• The Lamb that Was Slain (Revelation 5)

    This is the message I shared at Camas Friends on Revelation 5. [Painting by Francisco de Zurbarán — “Agnus Dei”] Fear, Desire for control and Violence are some of the main qualities that tend to show themselves when our lives feel like they are spinning out of control. When we first learned about our daughter’s…

  • Short, Pithy, Deceased

    Jake Bouma asked on twitter the other day: “Friends: Suggestions for short (100-200pgs), pithy books by deceased theologians?” Good question. I’ve been rolling this around a little while. Here are a few that come to mind. There are more of course, and I recognize some of the limitations of this list but these are the…

  • Peace Through Equality: Lucretia Mott, Paul and MLK (Galatians 3:26-29)

    This was the message I gave this morning based on Galatians 3:26-29. First we discussed some of these queries: What do you think the connections between peace and equality are in the passages above? In what ways have I experienced inequality in my own life or around me? What inequalities stir us most? What disturbs…

  • The Resurrection and Quaker Communion

    Awhile back a reader commented on a post I wrote on Open Worship: A new Friend shared with me that she had started reading about the other branches of Quakerism. She concluded with these words. Going to a Quaker Meeting with no unprogrammed worship would be like a Episcopalian going to a Eucharistic without bread…

  • My Very Own False Advisers

    Ryan, my doctoral adviser, sent this to me this morning, and I confess I had a good chuckle over the fact that all three of my PhD committee members are considered false teachers: “It’s common to see the promotion of false teachers from the Emerging Church Movement such as N.T. Wright, John Howard Yoder, Stanley…