A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

We've had a very difficult past few years navigating a lot of pain and brokenness in our relationship with our son.  Recently, after a long time of silence between us, we spent some time together.  People around me who know how difficult it has been talked with me about the situation, and I heard a few of them say things like "You and Ann are so strong."  "I can't imagine how you two have remained joyful through this."  "I think you've handled this really well." Those are obviously nice things to hear, since there is regularly a voice in the back of my head telling me that how I've handled things has been wrong and that I'm to blame for the pain and brokenness.  But when I heard the nice things from my friends, I've said things like, "Well, you just learn to be strong day by day."   Or something like, "It's been quite a learning curve." But I realized yesterday that I've missed an opportunity to speak...

For the past few years I've been exploring answers that help me with many intellectual difficulties I've had with standard Evangelical answers to questions about the Bible and the Christian faith.  I've assembled quite a collection of books by authors like Pete Enns, Brian MacLaren, Rachel Held Evans, Rob Bell, and Thom Stark.  I've listened to countless podcasts by these same authors or others whose thinking parallels theirs.  This morning I met with a friend named Scott who has been exploring down the same path I've been traversing.  We are both deeply committed to following Jesus Christ.  And we're both coming to grips with the fact that we no longer believe the same way we did earlier in our lives.  We get together every couple of weeks to discuss what we've been reading, listening to, thinking about.  It's exciting to have someone to voice doubts, questions, new ideas, wrestlings over matters of faith with.  It's good to know there is no ...

I am left handed.  I always have been.  Someday when I was 3 or perhaps 4 years old, a box of crayons was put in front of me and I was invited to draw a picture.  I reached out and grabbed a crayon with my left hand.  Most people in this first experience reached out with their right hand.  But not me.  I am left handed. When I went to school I noticed a few things.  First, if I wanted to use my left hand to cut paper, I had to find one of only one or two pairs of scissors with the title “lefty” on them to do so.  I learned to cut with my right hand.  It was easier to just accommodate.  But I was still left handed. I was shown how the proper way of writing consisted of writing from the left to the right, and included an angle to my letters that came quite naturally to right handed writers, but not to me.  I learned how to make my letters stand up straight instead of lean to the left, and I got used to not being able to s...

Have you seen or heard the "football field" illustration of the age of the earth and where human life shows up?  It's worth five minutes of your life. Just want the "Cliff's Notes" version?  OK.  Scientists believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old.  Stretch those years across the 100 yards of a football field and you go over 90 yards before you start seeing mammals appear on the earth.  Humanity as we know it shows up in the last inch before the goal line.  Your life and mine are less than 1/1000 of a millimeter on this football field.   That's not eternity, mind you, that's just a REALLY LONG TIME - 4.5 billion years.   Now, let's imagine that there is another football field starting from today, and heading 4.5 billion years into the future.  And let's say that something that a person does in their lifetime has the power to either give them an ice cream cone every day for the rest of those 4.5 billion years, or to ...

The last 6 weeks I've been meeting with a group of 7 people who expressed interest in discussing Peter Enns' book The Bible Tells Me So: How Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable To Read It . Although the book title has the effect of offending both people outside the faith and inside, the basic premise of the book is that we need to take the Bible seriously - but not literally. Over and over these past few weeks we've discussed Enns' point that the actual words of the Bible force careful readers to abandon certain ideas about the Bible that sound good, but don't actually work.  Some of the ideas that don't survive a careful reading:   The Bible is without error in all things it discusses. The Bible is without contradictions. The Bible is God's rulebook, cookbook, lawbook, instruction manual for Godly living. Good Christians must strive to harmonize all places where problems with the above 3 points show themselves, so they can continue to believe ...

I've been involved in Evangelical Christian churches, educational institutions, and organizations since I was in high school.  That's over 30 years.  There seems to have been one overarching theme of all these "voices" influencing my spiritual development:  The most important thing is your personal salvation.   I've been involved in week after week of Bible studies, worship services, Christian concerts and teaching events with an extremely PERSONAL focus.  Main questions addressed are personal matters such as:   "What do I believe?" "What is Jesus (or the Spirit, or the Bible) saying to me right now?" "How can I overcome these sin patterns and habits in my life?" "How can I recapture a spiritual 'high' that will keep me going for another week?" There is usually a nod to the bigger issues facing our world, our nation, our community.  But the idea is once I hear clearly from God through going to church, r...

Warren Moon just got added to the list of shame.  I've been a fan since he led the Washington Huskies to a Rose Bowl victory over the Michigan Wolverines in 1978.  I was 8 years old. But according to reports that have come out this week, Mr. Moon is just the latest famous, influential, powerful celebrity to be outed for reprehensible behavior toward a woman who worked for him. I want to go on the record to say I am in full support of women who have had to put up with this demeaning, harrassing, and emotionally damaging behavior publicly speaking out.  I applaud you, and I encourage more of you to take that risk. Why? Because I want every man who thinks it is their right to treat women in this way to know it will no longer be tolerated by the "good 'ol boy" network.  I want men in powerful, influential positions to treat women as valued employees and valued people who have so much to offer that doesn't involve their physical body.  Actually I want all me...