In Mark 13, Jesus teaches his disciples about the calamities and catastrophes that will characterize life in the present age. He gives them practical counsel for dealing with disaster, and this passage provides us with wisdom for responding to a pandemic. First, some context. In Mark 11:1-11, Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple, examined it, and […]

In a previous post, I wrote about the evangelical quest for control and how that shapes both evangelicalism as a culture and evangelicals as individuals. What might it look like to give up control? How does Scripture indicate the kinds of lives we should lead as individuals and as corporate cultures—as churches? One place to […]

My education began a few decades ago. I have three healthy and happy children who are grown, but my hands held five babies that did not live. During pregnancies about which I had no illusions, I was told that everything would work out, that I could trust the Lord, and that God was in control. […]

I claimed that “God is in control” is a problematic expression and that it is not a faithful representation of how Scripture portrays God as sovereign king over his world (Part 1 & Part 2). I hope to draw this out by considering a range of biblical texts, and I begin here with Genesis 1-2. […]

Many of my reflections lately have a common thread. They stem from a larger project of trying to understand why my inherited evangelical culture sees the world as it does, behaves as it does, fosters the sort of lives that it does, and thinks about God as it does. I have come to see that […]

Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” has been running through my head the last few years. It comes to mind when I ponder discussions of politics, and I’ve thought of it when reflecting on God in the midst of this pandemic. The hymn celebrates God as “a mighty fortress,” “a bulwark never […]

I delivered this homily at Midtown Christian Community for Palm Sunday, 2008. Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant […]

I claimed in a previous post that the expression, “God is in control,” is not a faithful representation of how Scripture portrays God’s sovereign kingship and his relation to the world. This expression is problematic because of how it affects Christian imaginations, especially anxious ones. It activates Christian imaginations to consider responding to suffering in […]

I have been grieving for a bit over five years. A friend suffered a loss and I feared something similar might happen to me. Anxiety gripped me and I had to understand it. On long walks I faced my fears and examined them. I excavated and dug to the bottom, and found I was afraid […]

This is why I make critical observations about my inherited culture, and why I critically examine how it fosters confused identities. Over the last eight years I wrote a commentary on Mark’s Gospel. It is now with the publisher and I am very excited to see it released at some point. The commentary format called […]