larry
Do “The Least of These” Matter to Jesus Even Today?
Here’s a blogpost lifted by permission from another blog. the least of all I continue to question where poverty sits on the priority list in western culture. Rather than make the impoverished a...
Evil in the Heart is the Only Reason for Torture
“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” – George Orwell So let me say some very obvious things about torture: The...
Jesus Is Still A Significant Experience
For the second time I’m teaching a “Life and Teachings of Jesus” course at the local community college. We spend a lot of time in the Gospels themselves, just to see what’s...
Hi-Schoolers Start World Ministry Based in Prayer
Back in 1968 they did – one of those years of student activism and turmoil in many places. And the ministry they began is still going – STRONG! You can visit the website of Sant...
Maybe You Should Be In (a) Mainstream Church!
Sunday seems a good day to re-attend to this comment from bookaholic (last week’s Open Thread). People looking for an alternative to churches that ignore Jesus’ teachings, get Caesar and...
“The New Small Bible” – Simple, Easy to Wield, But Not Biblical
I. A recent commenter on this site was apparently using the “New Small Bible.” From the comment I learned that “Liberals” beliefs range to “all … unsupported and...
The Sabbath: From Money, From Injustice, From Cultural Craziness, TO God
An email came to us declaring inauguration day to be “Not One Damn Dime Day” in the face of religious and political leaders failing to speak out against the war in Iraq. To condense the...
Daily “Sabbath”: an Ignatian-Style Meditation & Prayer Site
Here’s a valuable site: sacredspace.ie. It provides daily guides for brief meditation and prayer. I’m not Catholic in background, practice, or inclination; but I have gotten major benefit...
Friends, Family & anti-Christ: Jesus Would NOT Run This Kind of Shop
Friends, Family & anti-Christ: Jesus Would NOT Run This Kind of Shop GOD, AND “GOD’S NATION”, SWITCHING ROLES This is ironic. I’ve been accumulating reasons to be sure the...
A Lament for the American Church
Tonight I feel a lament. It’s like this: everyone I know who is a believer who is currently not active in a church seems to perceive what’s going on, with these sneaky things the...
50 More Quotes
Here are 50 quotes added to the list since I posted the first 100 on Mar 1. Eat and enjoy! A high degree of inequality causes the comfortable to disavow the needy. -James K...
“My Friends Are Dead” and I Wonder …
This is almost verbatim from a diary by soonergrunt at dailykos with some comments from me at the bottom. First soonergrunt quotes from the Associated Press: “BAGHDAD, Iraq – The number...
Cheney’s Reasons for Invading Iraq – According to Cheney Himself
Some of us in the church have begun to feel like captives on an Alfred Hitchcock movie set — so many fellow believers are putting stock in every word the Bush Administration is saying! The...
Spiritual Character in This World – in Politics, Media, Religion, etc.
The Importance of ‘Spirit’ This may be a little dense, or ‘meaty’, but I think it’s important to deal with these ideas. So thanks in advance for your time – whether you end up...
Iraqi Family Man Meets Freedom American Style
“In places like Bosnia and El Salvador, Chile and South Africa, East Germany and Argentina, people are struggling to come to terms with their former torturers and enemies. Should they be...
Many Churches Have Changed, and Jesus’ Priorities Are Fading From View
Here’s a comment Tammy posted the other day — reprinted here with her permission. Although the views of conservative Christians mentioned in your article may not be indicative of EVERY...
How I Approach and Handle the Bible – Seriously, & Through Christ
The Bible is to me the source book of faith and guide to life. But it is a very long and complex collection of documents from a range of cultural and historical settings, and thus it cannot be read...
Jesus Wept Over Present and Coming Destructions
A comment added to the “Many Christians Do Not Vote Republican” post below mentioned how some Bible-thumpers seem to welcome the idea of catastrophe, apocalypse, or Armageddon, and even...
Good Sense: An Interview with Mary Pipher
by Larry and Connie Harvey, published in Southwest Nebraska News, Jun 26, 2003 from a delightful conversation with Mary Dec 15, 2002 at The Mill, Lincoln, NE SNN: Please introduce yourself to our...
Fascism Appearing In America (says “The American Conservative” Magazine)
I've written some articles comparing America today to Hitler's Germany; and it seems it's not just me being paranoid and over-reactive. That concern is appearing in a number of places.
Why Many Christians Do Not Vote Republican
The problems remain. This was written 20 years ago. We (and I) have learned some things since then. But Wow! The problems remain, and have grown; which means these things still need thinking and...
True Health-care Story Happening in Omaha, a Letter to Sen Ben Nelson
This is reprinted by permission from Jim Dake’s comments at the Nebraska Democrats blog. I do not even need to tell someone else’s story. My family epitomizes the difficulties so many of...
A Church Hero Under the Nazis, from “An Honorable Defeat”
How many heroes does it take? In times of major crisis it usually takes a lot due to the sad fact that many of them will be taken down, electorally or even physically. I’m complaining about...
Torture, or “Controversial Interrogation Policies”?
Calling a spade a “landscaping concept”? This was an article summary in a New York Times email I received a couple of days ago: The Senate voted 60 to 36 Thursday to confirm Alberto R...
Will Christian Selfishness Deny Health Care to Millions?
While all the attention this week was on social security and the State of the Union Address, there were a few articles on healthcare that were just barely under the radar. On January 31, an article...
Did Isaiah Know About Our Dishonest, Self-Serving “Mainstream” Media?
In a recent forum topic MadTheologian complains about this administration not being held to account. That is so true. “We the people” in general bear some real guilt for not wanting to...
Feminist and Liberal Voices Against Abortion
Historically and in the present very strong feminist and liberal voices have been raised against the practice of abortion. Here is a list of quotes form “Feminist Foremothers”. They are...
The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ – Righteousness without Rage, Goodness without Arrogance
These last two weeks I read through the Sermon on the Mount a few times (Matthew chapters 5 thru 7 (see it at BibleGateway.com ). It is beautiful, difficult, profound, confusing, enlightening –...
Letter from Birmingham Jail: 14 Often Disturbing Quotes from Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is one of many treasures often ignored in American liberal democracy and in bringing Christian moral theology to public life.