Farmers in the Midwest used to run a rope from their house to the barn when a blizzard was coming, knowing that in a whiteout they might not find their way back to the house.  Parker Palmer refers to the “blizzard of the world” that can separates us from our souls.   What we need…

What do you think of Pope Francis?  I view the Pope as a humble, compassionate man, desirous of making us aware of the need for dialogue in a day when, as Harold Smith at Christianity Today put it, “the tone of our rhetoric, across most media and even behind some closed church doors, is more…

One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, who has since passed away, offered these two observations about the love of God that have stuck with me. The first, “God loves you as you are, not as you should be” and the second, “It takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly and compassionate…

I am sure you are wondering what “zer” and “hir” mean.  Well, Harvard University’s arts and science college are giving students the chance to indicate whether they prefer to use the traditional pronouns “he” and “she” or alternatives including “zer, “hir,” or variants of “they.”  “If faculty or advisers are inadvertently outing someone by using…

“To ask a man to become relationally aware, without being first of all secure in his maleness, is to ask a man to be less than a man.  It is in some ways asking a man to act like a woman without first knowing what it is like to be a man.  A man must…

We read in Isaiah 57:15, “The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One says this: I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.”  God, the Holy…

In the late 80’s many of you remember Bono of U2 singing with passion, “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” He called it, “a gospel song for the restless spirit.”  Back then I was in my late 40’s, going through a significant spiritual shift in my soul  life.  It was both renewing…

I have recently been reading a New Testament translation by a leading New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright.  I Cor. 4:15 reads as follows, “You’ve got a thousand babysitters in Christ, I know, but you haven’t got many fathers – because I became your father in the Messiah, Jesus, through the gospel.”  When I read those…

Randy Stinson, executive director of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has observed, “The current feminization of Christianity reflects a larger trend in pop culture where women are pushed to be more masculine and men are pushed to be more feminine.”  He lamented that men are being  marginalized,  becoming passive,while being pushed to the…

As biblical Christians we are being told that we have lost the “cultural war.”  This will continue to be debated for some time. One certainty, however, is that we will see more “wounded warriors” in the days to come. As good soldiers, following Jesus, we will suffer.  “Join with me in suffering, like a good…