A Fresh Perspective

Dr. Diana Butler Bass is a church historian and a keen analyst of present day Christianity and culture. She has written a number of books, several of which I have found quite helpful. She recently wrote a piece that appeared on the CNN opinion page, part in response to recent events and part as an analysis of where Christianity is today in our country. The piece was titled, “The of God of Love had a really bad week.” She began the piece by noting the crowd chant, “Send them back,” at a recent political rally. She discusses how the deep divisions that are tearing our country apart right now are being felt and played out in churches all across the country. She talks about this in the context of her own family and shares that she has not spoken to her brother since the incident at Charlottesville where a white nationalist ran his car through the crowd killing one and injuring 19 others. After that incident she and her brother had argued about white nationalism and racism, and haven’t t...

One of the frequent misused teachings of Jesus involves his instruction to ask, seek, and knock (Luke 11:9–13). There are Christians who treat this as something magical like a genie in a bottle or mechanistic like putting money in a vending machine. They think that if they say the right words, or use the right formula, or if they believe with all their hearts then the answer will be granted. The section on prayer in Luke’s Gospel where this teaching is found begins with the disciples asking Jesus how to pray. Jesus starts with the model prayer: When you pray, say . . . (11:1–4). This model prayer orients and frames the rest of his teaching on prayer. This is a prayer that teaches us how to be in relationship with God, how to be God’s friends and partners in doing God’s will. When we pray this prayer we are learning how to work with God for the common good. We are learning how to participate in the realization of God’s rule of peace — justice for the poor, liberation for the op...