Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year 3, NL)

Perhaps the neither/nor of Galatians 3 isn’t really about moving beyond specific identities.

Galatians 3 does not sound like something that could be constrained by pragmatism elsewhere.

Christmas can’t come soon enough for Tom.

There have been many Zionisms over the years. Only one has imagined an eventual end of Judaism.

The next Reformation is about interpretation, but not of a book.

Luke's Gospel gives us some wondrous glimpses into the life of John the Baptist. We have the compelling story of how his father, Zechariah, heard he'd soon be a daddy, disbelieved that revelation, and spent the entire pregnancy unable to speak.

But when he is finally able to speak, he speaks!

A preacher's nightmare is to be in front of an eager congregation and realize your notes are missing. No wonder one of my favorite Bible stories is about a clergyperson who's rendered speechless.

I loved writing Wearing God in part because it allowed me to rove around archives from more or less every century of the Christian past. The biblical images for God that most (American?) churches today largely ignore were decidedly not ignored in earlier eras.

Like many baptized, praying Christians her age, my daughter is not a regular churchgoer. What difference does it make?

No conservative I know has seriously argued that same-sex couples need sanctification any less than opposite-sex couples do.

For the healing we need, we cannot do better than to rely on the ancient assurances of Zechariah's hymn. Written in a time of occupation and economic disarray that eclipses our own in its uncertainty, the hymn proclaims that we are indeed free, whatever our brokenness, to worship God without fear.

To the Ephesians and Philippians, to the Galatians and anyone who would listen, Paul’s message was the same.

People who introduce themselves as bearing a message from God do not commend themselves to us easily. If we do turn an ear to them out of curiosity, or perhaps out of an amused and sometimes horrified fascination, they tend to wear out their welcome quickly. We have learned only too well that such self-styled messengers of God can carry out deeds of unimaginable ferocity in the name of their particular vision of God.