ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 29, 2024Another storm! I hope this Etching finds you doing well, hopefully with power. Yesterday, as the storm came through, we lost power at the church. It was off for about an hour, so as I checked to see if we had any leaks and kept an eye on one of the trees on the church property, what I had planned for that hour was pushed
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 28, 2024A friend and colleague, Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn, recently posted a quote from Walter Wink: “The dominant Religion on the planet is not Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Judaism but the pervasive faith in violence.” Dr. Wink was a Biblical scholar and theologian, often challenging commonly held beliefs about Jesus, faith, and the social order in which we live. He died more than a decade ago, though
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 27, 2024Prayer for the Week: (thinking about the five young people baptized yesterday at CCCC)Young people cocooned in the waters of baptism.There is joy—unspeakable joy.The beginning of a journey by which they embrace their unique goodness.There is joy—unspeakable joy.A church that welcomes those who have risen from the waters.A church that seeks to celebrate the unique gifts of every child.There is joy—unspeakable joy.O God of water
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 26, 2024Forgiveness is something that most all of us, on some level, struggle with. It is complicated with passages like the one we find in the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 6, where we find Jesus saying to the crowd: If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins. I
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 25, 2024On this day in 1925, John Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution in a public school. Most of us remember from history some of what occurred during the Scopes Trial and the names of the major players. A fault line between Christian fundamentalism and a more progressive approach to scripture had been intensifying for nearly fifty years. The breaking point was the Butler Act, a
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 24, 2024I am hoping that most of you, if not all of you, received the news about Rev. Mariah Newell accepting a call to serve as Minister to Children and Families at University Christian Church in Fort Worth. It is the church on the campus of TCU and one of the great churches in our denomination. We all know that they will be immensely blessed to
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 23, 2024Since graduate school, I have found myself having an ongoing debate with Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 – 1971). He was a theologian and ethicist at Union Seminary in New York who challenged a lot of the naive theologies that allowed Nazi Germany and fascism to go unchallenged. Niebuhr was a realist, and though he believed in the ideal of love (agape), he concluded that human beings
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 22, 2024I have debated whether or not to engage the conversation around the commencement speech by the Kansas City Chief’s kicker, Harrison Butker. I have watched the speech and have read the transcript twice. Let me begin by saying that, agree or disagree, I hold pretty strongly to the First Amendment, making space for people to express their opinion. There are always limits, though that line
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 20, 2024Prayer for the Week:We seek to entrust all the endings and the new beginnings to you, O Merciful God. We hear the words of scripture that speak of how for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, yet so often we are not ready to let go of one season, and we have no desire to think of that
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 19, 2024This has been a tough week for many people—the storm, power-outages, a family member having an unexpected surgery, busyness around graduations, a pending move, saying goodbye to a beloved furry and four-legged family member, having a dishwasher go on the fritz, battling the health insurance company, or watching the news with disbelief and heartache. Your list might not have included any of these, but life