The Theological

A collection of 72 posts

The Theological

Becoming Co-Workers With The Truth

When George Fox was initially on his spiritual quest to understand the true nature of faith and Christianity, he was living in the midst of full-on Christendom, that is state-sponsored Christianity or Christianity twisted to become comfortable acting as “the religion of empire.” Fox, and then Margaret Fell, among the

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The Original Nursery of Truth – Part 1

This is the first of a three-part post on whether or not Quakers can be “Publishers of Truth” today. In this series I want to talk about how I think early Quakers understood what it meant to be “publishers of truth” in earlier years (Part 1), just a couple challenges

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Catholic Women as Priests

Yesterday, the New York Times posted a slideshow from Judith Levitt of Catholic women who are priests. This might come as a surprise to some of you, but there is a growing resistance movement among Catholics who have been able to find loopholes in their own bi-laws and begin ordaining

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On Parables: Give It To Me Slant

One of my favorite things about Jesus are his parables. Those of us who have grown up in, or at least around the church, know them well. The Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, The Workers in the Vineyard, the Mustard Seed, the Wedding Banquet, the Sheep and

The Theological

‘even the thorn-bush by the wayside is aflame with the glory of God’ (Prayer)

Here is a prayer out of the Walter Rauschenbusch book of prayers “For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening.” I believe at least the middle paragraph can be attributed to St. Basil. O God, we thank Thee for this universe, our great home; for its vastness and

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Which Direction Are We Headed?

I love traveling, I always have. One thing I have learned is that the type of journey and its destination determine what you’ll pack in your bags. If I am going on a backpacking trip in the Alleghenies (PA) and I’ll be out for 10 days, I will

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Fall and Winter in the Life of the Spirit

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” – Jesus (John 10:10 NRSV)I love Fall. It is a beautiful transition time from summer to winter. From a time of abundance to a time of rest, where

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Seeing Beyond What We See

At Camas Friends we are thinking about advent season and how it is connected to our sense of sight this year. Here’s something short I’ve written about it: This advent season we are invited to see the movements of grace all around us. The Christian tradition has for

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If You Can’t Go Over It, then…

One of L’s favorite books, and if we’re being completely honest mine as well, is “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt.” It’s a great adventure story that begs to be interacted with, the pitter-patter of hands on your legs for running, the squishy sounds for mud,

The Theological

Joan Baez – Virgin Mary (Had One Son)

Re-Watching some of the “No Direction Home” documentary this evening on Bob Dylan and was reminded of this haunting video by Joan Baez. I absolutely love it. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOAAHlYMKYc?fs=1&hl=en_US&w=574&h=456] YouTube – Joan Baez

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All We Grow (Jeremiah 2:4-13)

This is the message I gave on Sunday. Opening_ What are we growing? There’s a new album that recently came out titled “All We Grow,” by S. Carey. While I actually really like the music on the album, I found the title to be compelling enough. The first time

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The Testimony of Witness

This is my sermon from Sunday. If you’d like a little background to this, you can check out yesterday’s post “In Search of a New Frame for Evangelism and Mission.” This is my attempt at an initial response to the questions I raised there. Opening Queries For Discussion:

Church in Mission

In Search of a New Framework for Evangelism and Mission

One of the things I have become fascinated with over the course of the last decade falls  broadly under the umbrella known as missiology, or the study of Christian missions. I like many of you have a history with big ‘E’ Evangelicalism where mission is generally understood as “winning souls

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Those It Is Acceptable to Hate

This summer some of us from our church meet every other week to discuss a query dealing with some issue related to things happening around the world. A few weeks back we talked about a query dealing with the oil spill and how it is or is not affecting us,

The Cultural

There is No Pure Christianity

A long while back a friend of mine wrote on his twitter this remark: There is no pure Christianity, it is all syncretist. And I agree with this point, all Christianity today is influenced to a smaller or larger extent by outside forces. I’m not sure it’s ever

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John Woolman is Dead

Opening Prayer (from the bulletin?) “John Woolman is dead.” These words may at first appear to be simply an obvious  statement, uninteresting and useless. For some, it may be meaningless.Who is John Woolman, anyways? For others, to say that the 17th century Quaker abolitionist is dead understates the obvious

The Theological

Lady Wisdom, Feminine Divine and Proverbs 8

Last week we discussed Proverbs 8, here are some of my thoughts on the passage. Let’s be honest here, the (divine feminine) language in this passage can be little shocking to American Christianity, which is so often dominated by men. Who is wisdom? Well, whoever she is, she’s

The Theological

Reenforcing Totalitarian Power Through Masculine Language

I came across this quote today while working on my sermon for Sunday: “We have tended to use particular power models for God that image divine power as like that of a monarchical ruler, or a military general who crushes all who oppose him. The model of power assumed here

The Theological

The Spirit Skips, God Dances

During worship at Multnomah Meeting on Sunday I kept thinking about the fact that it was Pentecost Sunday and reflecting on the Holy Spirit. One thought, given the context of worship, was that although there were many language represented in Acts 2, the Spirit was the one language all could

The Theological

The Cross of Repentance: Thoughts on Forgiveness and Confession

For the Third Month of the 2010 Friends’ Calendar this quote sits above the dates: The life of the cross is a life of the cross of repentance…Most of those who inform us today that they “do not believe in sin” are really saying that they cannot believe in

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The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal? (Quaker Life Article)

Quaker Life Magazine published an article of mine called “The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal?” in their January/February 2010 issue. A number of people have asked for me to share it with them so they could read it, so I checked with the editor of QL, Katie Terrell, and

The Theological

The Power (and Difficulty) of Forgiveness

Of the many things to be considered today the thing that stands out to me as I sit down to write this is the film we watched this evening called “The Power of Forgiveness.” Four of us from our meeting traveled to St. Luke’s Episcopal in downtown Vancouver to

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One Take On the Importance of the Quaker Practice of “Open Worship”

Adrian Halverstadt, a Quaker pastor, asks this question on the QuakerQuaker forum boards: I have been thinking a lot about open worship these days. Many of the larger evangelical Friends churches no longer practice open worship in their big venues for many reasons. I guess I am searching for a

Church in Mission

A Thought for Quakers on Change

I am preparing my discussion for our Sunday morning meeting for worship and am thinking a lot about what Kester Brewin calls “wombs of the divine,” and creating the necessary space for something new to be born over time (See his book Signs of Emergence) It’s kind of a

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We All Know That Reality has a Well-Known “Conservative” Bias

One of the things my favorite (fake) newscaster Stephan Colbert says on a regular bias is that “Major media has a well-known liberal bias.” And this is definitely something many people believe. This perspective has cropped up again recently all over the web, and yes on The Colbert Report has