Uncategorized

I got to church very late last Sunday. So late, in fact, that the minister was leaving the pulpit precisely as I arrived. I know that in many congregations people might think I’d missed the most important, the central feature of the service – the preaching of the Word. But at my home congregation in Michigan the central event of worship is communion, the eucharistic feast. And that central event is practiced in a way I’ve never seen elsewhere. Rather…

This past weekend, a man entered a Pittsburgh synagogue and massacred 11 people gathered for worship. The assailant was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, three Glock .357 handguns, and a heavy dose of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Minutes before entering the synagogue, he posted on social media that HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit helping to resettle refugees, “likes to bring invaders that kill our people.” He was likely triggered by theories bandied about by Republicans in recent days that the migrant caravan winding its way…

As a scholar of physics, a product of Christian liberal arts education, and current physics professor at a Christian liberal arts college, I hold the value of critical thinking in high regard. In preparing my physics class material, my ultimate goal is to help my students achieve a higher level of problem-solving, which hopefully, they will retain even beyond remembering how to calculate gravitational attraction. In Colossians 2:23, Paul writes to those in Laodicea, “My goal is that they may…

In late October, a gunman opened fire on a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing eleven people, making it the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Earlier the same week, a white supremacist killed two black customers at a grocery store in Louisville. All of this on the heels of an attempted mass bombing operation in which pipe bombs were en route to high-ranking progressive politicians, including two former presidents. Are Christians even paying attention to these levels of hate, to…