Select Page

“Using” Religion?

This semester, I’m teaching a course called “Christian Ethics in Engagement with U.S. Culture”; sometimes the syllabus and the daily news mirror each other in uncanny ways.This past week, for instance, I had been talking with my students about how the nation’s...

Laryngitis and a New Voice

Lately, I’ve been stunned into an uneasy silence. I haven’t known what to say about the last days of Barack Obama’s presidency and the beginning of Donald Trump’s. Even if I could find words to express what I think and feel, I’m under no illusion that what I would say...

Wilderness Life

Three years ago this month, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma.Two years ago, this month, I ended my work as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Asheville.Last week, my oncologist let me know that the leading indicator of cancer’s activity went down, after having...

New Year’s Reflections from Paris

After lunch yesterday, Eliot and I took the longish walk to Pere Lachaise cemetery. It’s an eerily beautiful village of the dead, and it was an evocative place to spend part of the last day of the year.As we walked among the tombs and headstones, I pondered...

Christmas is for Children–for all of us

Sometimes, we say that “Christmas is for children.” That’s true, but only if we remember that this season’s story of divine surprise has the power to make all of us children again—to help us live in childlike openness and wonder. Feel the wind in your hair. ...