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When is "not as bad as," bad enough? "Does the Qur'an say that it's alright to beat your wife? " A Muslim friend is talking with me about Islam. He brought the subject up, so I have license to ask tough questions. "Does the Qur'an say that it's alright to beat your wife?" "Yes," he answers, "but only a little." He is earnest in his response to my question. He wants to be truthful, but he also wants to be…

Are we living in a culture of fear? If we are, what is it doing to our souls? I spend a good deal of time in airports. You can't go more than a few minutes in one without a robotic voice declaring, "The national security threat level has been raised to... ORANGE." More ominous are the follow-up announcements encouraging travelers to report anything or anyone "suspicious." Then there are the promos for local television news. "You thought you were safe…

This past summer I told stories from the pulpit. To be more accurate, I moved away from the pulpit to make it clear that I was telling, not exactly stories, but what we call the "great story." It was an attempt to put together Scripture's tale into a coherent narrative. So over eight weeks I sat on a high stool in the middle of the chancel talking out the story. That sounds very simple. Too simple perhaps. Don't we know…

The question won't go away: How do Christians and Jews relate? Has Judaism been superseded by the Christian faith? Are Christians now God's chosen people? In 1965 the Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council redefined its relationship to the Jewish people. The Jews, it recognized, continue to be God's chosen people. Their religion remains for them a source of divine grace. The Christian's task is to engage them in conversation and not to proselytize them. Many of the…

"Mercs, Skipper?" "Mercenaries, man! Bloody hell. What did you think they were? Cars? Thought you could do military." "And PMC, Skipper?"... "Private Military Company... Where the hell have you been all your life?" --John le Carré, The Mission Song The Skipper's indignant question, "Where have you been?", surely applies to the American media shocked by the spectacularly reckless killing of Iraqi commuters by the hired guns of the Blackwater corporation on the streets of Baghdad this past September 16. "Shocked"…

DECEMBER 2007: POETRY This Moment Where the eagle perches on Patmos, A rocky place secluded A little, not much, by shadows, The evangel is rooted Upon one boyish elbow On the rock two feet away; The fishing villages below Have all the month of May To consider their wooden keels On sand or out at sea While he, like all evangels, This moment, must write eternity. Climbing Back The kind of pledge that heaven is, Abrupt, the final distances That…

DECEMBER 2007: REVIEW With its red, white, and blue cover and patriotic stars sprinkled throughout the text, Edward Humes'Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream appears to be yet another paean to America's "Greatest Generation." In many ways Humes' stories of heroic American veterans defending their country and achieving the American dream reinforce popular myths of a lost age, a time when a sense of duty drove ordinary Americans to extraordinary deeds. But Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning…

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. Luke 2:20 In preaching classes I tell my students that a good first step in writing a new sermon is to read the Bible text aloud but at a deliberately--almost at a ridiculously-- slow pace. Somehow, forcing yourself to read exceedingly slowly helps details to pop out of the text that you've never noticed before on…