Rev. Dr. Amy Richter, who was the inspiration of my post two days ago, writes the following in response: Dear Kristina! Thank you so much! I am so honored–and inspired–on your beautiful riff on building the body of the church. Fantastic! Thank you for your thoughtful and thought-provoking response. I can’t wait to read more…

Every week I receive a little report from the editors of Beliefnet summarizing the hot content of the week- all that stuff you guys are inclined to read out there.  It seems inquiring minds these days often want to know how to pray for strength or healing, find advice on how to recover from an…

  “The White Chip” He said she’d not make a good poker player. She only played once, now one’s for the taking. The white chips— for the lowest wager— and she’s still gambling on a turnaround. No more conceit.  No more lies. “Double or nothing?” Sure… when your life is at stake. She’s in the…

Temptation.  I have to imagine Jesus knew what a fact of life it is, because he taught us to pray daily for ourselves in this respect: “Give us this day our daily bread, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  Some versions of this prayer read, “Save us from the time…

Maybe the universal human dilemma can be summed up in the following question: how do I live between the two poles of, on the one hand, my own insignificance and the transitory nature of my finest achievements, and, on the other, my potential for greatness and capacity for eternity? If you’ve been able to answer…

If Christianity were a dance club, then it would seem to have a lot of bouncers lately.  First it was Franklin Graham, questioning the authenticity of President Obama’s Christian faith and implying that he could be a closet Muslim after all.  Then just the other day, there was that Catholic priest in Washington, D.C. who…

Apparently conservative theologian and proponent of “masculine Christianity” John Piper is at it again. (Whatever happened to “Christian hedonism,” to borrow Piper’s own term, anyway?  This Piper seemed like a guy I could have a beer with.) Today Piper tweeted this quote from Wolfhart Pannenberg: “The church that approves of homosexual relations has by that…

“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.” John 1:18 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him might have eternal life.” John 3:16 Yesterday NPR interviewed Jeremy Lin.  The Harvard graduate crossed…

If there were anyone who knew about insecurity or a sense of not “measuring up,” it would be the thirteenth century, “stealth theologian” Mechthild de Magdeburg: she wrote as a woman in a largely male-dominated world of letters; she did not know the more academic Latin of her time and instead wrote in her lay,…

Almost ten years ago, I, at the time a seminary student preparing for ministry in the Presbyterian church, confessed my sins to a Catholic priest and received the sacrament of reconciliation:  I cried tears of repentance, received absolution for my sin and was then challenged to go do one good work as “penance.” I walked…

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