A Fresh Perspective

William Sloane Coffin, a few years before his death, wrote a wonderful book titled, Letters to a Young Doubter . At the beginning of the correspondence he asks his young friend a probing question, “Who tells you who you are?” As Chaplain at Yale for a number of years, he knew full well the power of higher education to tell students who they are.  There are powerful forces in our culture that impact and shape who we think we are. The Christian answer that I was given as a young person is that we are all sinners. Certainly that is true. I know that I am flawed and fail regularly to live up to the best ideals of humanity, or even my own best ideals. All of us are a mass of contradictions. But is that the first and foremost thing about us?  This is not what compassionate parents teach their children. Not at first. We tell them how special they are, how much they are loved and cared for, and what possibilities they have.  I find it interesting in Paul’s letter to ...

I had not thought much about the wave of Tea Party members that swept into Congress until the recent debate over the deficit and the debt ceiling. The one thing that became crystal clear is that they share no concern for or feel any obligation to the most vulnerable in our country—the poor and marginalized.   Jesus, of course, defined his mission and ministry with particular focus on the most vulnerable. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . . to bring good news to the poor . . . to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18–19).  So my question is: How can one support the Tea Party agenda and be a Christian? I have no way of knowing, but I suspect a great many Christians voted to elect them to office. How is that possible?  My feeling is that many Christians have no real idea what Jesus’ mission and ministry was actually about. Jesus’ focus was on the kingdom of God (God’s new world of peace, equality, and reconciliation) coming into this world (“...

Paradoxically, my shadow side found the recent debacle in Washington entertaining, but my spiritual side found it deeply disturbing. What many have called dysfunctional government, in my opinion, is indicative of dysfunctional religion, particularly dysfunctional Christianity. Let me explain. The debate exposed a couple of extremely disconcerting realities. The wealthiest Americans pay less taxes by percentage than the rest of Americans who earn much less, and huge corporations that have made millions, even billions in profits, like oil companies, pay even less. This is not a debatable observation; it is simply the way it is. Second, the spending cuts that will be enacted will hardly impact the wealthiest Americans at all. These cuts will, however, undoubtedly take away programs and resources that aid people who are struggling to survive. This will leave them more vulnerable to the diminishing forces of life and make the possibility for a flourishing life a wishful dream with minim...

How would you chart the movement and direction of your spiritual life? How would you describe your spiritual maturity or immaturity? The criteria that so many Western Christians use for spiritual measurement and evaluation, I believe, are non-issues with God. Many Christians in the West measure their level of spiritual maturity by looking at two components: All the religious, church-related activities they are engaged in, or the beliefs they have adopted. Neither component concerns God all that much. Beliefs are important to the extent that they determine attitudes and lifestyle. Spiritually healthy beliefs are important for a healthy, transformative spirituality, but in- and-of themselves beliefs are not the measurement of spirituality. Religious activities can be a mixed bag. They can be instrumental and vital in nurturing spiritual growth, or they can be stifling and spiritually diminishing. The prophets railed against the people of God and their religious leaders when they be...

Three times in the book of Acts, Paul’s experience of his encounter with the living Christ is told. In Acts 9, Luke reports the story. In Acts 22, Luke has Paul recount his experience to an unruly temple crowd. And in Acts 26, Paul retells his experience to Festus and King Agrippa. Paul’s own brief account of his encounter with Christ is found in Galatians 1:13–17. Paul explains this experience as a revelation— “God was pleased . . . to reveal his Son to me”—and as a calling through grace “to proclaim Christ among the Gentiles.” Paul says that after this encounter he did not “confer with any human being,” nor did he go up to Jerusalem to get the endorsement of the Twelve (“those who were already apostles before me”), but went, at once, to Arabia, and then afterward to Damascus where he began proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah. We don’t know how long he stayed in solitude in Arabia, where he was apparently sorting things out. Paul underwent a major transformation as a result of ...

In a recent interview by Kim Lawton of PBS Religion and Ethics , author and columnist Lisa Miller, Pastor Rob Bell, author of Love Wins , and Mary Vanden Berg, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, raise some important issues about where Rob Bell stands in relation to evangelical Christianity. Miller notes that what upset people most about Rob Bell was that he calls himself a conservative evangelical Christian. If he called himself an Episcopalian, she observes, nobody would have batted an eye. Miller, of course, is right. This is what sent Bell’s book, Love Wins , ringing throughout the land (pun intended). As Miller comments, Bell’s position on heaven, hell, and the possible salvation of every person, “is a radical upheaval of that entire worldview.” This is why popular conservative pastor, John Piper, tweeted, “So long Bell,” when he first heard of Bell’s position (even before he read the book). He was talking about Bell’s departure from t...

It takes spiritual eyes to read the Bible in a healthy, transformative way. The Bible can be (and has been) employed as an instrument of oppression and evil, as well as an instrument of change and transformation. All Christians who debate public and faith issues among each other or in a public forum use Scripture to support their arguments. Whether the issues relate to sexual orientation, women pastors or deacons, the role of government, the right to wage war, the role of the military, divorce, the nature of Jesus, or the nature of judgment and salvation, Scripture is quoted and interpreted by all Christians engaged in the debate. The critical question concerns how we use Scripture, how we interpret the Bible, what framework and guiding principles we use to make sense of Scripture and apply it to our lives and communities. Some years ago, I, along with three other pastors, tried to change the policy regarding women’s participation in an Eastern Kentucky Baptist Association of the Sou...