In a 2014 interview with GQ magazine, actor Matthew McConaughey talked a little about his faith: Does your family go to church every Sunday? "Yeah. In Texas. It's non-denominational. It's based in the faith that Jesus is the son of God, that he died for our sins." Was that a return for you, or had […]
I am one of those tragic figures who is both a perfectionist and a procrastinator. I am such a perfectionist that the very idea of failure terrifies me to the core of my being. I am so afraid of doing things wrong that I am afraid to start, because I will probably not do it […]
Plane rides are my worst fear (though my husband tells me all my fears are my "worst fear"). What can I say? I blame my parents for making me feel relatively safe and secure for so many years. They were slow and sneaky, forcing me to grow up one shoe size at a time. The […]
Why don't you take a few Advil?" The glaring stare this suggestion produced told me immediately I had gotten something quite wrong. My instinct to help had so far been a good one. Now my presence in the room was a problem. Speaking again was unwise; anything but silent departure, imprudent. People who don't have […]
On October 13, 2010, Florencio Avalos emerged from the ground and breathed fresh air for the first time in many days. He and thirty-two other miners had suffered virtual entombment two thousand feet below ground in the partially collapsed San José Mine in the Chilean desert. As Avalos stepped from the capsule that had lifted […]
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!” This cry will rise from many churches this Easter season as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. On the third day, the grave in which they laid his body was empty. His body had not been stolen’the posting of Roman soldiers and […]
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is inarguably the cornerstone of the entire Christian faith. And I think for a lot of non-Christians in the West that’s pretty clear because we (rightfully) make a big deal out of the resurrection. We love to tell the story of the empty tomb every chance we get, even though […]
Why is the resurrection of Jesus so important? After all, it’s not when our sins are paid for. That was the work Jesus did two days earlier on the cross. And the resurrection is not when Christ’s perfect obedience is credited to us so we can stand before God. That work was also done by […]
Make no mistake: if He rose at allit was as His body;if the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the moleculesreknit, the amino acids rekindle,the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,each soft Spring recurrent;it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddledeyes of the eleven apostles;it was as His flesh: ours. […]
In her new biography of John Knox, Jane Dawson asks an insightful question: If Knox had died sooner than 1572, how would his career and character have been assessed? After all, a disappointed Knox, deep in "dolour," wished many times for death, and there were many occasions when Knox reasonably expected to die at the […]
Martin Luther's historical significance is not only indisputable, it is also hard to overstate. His effort to clear away the artificial and arbitrary trappings of the Roman church in order to bring it in line with the teachings of the Bible was the impetus to the Protestant Reformation, a late medieval event that in some […]
"The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way." ‘C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism In the Parks and Recreation episode "The Camel," Tom Haverford (played by Aziz Ansari), bon vivant and assistant to Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), hires a local art […]
1. Biased Sources Those who wrote the NT documents were "believers" and therefore biased. These texts are not historical documents but articles of faith. Rebuttal Everyone is biased. A lawyer building a case is biased in favor of his client, but that does not invalidate the evidence. What accounts for the particular "faith" of these […]
In my new book, set to be released in April, I take another look at the primary doctrines of our Christian faith. Continuing the project that began with The Christian Faith and Pilgrim Theology, this new book, Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God’s Story (Zondervan, 2016), was written to help you answer basic questions about […]
