How Big Is Your Tent?
I don’t like the label “Christian,” even though I am one. The Christian label is a loaded term. It means many things to different people. To some, Christian implies narrow-minded. To others, Christian means hateful. Still others think Christian refers to a political party or secular movement. And what about mean, militant, murdering, manipulative, and […]
How to Inherit Eternal Life There are many things Jesus didn’t tell us to do to inherit eternal life or become saved. He didn’t say: He didn’t give Four Spiritual Laws, share The Roman’s Road, or recite the ABC’s of Salvation. His answer was easy. His most basic instruction was “follow me.” Then he wants […]
Ecumenical Is a Word Some May Be Unfamiliar With One definition of ecumenical means “relating to the worldwide Christian church.” A broader understanding is “establishing and promoting unity among religions.” More generically, ecumenical simply means “worldwide; universal.” In simple terms, I understand ecumenical to mean unifying. So that means ecumenical guidelines are advice to unify us. […]
From my research for 52 Churches I learned a great deal about the larger faith community I’m part of. This includes having charismatic experiences at some of the churches. Perhaps the most significant so far is courtesy of the United Methodist Church and their document “Guidelines: The United Methodist Church and the Charismatic Movement.” It’s […]
De We Pray in Jesus’s Name or the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? This isn’t a trick question or a pluralistic way to approach the god of your choice. This is a simple question. When you pray to the God who is revealed in the Bible, whose name do invoke at the end? When you […]
The Threefold Art of Experiencing God There is an amazing little booklet, sporting a tongue-twister of a title. It is The Threefold Art of Experiencing God: The Liberating Power of a Trinitarian Faith by Christian A. Schwarz. In a stellar example of “less is more,” this diminutive book carries a profound punch. Facets of Faith […]
When people talked to Jesus, the discussion was often about the same thing, whether broached with the phrase “kingdom of God,” “kingdom of heaven,” “eternal life,” “salvation,” or “saved.” Sometimes the people asked, what must we do? How can we receive it? And Jesus responded. Although his instructions varied with the person and situation, the […]
Christianity Today recently reported that there are 42,000 Protestant denominations. That is shocking. However, given that in the United States we have a consumerism mentality, this development is hardly surprising. Consumerism says that if you don’t like the church you are at, you keep shopping until you find one. If you can’t find one that […]
Where I used to live, a fair number of people attended church. None of them went to the church I attended and, as far as I know, no one else attended the same church as their neighbors. Even more confounding is that there were two churches within a mile, but no one attended them either. […]
The Western World, especially the United States, is largely an individualistic, narcissistic society. In applying this mindset to religious matters, the in thing is to seek spirituality in an individualistic, narcissistic way. We pursue the formation of our religious convictions as if we were at a buffet, a religious buffet. We pick a little bit of […]