I remember vividly the day my death-denying illusions were shattered—it happened when I was a senior in high school. A friend had driven home from

“O Taste and See” was written two decades before Levertov would explicitly identify as a Christian, yet she already intuited that focusing on this world

Still, when I compare Old and New Testament lamenting, I can’t shake the sense that the coming of Jesus changed the role of lament for

There was a time in my career when the father of one of my students (in a different decade and a different state) requested a

All of us spend much of our lives constructing the protection we think we need to survive and thrive. These layers of defense work well

But Jeff wasn’t asking for a dissertation-level, academic deep dive on any of these claims. He was just curious about the general consensus out there

For much of my pastoral life, I’ve conversed in living rooms, at park benches, and in bars and cafés with people wondering about Christian faith,

Calvin probably wouldn’t agree with my assessment of the evil tumor. For Calvin, the providence of God both sent the tumor and provided the surgeon,

Earlier this summer, I wrote my last letter to a boyhood friend. He was executed 11 days after I mailed it. In his letter to

Walter was one who lived at his own crossroads of shame and grace, light and dark, brokenness and redemption. In Jungian terms, he befriended his

I had never met either of the two Senators from Illinois, or the mayor of Chicago, or even the mayor of my hometown, Cicero, and

Perhaps the rest of the world should not be overly concerned about a few dozen white South Africans who pretend to be fleeing a nonexistent