Somewhere along the line, we learned to stop asking questions we couldn’t answer. For example, when’s the last time you asked: Where does a butterfly go when it rains? When I was little, I loved to be read a children’s book by May Garelick that asked this question. It told where various animals go when it rains: snakes slither between the rocks and cats hide under the porch. But how about the butterfly? The best thing about that book was that it left the question open. That meant that when my mom or dad closed the cover after the last page, my favorite part was yet to come: the time of speculating together. “Where do you think the butterfly goes, Mommy?” I would ask. And they would reply with a sense of wonder, inviting me to join in imagining by saying: “Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe… under a leaf?” Theologians commonly advise against asking speculative questions for at least a couple of reasons. First, because such questions can distract us from contemplating what we do know … [Read more...]
Who is God, really? God is a (somewhat) knowable mystery
A wondrous mystery One of my favorite theological quotes comes from Saint Augustine who insists that “if we have understood, what we have understood is not God.” Augustine wants us to approach all of our God-talk with the awareness that we are finite and God is infinite — that whatever we know about God is a drop in the ocean compared to who God actually is. “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” declares Anselm of Canterbury. God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,” writes the author of Ephesians (Ephesians 3:20). It might be tempting, once we realize God can’t be exhaustively known, to give up trying to answer, “Who is God, really?” Perhaps we should, instead, throw up our hands and cry: “I don’t know! It’s a mystery!” But if we respond in this way, we risk being as closed off to the capaciousness of God as the stereotypical know-it-alls we don’t want to become. I once tried responding “I don’t know” to a friend who … [Read more...]
All that God has
When I was a kid and asked my dad for money, he would reach into his pocket before I could even finish asking. He’d pull out a handful of crumpled bills, separating out a linty tube of Rolaids, a half-empty, bright orange packet of Sanka, a carefully-folded cloth handkerchief and often a paper napkin on which he had scribbled his next great idea. “Here,” he’d say, handing me whatever he had. “Is that enough?” I remember, when I was a teenager, getting angry at my parents because I found out the other smart kids were using something called a thesaurus when they did their English homework, and I didn’t even know what a thesaurus was. My dad’s response was to put me in the car, take me to the bookstore in the South Shore mall (we lived on Long Island) and buy me the fattest thesaurus we could find. “Just tell me what you need,” he told me. “Tell me, and we’ll get it.” And I remember, when I was working in a church as a seminary student, opening a card from Mildred. It contained a … [Read more...]
Making change
A few months ago I flew to Oklahoma City to keynote at a conference about 90 miles outside of the city. I rented a car at the airport, refusing to pay extra for an “E-ZPass.” I impatiently told the rental clerk, “I’ll just pay the tolls.” I started driving in pattering rain that steadily increased to a downpour. It wasn’t windy, but boy — was it ever wet! I approached the first toll and chose the lane marked “cash only.” But as I drove up, I noticed there wasn’t anyone in the tollbooth. There was, however, a big sign that read: “Cars: $1.50. Quarters only.” Are you kidding me? Quarters only? Who just happens to have six quarters on them these days? And then I saw my salvation: A change machine sat just before the plastic tollbooth basket. I stopped at the machine. With a line of cars already forming behind me, I tried to insert a dollar bill. But I couldn’t get it to thread into the machine before it wilted from the rain. I got out of the car, sheltering a fresh, dry dollar bill … [Read more...]
The value of “friendly”
I made a passing remark during a class about Karl Barth meeting with Billy Graham. My students were all over it. “Karl Barth met Billy Graham? You just blew my mind,” one student said. “I think I assumed they were from different planets or something,” said someone else. And then they all looked at me as though something had shifted. As though something about our lives would be better if Karl Barth and Billy Graham had hit it off. “Did they get along at all?” someone ventured. It’s interesting that we might assume they wouldn’t. Or maybe I should say indicative. Indicative of how polarized we have become in our thinking and outlook. Notably, the American media of the late 1950s and early 1960s seemed to begin with the assumption that there were important similarities between Barth and Graham, representing their differences in the context of what they had in common. In 1956, for example, Christianity Today reported: “Karl Barth and Billy Graham are both rescuing the Bible from … [Read more...]
Grace, mystery, beauty and freedom: Four takeaways of Reformed theology
The thing about Reformed theology is that it is not really aiming to be “Reformed.” It is aiming to be Christian. It is trying to articulate, in the best way it can, the character of our relationship to God. It takes the Bible seriously, looking through it as though it were eyeglasses to help us see where and how God is present in the world. It learns from and dialogues with our forebears in the faith, by way of the creeds and confessions of the church. It is centered in Jesus Christ, who reveals the love of God and calls us to partnership in God’s work. It relies on the Holy Spirit to form us and guide us in the way we should go. And it looks to God’s laws to imagine what God desires and how God has promised it will come to fruition. Much of what I have said in the above paragraph is true for every major Christian tradition, not exclusively for Reformed theology. Is there anything distinctive about being Reformed? Why should congregations bother to study and learn about it? What … [Read more...]
Tweet With Us
Be A Facebook Fan
Our World in Photos
Pin With Us