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Sep 11

In the Name of Jesus

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk before yesterday. But his assassination is, of course, front page news everywhere today. Another disgusting tragedy, another spasm of violence in culture addicted to violence, another casualty of a toxic political culture and a diseased discursive climate, another outrage to dominate and be weaponized by social media before we collectively yawn and move on to the next outrage. It all feels so utterly wearisome and predictable and inevitable in our fractious, polarized, and distractible times. Read more

Sep 9

The Devil Made Me Do It

In contrast to my expectations—and against my most stubborn and misguided intentions—spiritual warfare was on the agenda again at the jail yesterday. I had a safer topic in mind, but no sooner had I began my talk than we were wandering in the thickets. Read more

Sep 2

2 Comments

On Mental and Spiritual Health

For at least the last few decades, I have regularly encountered a shift in how Christians employ the categories of mental health and spiritual health. I can’t remember precisely when this shift started, sometime in my twenties or thirties probably. Often someone would share some story of a clumsy pastoral interaction where they came to the church with a problem—say trouble in a marriage or a difficult child or abuse of some kind or some traumatic experience that was proving debilitating—and the pastor left the impression that all you really had to do was pray the problem away. Read more

Aug 27

3 Comments

I Guess I Just Have to Try Harder

What do a young man in prison, a senior struggling with cognitive decline, and a global superstar athlete have in common? All three struggle with feeling like they are “enough.” And all three, to varying degrees, feel like the solution to this feeling of “not enoughness” is to work harder, do better, be better. Which is to say that all three—again, to varying degrees—have a hard time with grace. Read more

Aug 13

3 Comments

A Year on a Boat

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve been taking some time this summer to read Scripture in larger chunks than the sermon-sized bites that I’ve grown accustomed to over a decade and a half of regular preaching. I read the gospel of Matthew over a few mornings while on a holiday. This week, it’s the book of Genesis. The first book of the Bible is, of course, a vast sweeping landscape which takes us from the creation of the world to the death of Joseph and the Israelites flight to Egypt. The narrative is rich, the characters are compelling and bewildering and oh-so-very-much-like-us in countless ways. Again, I am finding the experience to be a rewarding and interesting one. Read more

Aug 7

1 Comment

We Will Have Our Moral Meaning

A friend recently sent me an article by Amanda Knox in The Atlantic called “What is Evil?” She’s reflecting on Bryan Kohlberger, the man who stabbed four University of Idaho students to death three years ago. This week, Kohlberger was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He has shown no hint of remorse, hasn’t offered even one clue as to a motive. He seems like a genuine sociopath, a monster simply bent on violence and destruction come hell or high water. If ever the word “evil” seemed appropriate, it would be here. Read more

Aug 5

5 Comments

The Great Physician

I recently read the gospel of Matthew over the course of a few mornings on a patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean while on a holiday on the Sunshine Coast. Like many who preach regularly, I have grown accustomed to approaching Scripture in bite-sized, preachable sections. A story from the gospels here, a passage from Paul there, a Psalm, an inspiring (or at least inoffensive) OT narrative, etc. Preaching necessarily involves taking Scripture in smaller chunks and one can get in the habit of kind of raiding the bible for homiletical content. It had been a while since I had just read a book of the bible from start to finish. I decided that a few quiet mornings in idyllic surroundings were as good a time as any to rectify this deficiency. Read more

Jul 14

10 Comments

Rage Against the Machine

It’s a shame we have to die, my dear. No one’s getting out of here alive.

— Foo Fighters, DOA

I spent part of yesterday watching the “Gentlemen’s Final” at Wimbledon. Like many things about this old tournament, the vocabulary speaks to a bygone age. Who uses words like “gentlemen” anymore? Although this year’s finalists refreshingly seem to actually fit the term. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz seem to be something of a rarity in professional sports in that they are genuinely decent young men in addition to being spectacular tennis players. It was a good match, and it was nice to see Sinner prevail after a crushing loss to Alcaraz in a five-hour marathon a month or so in the French Open final. Read more

Jul 12

5 Comments

On Doing Our Duty

I attended the funeral of my childhood pastor yesterday. He was well into his nineties, had lived a good, long life whose shape was defined by faith and family. I didn’t know him well. I’m not sure that knowing the pastor well would have even been on my childhood radar as something desirable or even possible. The pastor was kind of like the librarian or the Zamboni driver at the ice rink—someone who was just always there. His sermons were not particularly riveting, nor did he exude charisma from the pulpit. He was just this stable given in my life. Actually, I should check that pernicious word “just.” In a world where so many lives are characterized by instability, chaos and confusion, where so much communication is reduced to marketing and manipulation, where so many relationships are temporary and self-serving, we could probably all use a few more stable unspectacular givens in our lives. Read more

Jul 8

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All Things to All People

I couldn’t help but cringe along this morning as I read an article by Giles Fraser on the search for a replacement for Justin Welby as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion. The piece is ominously titled “Anglicanism’s Poisoned Chalice.” According to Fraser, it’s a job that nobody with any sense would want.

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Jun 25

3 Comments

Without Spot or Blemish

Around a month ago, I was in Zürich, Switzerland to participate in events celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement. It’s difficult, of course, to pin a precise date to a movement as amorphous as “Anabaptism” (the word itself was only embraced much later, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm). But something significant began around 1525. For the purposes of this celebration, the beginnings of our movement were tied to the first believers’ baptisms (or “rebaptisms,” according to their opponents) which took place in a little apartment in Zürich. George Blaurock, Felix Manz, and Conrad Grebel had embraced the teachings of reformers like Ulrich Zwingli but increasingly felt they didn’t go far enough, specifically (but not exclusively) when it came to baptism. They found no warrant in Scripture for infant baptism and so in defiance of local regulations, they baptized one another January 17, 1525. Read more

Jun 19

3 Comments

The Duomo vs. the Toilet (Where is God Found?)

On my walks this week, I’ve been listening to a series on The Medici family on The Rest is History podcast. After I finished walking the Camino last month, my wife and I spent six days or so in Italy with some friends. We toured around places like Florence, Pisa, Livorno, and Siena—the heart of Tuscany, where the Medicis rose to power in the twelfth century. So, my curiosity was piqued if for no other reason than recent proximity to the region. Read more

Jun 18

9 Comments

Blessed Are the Guilty Who Have Nowhere to Go

Many Mondays as I make the short drive to the jail, I listen to a song by Jon Guerra called “The Kingdom of God.” It’s a beautiful song by a gifted songwriter (Guerra’s most recent album, “Jesus,” has been a mainstay in my headphones since it was released during Lent). The song is basically a creative version of the Beatitudes set to music (with a bit of Psalm 23 mixed in). I listen on Mondays primarily because of one line that hit me like a freight train the first time I heard it and almost never fails to leave me with a lump in my throat: “Blessed are the guilty who have nowhere to go.” Read more

Jun 14

4 Comments

Mercy is the Way

When you walk the Camino, you hear the same phrase repeatedly. From locals, from fellow pilgrims, from whoever: Bom Caminho (in Portugal) or Buen Camino (in Spain). Literally, these both translate into English as “Good Way.” More colloquially and contextually it means something like “Have a good journey.” It was nice to hear these words and to speak them to others. Read more

Jun 9

2 Comments

The Flower Thief

I think it was around day ten or eleven of the Camino when we found ourselves talking to two Estonian women on a sun-baked terrazza near Pontevedra, Spain. It had been a long hot day of walking, and the patio appeared like an oasis as we emerged from a heavily treed, hilly section that seemed to go on and on. Rarely had the sound of laughing voices and clinking glasses sounded so welcome! Read more

Jun 3

21 Comments

On Punk Rock Advice

A middle-aged dude recently wrote in to the advice columnist for The Atlantic. The columnist is James Parker who is, I imagine, some kind of therapist? A secular wellness guru? I actually have no idea who James is or the nature of his credentials. Maybe he’s just the staff writer who drew the short straw at the team meeting. Nonetheless, James was asked the following question from the aforementioned middle-aged dude (I guess I don’t know for sure that the writer is male… for the purposes of this post, I’m sticking with “dude” because it seems like a vaguely dude-ish question and because, well, I, too, am middle-aged and would occasionally like to feel more rock and roll than I do!): Read more

May 30

5 Comments

The Lord is Near

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. As you may know, I’m on a three-month sabbatical and I’ve spent roughly the last two weeks walking the Camino de Santiago (Portuguese Way). On May 27, we reached the Cathedral in Santiago! I even received the Latin documents to prove it. I may have a few more reflections on this experience at a later date. It was a rich and rewarding one in many ways and I’m still sifting through a few stories along the way. What follows is a bit unpolished as it is gleaned from some handwritten journal reflections over the last few days.

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May 9

2 Comments

Friday Miscellany (On Conscription)

The last thing I did before heading out on sabbatical was spend a few days at a Roman Catholic retreat centre in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I was there for a retreat with a group of pastors from our denomination. The setting was idyllic, the hospitality warm, and the sessions meaningful. We were led by a Catholic spiritual director who invited us to consider our various journey, vocations, and lives through the lens of “pilgrimage.” My ears obviously perked up at that as I will be heading off on a very non-metaphorical pilgrimage in a few days (walking the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Way). In one of the sessions, she used a phrase that has stuck with me: “Sometimes our pilgrimages are not chosen; sometimes we are conscripted.” Read more

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