Month: October 2019

I was settling into the pew with apprehension. The guest preacher for the day was someone who a few years back had indignantly critiqued an ecumenical service my colleagues and I had held after the shooting of five police officers in Dallas, a service intended to honor their sacrifice and mourn their tragic deaths.

The preacher and his wife, both vocal supporters of the civil rights movement, complained that the service failed to account for the problem blacks have with law enforcement. This was, be it noted, at the height of the Black Lives Matter controversy.

That this issue was unrelated to the purpose of the service was, apparently, beside the point.

Continue reading “Glory Days Redux”

T.S. Eliot famously made the point, though he was hardly the first. One could go back to the New Testament reference to the “body of Christ,” Paul’s metaphor for the church.

Like the human body, the church has a head, hands, and all the other varied parts that together enable it to function as it should. There are those called to preach, some to evangelize, others to care for the poor and needy, and still others tasked with whatever the community requires, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

No one role is considered more important than another. Each must work together for the church to succeed in its godly mission. The sum, in other words, is greater than its constituent parts.

Everyone must accept his or her role. If the hand tries to be the head, problems arise. God has assigned to each of us specific gifts at birth. Using them to accord with God’s will is perhaps life’s greatest undertaking.

Continue reading “Luxury Beliefs”