‘Love your enemies’ is a phrase as old as the Bible. It is a line we primarily ignore because we don’t know what to do with it – largely because we have no idea what it means. ‘Love’ means to know intimately, and to some degree, respect and value – to have a continuing engagement with...

  I’m hard pressed to think of a more complex anti-hero in scripture. The Bible has its villains: Goliath, Judas, and Pharisees come to mind. But these antagonists are, by and large, two dimensional.  The narrators don’t give us a window into their thoughts and motivations. They’re each...

There was a moment for me when I knew for certain that the cast of Seinfeld weren’t heroes but anti-heroes. It was when Jerry and Elaine were conspiring to become the new people in a separating couple’s life. In the 1996 episode “The Wait Out,” Cary Elwes (from The Princess Bride) and Debra...

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted,...

Richard “Dick” Brogan was a personal friend, and he was one of my heroes. Dick was a white Mississippi Baptist minister who worked tirelessly to build relationships between whites and blacks during segregation and even up until he passed away last year. Not so long ago, Dick was followed, harassed,...

Is it okay for a pastor to wonder if the way we handle the Bible doesn’t make God grind his teeth a bit? I’ve mentioned in other posts that I’m sorting out my spirituality and trying to work some (much) legalistic thinking out of it. Last week I read A Matter of Basic Principles:...

Off came the shoes. First the left, then the right. This prince-turned-shepherd had never seen a burning bush before, and when the Voice inside the bush said to remove his shoes, he didn’t argue. But his don’t-argue-with-the-Voice policy didn’t last long. As soon as the Voice began dictating...

Have you ever known anyone imprisoned by a cell of their own making? Perhaps we all do it to some degree, but some do it to the extent that their lives are an ever-shrinking, imploding world of self-absorption.  Indignation can be addictive, and some seem to have been seduced by it entirely. I know...

Faith and art… Shouldn’t this suck?   It is probably safe to say that most films that will open nationwide on April 13 did not crowd source their funding. Blue Like Jazz did. The film, based on the NY Times bestselling collection of essays on Christian Spirituality (seriously), lost...

Back in the day, when God wanted to separate King David from his personal darkness, he sent a prophet to entrap him. The prophet told David about a rich man who killed poor man to gain his sheep. This, naturally, got the king’s ire and he demanded justice. The hook was set, so the prophet told David...