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I’ve been away from blogging for several months now. Did anybody notice? Well, perhaps you did since you happen to be reading this now.

In any event, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of our nation and the church’s relationship to it. The histories of both are, of course, inextricably intertwined.

As contemporary culture struggles clumsily to make sense of our world, the mainline churches continue daily to prove their astonishing and ever-burgeoning irrelevancy.

This same Protestant church, which for most of our history was integral in forming and defining us as a people, both personally and corporately, has now all but lost touch with its roots and the people it once served. What once bound and informed a great nation now flails and founders, ineptly and inconsequentially. Continue reading “Running on Empty”

[With increasing civil unrest, yet again, this edited sermon from August 2017 seems fitting:]

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” (Romans 11:32)

Years ago I heard a story that probably isn’t true, but should be.

Supposedly there was a planned KKK rally in 1974 on the Boston Common in response to the court mandated desegregation of the Boston public school system by means of forced busing. Continue reading “Radical Chic”

 

In 1994, five years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, I traveled to Hungary, Poland, and the newly formed Czech Republic. Then, life in these countries was at a crossroads, with all the attendant contradictions born of any emerging society.

In one of Prague’s quirkily futuristic subway stations, for example, I saw a massive and altogether bizarre wall mosaic, a cultural icon just dripping with Cold War sensibilities.

Built by the Soviets who, for reasons not entirely clear, knew how to build clean, efficient subways (in contradistinction to the rest of their architectural efforts), the mosaic celebrated the idealized workers’ paradise, complete with heroic farmers and industrial workers linked arm-in-arm. Continue reading “An Innocent Abroad”

[This is an edited sermon originally preached in September 2014.]

A few years ago, while visiting a church here on the Cape, I heard a sermon with which I mostly disagreed, yet I was impressed with the thoughtful and effective way it was presented.

The message had to do with the anniversary of 9/11 and what the Christian response to it should be. The preacher argued, in effect, for a pacifist position, even going so far as to say that the U.S. decision to go to war in its aftermath was based solely on the desire for vengeance and retribution.

Now I would be the last person to deny that human motivations are rarely if ever pure, or that the sinful desire for revenge was entirely absent in the days following 9/11. I’m not even saying that the decision to go to war was the right one. In that I believe reasonable and faithful people can disagree. Nevertheless, there was one important word that I found missing in that sermon: justice. Continue reading “War and Peace”

While growing up, and on several counts, I found my parents’ way of doing things impossibly annoying. Perhaps especially, I, along with my three siblings, objected to the Sunday afternoon Bible sessions.

Every week, that is, we’d have our big meal at noon, right after church. It was always spaghetti with homemade meat sauce from the local deli. It’s the best sauce I’ve ever had. So we always looked forward to it.

It’s what happened afterward that generated our collective ire. While we were still at table, now staring at our empty plates and longing to be anywhere else, my father would begin the non-optional Bible reading. Each of us would be forced to read aloud various passages. Continue reading “Two Kinds of Community”

There are, as I’ve said, two major problems with contemporary American culture, both of which the church, if it were smart, would key in on. One is the absence of deeper meaning in our culture. The shallow explanations offered by our secular world regarding the serious issues of life surely fail to convince or assure.

But another big issue is community. We seem starved for a genuine version of it, rather than the pale abstractions that define our nondescript, theoretical, modernist sense of community today.

With the advent of the large administrative state, citizens have been freed from the responsibilities that ought to go with the freedoms our culture provides. Viktor Frankl, the famed holocaust survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist, and author even suggested that we erect a “Statue of Responsibility” on the West Coast as a corollary (and antidote) to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Continue reading “Sharks and Community”

During my senior year in high school, in 6^th period English class to be precise, I was assigned a seat next to a guy I’d barely known. He didn’t appear to be interested in the class and was a bit of a cutup, to tell the truth. Yet he was a very funny and interesting guy. I liked him.

Of course, we both went off to college and I never gave him a second thought. Until, that is, he authored a book in the late 70s entitled, A Walk Across America. It became a bestseller.

Turns out, Peter (Jenkins) had grown disenchanted with his life and future, so decided to walk from New York to Oregon – just because. During his journey he found Jesus. Continue reading “Elitism and Community”

My mother was a lovely woman, but she was no theologian. As a case in point, she often would say, “All religions can be reduced to love. It’s all about love.”

Now I’ll admit, it’s hard to argue against love. But there are all kinds of love. In fact, some of the worst acts in history have been committed in the name of love. As with most things, then, the devil is in the details.

At the risk of sounding like a heartless curmudgeon (though I was genuinely happy for the couple and pray they prosper), I found the sermon during the royal wedding this past Saturday to be decidedly wanting. This, despite the fact that everybody seems to be going gaga over it. Continue reading “On to the Omega Point”

The local paper a few years back published an article by a retired pastor who made a startling point. At least I thought it was startling. Which is ironic, since one would have assumed his argument to be altogether obvious.

He began by citing statistics of declining church attendance, then offered this curious explanation: people don’t actually know what the gospel says or what the church stands for. That’s because, these days, Christian doctrine is rarely explained much less discussed, even in our churches.

What one finds instead is a glossing-over of the difficult parts of biblical and doctrinal claims. Pastors either avoid the subject or re-interpret it. Continue reading “A Royal Priesthood”

This past Monday was the anniversary of the official end of the Vietnam War – April 30, 1975. It is a day that, for Americans, should shame us. For the residents of South Vietnam, however, it will always be a day of unfathomable sorrows.

Of course, as we all know, Vietnam was a watershed moment in the United States. Endless debates continue to this day as to whether the war was ever justified. While some feel it was a necessary effort to prevent the spread of communism (the Domino Theory), others feel it was a senseless war we never should have gotten into.

Regardless, we entered the war. And then we left. Continue reading “An Ignominious Anniversary”