Last week one of our students, Kristin, reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m leading a Bible study at my church over the summer and they would like to talk about purgatory, do you have any good resources?” I looked, but I didn’t find anything that I liked at first (of course, after looking…

In 1951, a book by an unknown writer hit the shelves of bookstores throughout the United States. That book started off with the line, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my…

If you stop for just a moment and close your eyes, you might find yourself hearing things that you didn’t initially realize were there. Maybe it’s a song bird in the background. Maybe it’s how loud that bass line sounds when you listen to it on those speakers or head phones. Maybe it’s being able…

There’s a great book out there called “I Once  Was Lost” by Don Everts and Doug Schaupp. In this book, the two authors describe different thresholds or stages of spirituality. The book itself is concerned with the movement that a non-Christian experiences as they move closer to becoming a Christian, but I wonder if it…

In just a couple of days, it will be May 1st. Throughout Europe, this day is known as “May Day” and is celebrated as a holiday with traditions like dancing around a maypole (a pole with ribbons attached to it), leaving anonymous baskets of flowers on neighbors’ doorsteps, and lighting “lucky fires” in the evening…

I read an article recently that outlined what the world’s 5 major religions believed about the concept of a soul. It went through Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism and explained how they differed in their concepts of what could be called a “soul” (although even this term is native to Judaism and doesn’t exactly…

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, he wrote this in Chapter 12: “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” But he also writes, just a few verses later, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” This year…

This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, which means that we engage in the usual “2nd Sunday of Easter” Gospel reading, the story of Thomas needing to see Jesus and put his finger into Jesus’ wounds. It illustrates an important point, even a theological point. No, not that one about doubt vs disbelief…

Henry Ossawa Tanner had something in common with Nicodemus: failure. While it doesn’t specifically say so, we get the sense that Nicodemus leaves Jesus’ presence feeling beaten, feeling unsure of himself, feeling like he’s a failure. I mean after all, Jesus just said to him incredulously, “Are you the teacher of Israel and still you…