When pastors retire after a lifetime of service to the church, they often preach a last sermon unfettered by concerns for continued employment. It is the sermon “they always wanted to preach” but were afraid to, lest some big contributor take her money and leave the building. Clergy are, by and large, not a particularly courageous lot.
Even before our children were born, my wife, Rïse, and I, like many a parent, sang and read to our children. Later, nestled between us in bed and then resting upon our laps, they listened intently as we read about rabbits, moons, gardens, fingers, toes and smiles. Bit by bit, these little beings began to imitate us, holding the book precariously in tiny hands; looking first at the pages and next at the words as if reading, and eventually, eagerly, albeit clumsily, turning the book’s leaf. And then one day it happened, as if by magic – they themselves were reading. They had taught themselves to learn how to read. Such pride in their newly discovered competence. And the truly magic sojourn into the land of truth had begun in earnest. They were experiencing the exhilarating freedom of moving beyond the two-dimensional landscape of imitation into the endless world of exploration, made possible by following the Spirit’s invitation to learn how to learn. Imitation is a fine and necessary beginning, but as an ending it is claustrophobic, and stultifying as death.
“If God can no longer be thought of in theistic terms, then conceiving of Jesus as ‘the incarnation of the theistic deity’ has also become a bankrupt concept.”
Today, I conclude the discussion of the first of my twelve theses posted on the internet in my hope to “Chart a New Reformation.” I began with the crucial …
The laws by which the world operates have not changed since the dawn of time, but the way human beings explain and understand those laws has changed dramatically over …
“Time makes ancient good uncouth.” The poet, James Russell Lowell, who wrote these words, understood the difference between an experience and the way that experience is explained. So important …
On October 31, 1517, so the story goes, a solitary monk named Martin Luther approached the great doors of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on which he planned to post …
Dear Moderator Cantwell,
I write with some alarm at what is happening in the United Church of Canada, a church that I have long admired. I recall your history. …
“Resurrection-Denying Preacher to Return to Scotland.” That was the headline of a story published in the Glasgow Herald about a week before I was scheduled to lecture in the …
“Ideas Have Consequences.” That was the title of a book that I was required to read early in my theological education. It was not a profound book, but its …