Category: Blog Posts

The (S)melting Pot

If you have never read the play, The Melting Pot, and you care about what kind of nation, what kind of moral community, the United States should be, I encourage […]

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Mortared with Lies

In a PhD seminar, Dr. Brian Gerrish led the class through understanding where various Reformation leaders stood on the meaning and consequences of sin. John Calvin, he said, believed human […]

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States are Not Denominations

One expects to be welcomed in different ways and to have different permissions as one visits religious congregations of various Christian denominations and other religions. But should a similar experience […]

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Conservative and Liberal are Meaningless Labels

What do the terms “conservative” and “liberal” mean? After much reflection, I think they mean too many things to be meaningful words. Using the words to categorize and accept or […]

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Becoming Human Is Hard

It takes a lot of work to become and remain a human being. If we think of “human” normatively, in an ethical sense of what our species could or should […]

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Stink and Grace

Life stinks. I’m not using the word “stinks” as a value judgment. I don’t mean to invoke the scene of a child who dropped their ice cream on the ground: […]

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Loyalty May Be Virtue or Vice

Faithful adherence to the sovereign or lawful government; spec. of government employees. Also, in later use, enthusiastic reverence for the person and family of the sovereign. Definition of “loyalty” from […]

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Is the Future Ecumenical or Parochial?

In the aftermath of World War II, ecumenically-involved Christian churches urgently mobilized to prevent World War III. Churches that believed they were following the commandment of Christ to love one […]

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Evil and Ill? Yes but…

There is evil afoot as well as some kind of mental illness regarding gun violence in the U.S. On those points I agree with those who attribute America’s excessive gun […]

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