Category Archives: Christian faith

Christians should Engage in Politics

This continues a discussion of Christian discipleship and politics begun last week via excerpts from a series of lectures entitled “Baptist Polity, Biblical Theology, and Responsible Citizenship” that I delivered as the Solon B. Cousins Lectures at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond March 29-30, 2016.  The full text of the lectures is available under the “Sermons and Lectures” tab on this website. Continue reading Christians should Engage in Politics

Tradition

“…what I in turn had received” (1 Cor 15:3, NRSV)

 

I grew up wanting to believe that I was not much like my Dad, although I was not a very vigorous rebel.  I remember sitting across the table from Dad and thinking, “Boy, are you wrong about that,” without saying a word.  Beginning in my twenties and accelerating in my thirties when I became a father myself, I began to realize, for example, that my Continue reading Tradition

There is a Wildness in God’s Mercy

Job 41:12

The results of the newly released Pew Research Center survey of the influence of religion on the everyday lives of Americans reveals that those who pray daily and worship weekly also participate in extended family life, engage in charitable giving or service, and report that they are “happy” in significantly greater degrees than the “non-religious” segment of Continue reading There is a Wildness in God’s Mercy

An Easter Confession

“Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29 and par.)

Yesterday churches across the world experienced the highest attendance levels that they will experience all year.  Attendance next Sunday, at least in the West, however, will confirm the trends indicated in the surveys about religion and the statistics concerning denominational decline.  For many reasons, some clearly identifiable and others

Continue reading An Easter Confession