Month: April 2018

Most of us agree society is adrift. The public square is full of shrill voices demanding our attention. We hear a lot of talk about “freedom” and “equality.” But we never seem to discuss what it means to be a people. Or to reside in a particular place. With a particular history. A place we call home.

In my last post, I questioned the sovereignty of universal claims. Which goes for both the “liberal” and “conservative” variety. And that’s not because they don’t presuppose the good.

For we human beings really do desire the good. We aspire to something more than what is, something better. We’re hardwired that way. Continue reading “Free Falling”

Over the years, I’ve been asked repeatedly to teach a class on other faiths. As religious people, it’s natural to want to know more about what other people believe.

But I always demurred. Why? Not because much can’t be gained, but because the church first needs to know what it believes!

The underlying assumption of these requests, I suspect, is that all religions are the same. Learning about other religions helps us learn what is basic to all. Continue reading “A Victim of Its Own Success”

In a recent phone conversation with my oldest brother, Chris, we got onto the subject of church. Why don’t people seem interested in it? And what might they be looking for?

These are big questions, but I took a stab at it. I cited 9/11 as a case in point. In the weeks following the attacks, I reminded him of the great influx of people into our churches. After a time, of course, they drifted away.

But what brought people, who otherwise had no real use for church (or at least not enough to rouse them out of bed on a Sunday morning), to fill the pews? Continue reading “The Grand “Sez Who?””

You may be wondering what all this history has to do with religion. Well, the Chinese have a saying, or at least I think they do: “If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish.”

Because we swim in today’s cultural waters, we often have little objective sense of what defines that culture, what it stands for, and, more critically, how it came to be.

Which is to say we give little thought as to why we function the way we do. In such a climate, it’s easy to forget that our culture’s values and norms are not necessarily the same as, say, Christianity’s. And that’s the rub. Continue reading “From Buzz Cuts to Man Buns”

It’s no accident that the writers of the hit British TV show, Downton Abbey, a family saga that chronicles the changes brought about by the decline of the British Empire, begins its first episode referencing the sinking of the Titanic, which occurred 106 years ago, on April 15, 1912.

While visiting Prince Edward Island some time back, Linda and I stood on its east coast, the very spot, in fact, where the Titanic’s first distress signal was received. On a cloudy late summer afternoon, I thought about all those helpless souls plunging into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. It gave me chills. Continue reading “From Downton Abbey to Rebel Without a Cause”