Posts from 2009

Wild Grace Abounding by Joel Shuman (1/2/2009)
...use he is there at all; not only did Cato die a pagan a generation before the birth of Jesus, he took his own life in protest of the emerging power of the then nascent Roman Empire. Surely he belongs in Hell, in the awful forest of suicide, where the souls of those who took their own lives are trapped for all eternity in thorny shrubs, able to speak only when their limbs are painfully s...
Hope by Debra Dean Murphy (1/2/2009)
...iving as we did in rural West Virginia, none of us in that class of fourth graders came from wealthy families. Most of us came from similar economic backgrounds. We were all of modest means—some a little better off than others, maybe, but not markedly so. But even in places like Appalachia, and especially in places like elementary, middle, and high schools, there are fixed systems of order and ...
Amahl and the Night Visitors by Debra Dean Murphy (1/5/2009)
...an opera for live broadcast on the fledgling, new medium of television. On Christmas Eve of the following year, Amahl and the Night Visitors premiered on NBC. Menotti grew up with the European tradition of the Three Kings bringing gifts to children on Epiphany. Various stories and legends, many of them humorous, came to be associated with the ...
Remember Your Baptism and Be Thankful by Erin Martin (1/6/2009)
...I had died and been raised with Christ. Years later as an ordained Methodist minister the majority of the baptisms I perform look nothing like my own. Mostly I hold infants in my arms and pour water on their heads. Their rebirth in Christ will be far less tangible to them, but by no means less real. I have come to understand that remembering one’s baptism has less to do with remem...
Heaven and Earth by Debra Dean Murphy (1/13/2009)
...ood come from there?”) is the eternal Logos, Word made flesh, whose glory we have beheld. It is the calling of the disciples that preoccupies the fourth evangelist here. (The Lectionary for Mass focuses on Peter and Andrew; the RCL treats the call of Philip and Nathanael). In Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael it becomes clear where the gospel...
King and the Kingdom by Debra Dean Murphy (1/19/2009)
...of confrontation.” The radical politics of the Kingdom that King envisioned—for the church and the nation—did not endear him to either; it got him killed. As author <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Done-Sign-My-Name/dp/1400083117/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232339348&sr=8-1">Tim Tyson</a> has bluntly put it: "In the years since his murder, we have transformed King...
Planning Our 2009 Gathering by Kelly Johnson (1/19/2009)
...uck us was less the importance of any one passage and more the importance of the scriptural story as the story of God’s economy. Or to put it another way, what struck us was the idea that the true economy is the work of God. Our word ‘economics’ is related to the Greek word oikonomia, which refers to household management. (The Greeks had a sep...
Epiphany 3B by Jessie Larkins (1/20/2009)
...lls were created in order to slide off in 6’ pieces of molded plastic. My brother’s primary raison d’être is white water kayaking. He has traveled all over the world finding and conquering the world’s wildest rivers and creeks. If we didn’t share the hallmark Shuman nose, you might wonder how we are related. When it comes to taking risks, we are as different as night and day. One tim...
By Whose Authority? by Brian Volck (1/28/2009)
...t-style: italic;">Authoritative first recorded 1609. Authoritarian is recorded from 1879. Power: First written appearance in English: 1297, from L. potis "powerful" Used to mean "a state or nation with regard to international authority or influence" dates from 1726.<s...
Is Your World Shaped By the Gospel? by Jessie Larkins (2/4/2009)
...ft for us, then, is “Do we also feel that obligation to proclaim the gospel in all times and places?” For those of us who preach and teach on a regular basis, we can easily brush past this question without much thought. Of course we are proclaiming the gospel! The real question for us, as well as for each member of our churches, is whether or not gospel proclamation has so shaped t...
I Do Choose… by Erin Martin (2/11/2009)
...persons in considerable pain—a woman bent low, a man born blind, a father pleading on behalf of his ailing daughter—coming to Jesus in desperation and placing all their hopes upon Jesus’ willingness to make them well. Jesus never disappoints, either. He always meets their desperation with compassion, their suffering with relief, their isolation with restoration. In this week’s gospel lesson, the...
Light for the Journey by Debra Dean Murphy (2/18/2009)
...enly show up; how Peter characteristically misreads the scene. But what happened six days earlier? Could it have any bearing on the journey to the mountaintop and on what transpired there? Most immediately Jesus had called "the crowd with his disciples" and had told them that if they wanted to become his followers they would have to deny themselves and take up their cross and foll...
Psalms for the Journey by Debra Dean Murphy (2/26/2009)
...praise, and adoration, the Psalms—the lamenting ones, the cursing ones, and the praising ones—help us to speak truthfully before God and one another. Not for nothing, the Psalms have been called the hymnbook of the Bible. In their original setting—ancient Israel’s worship of Yahweh—the Psalms were sung by priest and people as a corporate act of devotion to the one true God. We have n...
Closer to the Brink by Brian Volck (3/2/2009)
...week – with the Revised Common and Catholic lectionaries diverging – peril and destruction are nearer than ever. In Mark 8:31-38, Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” for advising against the path of suffering, death and resurrection. It doesn’t help that the phrase, “pick up your cross,” has lost its terrifying charge over the centuries. We might have to try a contemporary paraphra...
Asleep at the Wheel by Jessie Larkins (3/10/2009)
...lose to home. What has happened to our practice of worship that it has become yet another instance of a religious institution “going through the motions” rather than true, life-shaping (rather than sleep inducing) encounter with the living God? I don’t know about you, but a few cattle and sheep in the narthex of my church might be just the ticket to breaking our somnolence and accommodation to...
For God So Loved the World by Debra Dean Murphy (3/19/2009)
...beauty of the Bible," he says, "is that it is not clear, simple and unambiguous. Its words are puzzling, intriguing and slippery." He could have been talking about the appointed texts for this week, especially the Revised Common Lectionary's appointed reading from Numbers (Catholics read from 2 Chronicles on Sunday). The account of the plague ...
Flunking Lent by Debra Dean Murphy (3/23/2009)
...r, asking for mercy and cleansing, for wisdom, for an erasing of the record that stands against us—a blotting out of our iniquities. We pray that God will "create in us a clean heart and put a new and right spirit within us." And then we often act as if we must accomplish these things ourselves. We embrace Lenten disciplines—a good thing—but we easily mistake them for what they are not: self-im...
This Year in Jerusalem! by Kyle Childress (3/27/2009)
...an see the very route from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee that Jesus walked. Furthermore, clustered along the lake’s coastline, all within view because they are no more than a few miles from one another are the remains of the villages of Magdala (the home place of Mary Magdalene) and Capernaum. Beyond that, up where the Jordan River runs into the Sea of Galilee, is Bethsaida. All of these villa...
Spoilin’ for a Fight by Joel Shuman (4/2/2009)
...merican Childhood, Annie Dillard fondly recalls her Sunday School days in her parents’ mainline Protestant church. She notes of her introduction to the Bible, “The Bible’s was an unlikely, movie-set world alongside our world. Light-shot and translucent in the pallid Sunday-school watercolors on the walls, stormy and opaque in the dense and staggering texts they read us placidly, week after ...
World Out of Balance by Brian Volck (4/7/2009)
... O’Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find") I don’t understand Easter. I think I stand on firm theological ground saying this. Mysteries are necessarily beyond comprehension, a scandal and embarrassment in a scientific age. It’s far more satisfying to make of mystery a problem to be solved. In “mystery” novels, for instance, a criminal death is explained, ending (generally) with the restoration of...
Resurrection and Torture by Debra Dean Murphy (4/21/2009)
...orture the body of the victim is the ritual site where the state's power is manifested in its most awesome form." - William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist The <a href="http://documents.nytimes.com/bush-administration-terrorism-memos#p=1">government memos</a> released last week, detailing acts of torture carried out by C.I.A. operatives in the...
The Good Shepherd by Debra Dean Murphy (5/2/2009)
...that can be lost on us. “I am the good shepherd,” says Jesus. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). The life of a shepherd was anything but dreamy or picturesque. Taking care of sheep was dangerous, difficult, tedious work. Shepherds were, as one commentator has said, "rough around the edges, spending time in the fields ra...
Pruning Time by Brian Volck (5/7/2009)
... keep a large vegetable garden and busy themselves with other crops, but wine is the farm’s major product. Recently, my wife and I drove down to visit. The two of us talked with Mary and her mother in a shady spot near the old dairy shed, but Chuck was busy pruning vines. Sweaty and dirty, he called to us from a distance, but there wasn’t time to stop and chat. Mary told how she used to help...
America's Bible by Debra Dean Murphy (5/12/2009)
...: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Patriots-Bible-Shaping-America/dp/1418541532/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242091665&sr=1-1">The American Patriot's Bible</a>, the latest in a long line of niche-marketed Bibles. (And one that really does take the cake in that literary sub-genre). A mischievous <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Y0K2HZ79E0II/ref=cm_cr_...
Show Us the Way by Brian Volck (5/13/2009)
... El Paisnal, El Salvador. Fr. Grande knew where he was going. During his five years as parish priest in nearby Aguilares, he formed Christian base communities, trained lay “delegates,” and vocally opposed government attempts to silence Salvadoran priests who worked with and organized peasant laborers. It was not a safe time. As Fr. Grande said, "It is practic...
Dan Brown's America by Ekklesia Project (5/19/2009)
...office this week. The sequel to “The DaVinci Code,” due out in November, might buoy the publishing industry through the recession. And if you want to understand the state of American religion, you need to understand why so many people love Dan Brown. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19douthat.html">Read More</a>...
Ascension Politics by Debra Dean Murphy (5/19/2009)
...day we may give it an obligatory nod as we make our way liturgically from Easter to Pentecost, but we’re often not quite sure what to do with it theologically, pastorally, exegetically. The clunky literalism routinely inspired by the Luke-Acts vision of the ascension—Jesus rocketing upward into outer space—is not a little embarrassing. Whatever historical event lies behind the Luke-Acts narrati...
Shall We Gather? by Brian Volck (5/23/2009)
...r Gathering, “Wealth and the Household of God,”</a> the practice of hospitality demands we mention upcoming gatherings of these friends of EP: Bridgefolk, August 21-24 <a href="http://www.bridgefolk.net/conferences/2009bridgefolk/">“Between Memory and Hope: Bridgefolk at Ten Years”</a> Jesus Radicals, August 14-15 <a href="http://www.jesusradicals.com/new-heaven-new-earth-anarchism-and-ch...
Apokatastasis and the Birthday of the Church by Jessie Larkins (5/27/2009)
... in my introductory class on Church history was the word, apokatastasis. The word, which is Greek, most simply means “the end will be like the beginning” and is most commonly used to refer to the idea of a universal restoration of creation. At the time, we first year students cataloged this word away along with a long litany of other doctrines and heresies ...
The Trinity and THE SHACK by Debra Dean Murphy (6/1/2009)
...mann and Marshall or Zizioulas and LaCugna, you may or may not be up on the latest (actually, the only) treatise on the Trinity to capture the popular imagination: a little self-published tome called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shack-William-P-Young/dp/0964729237/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243866360&sr=1-1">The Shack</a>. But you shou...
Just a Kid. Just a Seed. Just a Church. by Joel Shuman (6/11/2009)
...m worthy even to attend the sacrifice offered by the traveling prophet Samuel. Sure, he was good looking, and he was tough, and he had some talent, but by and large everyone who knew him assumed he’d spend his days as an adult the same way he’d spent those of his adolescence: tending sheep, playing with his sling, writing poetry, and playing music. He was hardly a suitable replacement for a great ...
A Nation of Prisons & Forgotten Corporal Acts of Mercy by Brian Volck (6/13/2009)
...nter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/0608.shtml">he has something to say</a> about the work of EP endorser Tobias Winright, whose review of two books on the American way of imprisonment <a href="http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6938%5D">appeared in a May issue of The Christian Century</a>....
Not By Sight by Brian Volck (6/19/2009)
...sociations Mark’s rough Greek may not sustain. Is this merely a simple boat crossing or a prelude to the passion, a window on death’s terror? A storm comes over the water – suddenly, as desert weather will. The Son of God is asleep, undisturbed by the drama of crashing waves and a boat not far from being scuttled. His followers shake him awake, anxious to know if he cares. We do...
The Hemorrhaging Woman by Debra Dean Murphy (6/24/2009)
...nday After Pentecost) (Image: Holy Spirit Dance, Gwen Meharg, watercolor.) When we read the story of Jesus healing the hemorrhaging woman (or a leper or a paralytic or the demon-possessed), it’s tempting to see only the private moment—a two-person encounter isolated from the larger social order. But these meetings—while they are personal and often ...
Neither the Best Nor the Brightest by Brian Volck (7/1/2009)
...Hauerwas’ Law and its necessary Corollary apply to most committed relationships. The Law, in its most elegant formation, is: You always marry the wrong person. The Corollary: The wrong person is the right person. In mysteries and sacraments (and my particular tradition considers marriage to be both), informed consent isn’t part of the package. Talk about a Kierkegaardian leap! Prenuptial leg...
Interdependence Day by Brian Volck (7/2/2009)
...dependence characterizing the Body into which we are called. <a href="http://blog.sojo.net/2009/06/23/40-ways-to-celebrate-interdependence-day-on-july-4/">Shaine Claiborne found the idea compelling enough to comment on</a>. Comments on both the above links lay out familiar positions to those who’ve participated in such conversations before....
A Great Gathering by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)
...ing we can continue our work together through an ongoing sharing on bLogos and FB. Wealth, especially money, divides the church. It can and does also become part of our sharing, our communion (koinonia). We'd be mistaken to try to create the fool-proof perfect system that will overcome sin and remove our need for mercy, patience, and hope in God's grace...
Paving Stones on the Road to Hell by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)
...italic;">he Quiet American for insights on US Foreign Policy....
Crash Course by Brian Volck (7/16/2009)
...ogress (with a capital “P”). He concedes the Shoah was a “temporary setback” for humanity, but nothing to fret about in the long run. In his view of history, religious faith is in full rout (though still, to his mind, terribly dangerous), material welfare is on the rise, and goodness and peace are coming in every way. Supremely confident in the power of Science (with a capital “S”), Dawkins assure...
Sex in Public by Debra Dean Murphy (7/21/2009)
...">So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.” For the next two Sundays, churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary will hear the familiar story of David and Bathsheba—a cautionary tale often invoked to warn against the dangers of sexual temptation in our own time and/or to demonstrate the humanness of the oft-idealized King David in his. It’...
On Receiving Gifts by Halden Doerge (7/31/2009)
...9218">Ps 51:1-12</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=116059245">Eph 4:1-16</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=116059273">John 6:24-35</a>) The readings for this week offer an odd combination of themes. Both the Old Testament and Psalm readings are quite clearly concerned with the fallout of the <a href="http://ekklesiaproject.blogspot.com/2009/07/sex-in-public.html">affair between ...
An Offer You Can’t Refuse by Brian Volck (8/6/2009)
...phesians 4:25-5:2</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=116527626">John 6:41-51</a> Declining an offer of hospitality is, in traditional cultures at least, an insult. Elijah, on the lam from Ahab and Jezebel, prefers to die under the shade of his broom tree, but he knows not to insult God’s messenger. In John’s gospel, however, “the Jews” (a troubling Johannine formulation – what was Jesus...
Kings? by Kyle Childress (8/13/2009)
...17196601">Psalm 111</a> or <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=117196626">Psalm 34: 9-14</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=117196650">Ephesians 5: 15-20</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=117196676">John 6: 51-58</a> The Old Testament reading this week culminates the summer-long focus on the David cycle throughout I and II Samuel. We’ve followed David from his anointing by old S...
What to Wear in Battle by Doug Lee (8/20/2009)
...3</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=117734626">Ephesians 6:10-20</a>;<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=117734669"> John 6:56-69</a> The culmination to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has ample capacity either to thrill or repulse us. For those who already envision themselves locked in a mortal struggle against enemies of various stripes, Paul’s use of militaristic imagery fits and hea...
Preparing for the Gift by Ragan Sutterfield (8/26/2009)
...8312595">Psalm 15</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118312625">James 1:17-27</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118312653">Mark 7:1-8</a>, <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118312692">14-15</a>, <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118312721">21-23</a> A good farmer is one who knows what he can do and what he can’t. He can work the soil, build compost, mulch, but the growth of...
The Kingdom’s Gatekeepers by Jenny Williams (9/2/2009)
...18862529">Proverbs 22:1-2</a>, <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118862555">8-9</a>, <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=118862583">22-23</a> Ouch. James must have been visiting churches in North America, where in addition to race, the other great divider on Sunday morning is class. He upbraids the congregation for gatekeeping by the way they treat visitors at their worship services. The...
Setting Nature on Fire by Halden Doerge (9/10/2009)
...James to be my favorite book of the Bible. In reflecting back on why I found it so important at the time I think what drew me to James was the sort of clarity I seemed to find there. It is certainly no accident that this passage is paired in the lectionary readings with the Proverbs. Among all the books of the New Testament there is a sort of practicality to James—strong vestiges of the Hebrew Wis...
Kids in Church by Debra Dean Murphy (9/16/2009)
...rresistible throughout the centuries. Sentimental art within the last hundred years or so has given us the “sweet Victorian Nanny Jesus” (Philip Yancey’s memorable description), patting boys and girls on the head, admonishing them, one supposes, to eat all their vegetables and be nice to mummy. It’s hard to set aside such treacly visuals when we hear Mark say, “Then he took a little child and ...
Loving Enemies: A Training Program by Brian Volck (9/24/2009)
...ref="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=120821534">24-29</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=120821575">Psalm 19</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=120821602">James 5:1-6</a> (Catholic); <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=120821634">5:13-20</a> (Revised Common); <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=120821657">Mark 9:38-50</a> “Even heretics love God, and burn convinced that He will lov...
The Koinonia Story in a Nutshell by Ekklesia Project (9/25/2009)
... of those involved in the Ekklesia Project know of Koinonia Farm and Clarence Jordan. Clarence, his wife Florence and their friends Mabel and Martin England founded Koinonia (Greek for loving community) in 1942. Inspired by the Book of Acts, they wanted to live in an intentional Christian community and live out their deeply held beliefs drawn from Jesus’ te...
Visceral Responses by Brian Volck (10/1/2009)
...holic); <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=121412445">Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12</a> (Revised Common); <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=121412466">Mark 10:2-16</a> Texts like these that make me grateful I’m a pediatrician and not a preacher. Given the diversity of understandings and practices among Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox regarding marriage and remarriage after divorce, and the con...
Some Pastoral Reflections on Planning (and Its Opposite) by Michael Bowling (10/7/2009)
...r, anti-planners like to reference James 4:13-17, which is more a cautionary note for those who trust in their wealth and their ability to produce wealth. Of course, compulsive planners misuse Scriptures in similar ways. Who hasn't heard Jesus' words concerning the radical nature of discipleship twisted into an admonition concerning "sensible" financial/planning? Everyone plans! T...
Thanks, but No Thanks by Kyle Childress (10/8/2009)
...pecially things like speaking clearly, looking a person in the eye, standing straight, and shaking hands with a good firm grip. One 9-year-old boy, who came to church when he was four from an abusive home, used to hide under the chairs when you talked to him and the only way he showed any affection was to come up and hit. We’ve worked with him, been very patient and loving, and we’ve taken the t...
The Unknowable Shape of Things to Come by Brian Volck (10/15/2009)
...g fidelity require, would anyone marry? If humans truly knew what children demand of parents, would the species continue? If any of us truly knew how often grief is the final evidence of earthly love, would anyone choose to love? Zebedee’s boys have no idea what they’re asking. Not that they weren’t warned. The verses immediately preceding today’s gospel are another prediction of Jesus suffe...
Coming Home with Shouts of Joy by Ragan Sutterfield (10/22/2009)
....oremus.org/?ql=123217849">Hebrews 7:23-28</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=123217874">Mark 10:46-52</a> “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). It’s a striking question Jesus asks Bartimaeus—a beggar sitting beside the road when Jesus passes by; a blind man whose pleas of “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” could not be suppressed. What kind of answer was Jesus expec...
A Christian Memorial Day by Jenny Williams (10/27/2009)
...79">Revelation 21:1-6</a>; <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=123659853">John 11:32-44</a> Where I live, remembering and honoring the dead is celebrated annually in May. Over Memorial Day weekend, families flock to cemeteries, flowers in hand, to decorate the graves of loved ones who have passed. In many cases out-of-town relatives come in for this ritual. It’s a pretty big deal. The chu...
Religious But Not Spiritual by Debra Dean Murphy (11/11/2009)
...er Pentecost “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together..." (Hebrews 10:24) The <a href="http://www.sbnr.org/what-is-sbnr">SBNR website</a> puts ...
Ultimate Imagination by Doug Lee (11/18/2009)
...remus.org/?ql=125513868">John 18:33-38a</a> Some years ago, a friend of ours who was a major player on the Nigerian political scene nearly met an untimely death but survived. After confronting his mortality—his end, Takai abandoned his ascendant career trajectory and told his children that they would receive no inheritance from him. Their inheritance would now come in the form of a ministry he ...
Spring Will Come Before We Know It by Ragan Sutterfield (11/25/2009)
...ees are dormant, reserving their sugars to live out a time when the sun won’t be around enough to power their life. The trees are moving to their reserve supplies; they are waiting until the spring. But at some point, when the conditions of rain and sun and a myriad of other factors come together, there will be a moment, one moment, when the trees will shoot forth leaves again. This will happen...
Who Bears the Weight of Empire? by Brian Volck (12/4/2009)
...lizabeth and Zecahriah’s John-boy, not the movers and shakers of first century Judea. Augustus may have proclaimed a census in the chapter immediately preceding this, but it’s John, not Tiberius, making proclamations now: “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” The words Luke quotes from Isaiah (40:3-5) speak of reckonings and reversals, themes car...
I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy by Jenny Williams (12/9/2009)
...0th century, that day has been recognized by the catholic church as Gaudete, or Joy, Sunday. (<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06394b.htm">See one history here</a>.) As early as the fifth century, Christians prepared for Christmas with a forty-day fast. The weeks prior to Christmas were a season of penitence, much in the way that Lent functions in relation to Easter. One can see how the...
A Political Pregnancy (and the Beatles) by Jenny Williams (12/15/2009)
...her than separating them into the Visitation (to be read as the gospel lesson) and the Magnificat (to be read as the Psalter or the Canticle for the day). In doing so, he contrasts the innocence of the girl who is to give birth to Jesus with the political ramifications of that birth. Taking verses 39-46 and 47-55 together, he says, “gives the preacher abundant material for preaching that critiq...
As Good As Done by Doug Lee (12/16/2009)
... celebration were the women. They had come dressed in their best clothes, shiny and clean. They raised their voices in song, loud and bright. With call and response, joyful ululation, and bodies moving in vibrant celebration, these poor rural village women in Zambia gave voice to God’s victory over disease, hunger, and death. In many times and places, it is the women who best celebrate the triu...
God in Particular by Kyle Childress (12/23/2009)
... of Scripture attached to it to give it biblical validity. On the third night we were given the assignment of going out to neighborhoods and college dorms, knocking on doors, and if the person answering the door would allow us, we were to tell him the four spiritual laws. If the person said “yes” to the last law, we were to pray with him, asking for Jesus to enter into his heart. After the pray...
The Whole Package by Debra Dean Murphy (12/31/2009)
...beginning was the Word.” It’s tempting, perhaps, to see a sharp division here. To imagine that the Christmas lections are about the simple, familiar, child-friendly stuff—cradles and crèches and shepherds and angels—and that the “After-Christmas” readings have gone all grown-up and academic on us. Logos? John wants to talk Greek while we’re still ...