Promised justice of God’s reign
I’ve heard arguments over the years that the church should focus solely (souly?) on the spiritual well-being of its members and their..
More Stories from this Author
Where we worship
Late last year my congregation did something different. We put together what we called “Be the Church Sunday,” in which, after prayer..
Why do we go out?
On Mondays each week I volunteer at a 24-hour skilled nursing facility that my congregation helped start for AIDS/HIV patients. Not a..
Covenant of conversation
Earlier this year when I read about — and then read — the “Zionism Unsettled” report on sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,..
Offering Jesus Christ tomorrow and tomorrow
When we look back at World War I 100 years after its start, it’s easy to see that public opinion was wrong..
Continuing history
WASHINGTON D.C. – It was late on a recent Friday afternoon when I slipped into New York Avenue Presbyterian Church here to..
In celebration of the Presbyterian Jackie Robinson
I think of Margaret E. Towner as the Presbyterian Jackie Robinson. In 1956, she broke the gender line to become the first..
Theological education for all
For four straights Sundays, my congregation brought in two excellent seminary professors to talk to us first about why we should care..
Library litany
Like many congregations, mine has a library. It’s near the office on the first floor of the church building and is named..
Sunday school lessons
Late last year, as I was finishing the manuscript for my new book, “Woodstock: A Story of Middle Americans,” which is rooted..
Seeing things clearly
People of faith often use metaphors related to eyesight. We’ve seen the light. We get the gift of new eyes. We see..
Turning our pain toward hope
My memories of the first time I taught a weeklong seminar at Ghost Ranch about getting from pain to hope through writing..
Rethinking the Holocaust
Because I am both an elder in a Presbyterian church and a religion columnist for a daily newspaper, I followed the divestment issue closely. I even wrote a column criticizing the church for its failure to be in constructive dialogue with our Jewish brothers and sisters before the 2004 General Assembly vote.
But the more I work with a rabbi on my current book project, the clearer it is to me why we Presbyterians failed to anticipate Jewish anger at that divestment vote and, thus, why we felt obligated to try a new approach in 2006. I have come to understand that most Christians fail to understand much of anything about our faith's historic relations with Jews -- whether good (of which there is precious little) or bad (of which there is enough to take up gigabytes of chip memory).