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Beginning in earnest with the Enlightenment but gaining speed in the 19^th century, Western culture pretty much decided that God was no longer indispensable. With newfound confidence in the power of reason and science, the idea was that human beings finally could solve life’s most vexing problems.

No longer held back by primitive beliefs and mystical obfuscations, humanity was now in a position to uncover the hidden secrets of the universe previously obscured by the prejudices and ignorance of the past. Continue reading “Utopia”

Attempting to make our world a better place is about as natural for us as springtime follows winter. Yet this was not always so.

Israel’s contribution to religious sensibility is generally thought to be confined to their belief in monotheism (one God) and/or their identification and codification of ethical norms (the Law). Neither, however, was unique to them. Continue reading “Exiled”

Okay, I’ll admit it. As part of a family that’s belonged to the UCC (or what eventually became the UCC) for close to 300 years, I have an ongoing ‘family quarrel’ with it.

By way of explanation, I once watched an interview with a local pastor on community access TV. Something he said really struck me, both for its brevity and its unassuming truth.

“The problem with the mainline church,” he said, “is that it sought to befriend the world and in the process became the world.” Continue reading “Should We Then Do Nothing?”

“Don’t ever take a fence down,” wrote John F. Kennedy, paraphrasing the great Christian apologist (explainer), G.K. Chesterton, “until you know why it was put up.”

The actual quote from Chesterton is this: “In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them…The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to [the fence] and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ Continue reading “Fences”

Some years ago, in a little history book published by the United Church of Christ (UCC), my grandfather, as editor of the German Reformed publication the Messenger, was listed as a leader in the movement to merge that denomination with the German Evangelical Church, a merger that occurred in 1934. It became known as the “E&R” Church.

Three years later, in 1937, the Congregational Church (of the Pilgrims fame) and the Christian Church joined to form the “C&C” Church. Finally, in 1957, the C&C and the E&R combined to form the UCC, the denomination in which I was ordained and served as pastor. It also is the one denomination closest to my ancestral roots. Continue reading “East of Eden”

When I arrived in New Haven I was in no mood for all that “church-y” stuff. I looked at my fellow students and marveled at how they could be so narrowly focused. On Christianity, that is.

I didn’t see myself as bound to just one singular, outward manifestation of religious expression. I had concluded that all religions were blinkered attempts to grasp a greater truth, one that lay hidden at the core of human existence. Continue reading “Original Sin”

I was crossing the street one day at around noon to get some lunch at McDonald’s. I was in my mid-20’s and working a temp job as a “service writer” at a BMW dealership, of all things. In truth I can barely tell the difference between a piston and a gas cap.

In any event, I looked up the hill to see if any cars were coming when suddenly the scene was transfigured. It had spiritual content. On the face of it, this moment was about as mundane as any you might imagine. But in the blink of an eye it became infused with a luminous power. I was stunned, and decided it was God.

Not that I was looking for this sort of thing. If anything, it was just the opposite. Continue reading “New Beginnings”

I arrived in 1951, the third son born in fairly rapid succession (my sister came along three years later).

It was an extraordinary time to begin life in America. The war was over. I mean really over. Not like the many modern-day conflicts that seemingly never end. In WWII, you could mark the end date on the calendar.

In what was in some ways a “holiday from history,” a phrase later used to describe the 90’s, the 50’s and early 60’s were defined by a remarkable optimism. Continue reading “In the Beginning, Part IV”

My parents met in 1946. After college my mother started working as secretary to the head of the psychiatry department at Boston Children’s Hospital, sharing an apartment in the Back Bay with a couple of friends.

My father had just returned from the war. As a “conscientious objector,” he had volunteered for the American Field Service as an ambulance driver. Continue reading “In the Beginning, Part III”

If my mother’s family was sufficiently devoid of religiosity, my father’s side made up for it in spades.

Above is a photograph of the Hamilton Grange Reformed Church (one of the “Collegiate” churches in New York), whose pastorate my grandfather, Paul Leinbach, had just assumed the year my father was born (1913). Apropos, the church was located on property formerly owned by Alexander Hamilton in Harlem, on 149th St. and Convent Ave., to be precise. Continue reading “In the Beginning, Part II”