A Fresh Perspective

In her book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott tells of her conversion to Christianity. After a number of years of self-destructive behavior and spiritually wandering about, she found herself attending a small Presbyterian church. She says, “I went back to St. Andrew about once a month. No one tried to con me into sitting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved singing, even about Jesus, but I didn’t want to be preached at about him.” Her life at the time was a mess. Her dearest friend was dying of cancer. She was despondent following an abortion. She was addicted to alcohol and spent a number of days in a drugged and alcoholic stupor. And she was in the midst of a deep depression. It can’t get much lower than that. Nevertheless, she felt a presence. She says it was like a cat eyeing her, “I felt him sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that did...

I feel rather certain that the father in this story is intended to be an image of God. Of course, the point of emphasis has to do with the attitude and actions of the father, not the maleness of the father. God is not male or female. God is not a person the way we are persons though God is able to relate to each of us personally. God is Spirit. Gender is irrelevant. The question is: As God’s sons and daughters how are we called to be like God, whether we use a father image or a mother image or some other image? And that question, unlike many questions that we ask about God, has an answer that is really pretty simple: the most important way we are called to be like God is in the way we love others. We can become more like God in the way we love, first, by becoming more inclusive in our acceptance and compassion for others. Bibles that list headings before segments and units of text generally call this section the parable of the prodigal son. Unfortunately, that sometimes influences...

When Jesus said that loving God and loving neighbor constitute the essence of God’s will, he clearly tied together the relationships we have with one another with our relationship to God. These two areas of relationship – with God and with each other – are so interlaced, so intricately woven together they cannot be separated. Of course, there are many folks who are not aware of this connection, but for those of us who are how we think about, imagine, and relate to God has a huge impact on how we relate to others.     Our passage in Luke 13 begins by pointing out that bad things happen all the time which God does not cause to happen. God is not poised over a zap button waiting for us to mess up. And yet Jesus warns, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as the unfortunate folks who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time due to no fault of their own.” Before I talk about what that means, first I want to say something about what it doesn’t mean. There...

Sarah Pulliam Baily of the Religion News Service recently reported that six Christian leaders, including Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, have created a new coalition called "Imago Dei," Latin for “image of God,” to encourage people to treat one another with respect. Samuel Rodrigues, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who is leading the cause declared, “I want Christians to not be known for what we oppose but for what we propose.” The campaign declares: “For the image of God exists in all human beings: black and white, rich and poor, straight and gay, conservative and liberal; victim and perpetrator; citizen and undocumented; believer and unbeliever.” Let’s hope the leaders of this campaign and those who join them will actually live out the commitments such a theology demands.   The clear implication of this declaration is that we are all God’s children, the divine DNA resides in all of us, we all have the Spirit, we all b...