By now, many of us are beginning to see that the protests unfolding in the streets of Cairo are not an isolated event. The popular uprising in Tunisia earlier this week has ignited hope for social change, and fears of instability, not only in Egypt but throughout the region of North Africa and the Middle […]
Yesterday, I read an article in USA Today about a Christian leader who removed his name from a group that supports the rights of Muslims to build mosques in their communities. The article went on to explain that the person was responding to those who felt that the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques crossed the line […]
I’ve been trying to go to school on the discussion following my last post on forgiveness. Along the way I’ve had doubts about whether I should have once again re-introduced the idea of knowing when to “lovingly withhold forgiveness.” The very suggestion resulted in so much misunderstanding that at times I feared that I had […]
In reading over the previous conversation it’s apparent that there is still disagreement about the nature of forgiveness. We all know that we need it. But we disagree about when it is appropriate to give it. Our problem is that the Bible, in wisdom, says at least two different things: (1) That forgiveness is to […]
As expressed by responses to our last post, a danger of 12 Step Recovery is that those who work the program can fail to see where the insights of its “cycle of steps” come from. A similar danger is found in Bible study or church attendance that focuses on moral answers that don’t lead to […]
While reading John Calvin (1509-1564) on John 4:10, I found some thoughts that resonate not only with the text he was talking about, but also with some of the basics of what we know as 12 Step recovery. Calvin says of the Help we all need, “We cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we […]
Over time I’ve seen how difficult it is to write something that is clear to the reader. As a result I’ve been spending time in a book that talks about writing from the reader’s perspective. In “The Sense of Structure”, author George Gopen has given me a lot to think about. He explains, for instance […]
As we move into the second full week of 2011 we may or may not be having second thoughts about resolutions made, or not made, a week ago. Change isn’t easy. Could it even be possible for us to follow through on our commitments? If so, what it is going to take? Am thinking this […]
One of the books we’ve talked about in the last couple of posts, Why Men Hate Going to Church, is hard to do justice to by quoting a few of the author’s emphases. Murrow’s chapters are full of irony that, as I read, kept me off balance from beginning to end. He had me arguing […]
One of the reasons I have been so intrigued with Murrow’s book, “Why Men Hate Going to Church” is that his work explores the interrelationship between spiritual character and the real and perceived nature of masculinity and femininity. In the middle of such a discussion I find myself in wonder of both the self-evident nature […]
“Why Men Hate Going to Church” by author David Murrow stayed on my desk, unread for a long time, because it looked like an overstatement. But then I started reading and was intrigued by his suggestion that, of the world’s major religions, only Christianity seems to have a problem getting men. His assessment is that […]
Spent time over the weekend with two books that looked at the spirit of masculinity and femininity in the church from two different perspectives. One of these books, written by Denise George, is titled What Women Wish Pastors knew and is subtitled “Understanding the Hopes, Hurts, Needs, and Dreams of Women in the Church. The […]
In November of 1947, Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, lobbied for a United Nations resolution that would divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Truman later expressed his faith in the reborn state of Israel saying, “I believe it has a glorious future before it—not just [as] another sovereign nation, […]
