In every instance in the lyrical arts, but especially Christmas music, we sing what we feel. If you want to know what a certain group believes about the biblical message, go to a Christmas service and ask why a certain repertoire is chosen. In some cases the choice of old-fashioned music represents keeping a wall […]
Early in Mark Twain's classic work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an interesting scene in which Tom and Huck witness Injun Joe in an act of wicked deception. Twain writes that the boys stood dumb as they "heard the stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every moment that the clear sky […]
Silent Night, Holy Night! All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child Holy Infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. (Joseph Mohr, 1792-1848; tr. John F. Young, 1820-85) Will you catch it this year? That illusive feeling called the Christmas spirit? Usually it’s brought on by healthy doses of […]
In the name of peace, the world brings terror on earth. In the name of justice, the baby in the manger brings peace on earth. It should not be surprising to us that we continue to think in worldly ways about this matter. Eight centuries before Christ, King Ahaz, refusing to trust the prophet's promise […]
As we begin our preaching pilgrimage in this season of Advent when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, I thought it fitting to begin with this particular text because in my mind it establishes the context and parameters of the birth of Christ. Furthermore, this passage gives us a remarkable insight into the mindset […]
In some ways, Christmas decontextualizes the historical Jesus more than any other time. We do not know at what time of the year he was born. There was almost definitely no snow on the ground in Judea. And there is no proof, beyond strong and early tradition, that Christ was born at Bethlehem. Even David […]
In the "Advent" portion of his poetic oratorio, W. H. Auden chiseled words about the Word becoming flesh: We who must die demand a miracle.How could the Eternal do a temporal act,The Infinite become a finite fact?Nothing can save us that is possible:We who must die demand a miracle. Captured here is a miraculous truth: […]
There is a dark side to the Christmas story. My son discovered it when he was only three years old. His mother read him a paraphrase of the Christmas story from Madeleine L’Engle’s book The Glorious Impossible. The book is beautifully illustrated with full-color reproductions of Giotto’s paintings of the life of Christ from the […]
Theory will always color the outcome of the analysis of texts, including the Old Testament. This is evident in two new important books by Kenneth Kitchen and William Dever addressing the historical reliability of the Old Testament. Dever, a well-respected archeologist, was inspired to write this book by the flurry of media attention accompanying his […]
A collection of thirteen essays first published in Lutheran Quarterly, this little book quite literally harvests Martin Luther's reflections on a variety of topics-Luther on greed and poverty, on spirituality and worship, on baptism and righteousness. The result is an often enlightening collection of essays that would serve as a useful introduction to Luther's thought […]
In this lengthy and ambitious book, Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastor Jeffrey Meyers, summons biblical, theological, and historical arguments to make a case for well-ordered liturgical worship. Significantly, Meyers argues for the sort of structured corporate worship that most conservative Protestant congregations eschew in favor of either a populist informality or a Spartan neo-Puritan […]
From the pen of Paul F. M. Zahl, formerly Dean of Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) in Birmingham, Alabama and now dean of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, comes a provocative, yet timely, Christological meditation. Zahl argues for a Jesus of Nazareth who was essentially dis-continuous with Second Temple Judaism and […]
