WHY WE LEAVE THE CLERGY BEHIND

I am writing this in response to reading Episcopalian pastor Fleming Rutledge’s book, The Crucifixion (2015), which has received many accolades, including Christianity Today’s Book of the Year in 2017 as well as rave reviews on Amazon. It is seen by the clergy as a lengthy (612 pages) summation of Christian theological exploration of Jesus’ […]

NUDGING THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY TO GREATER CLARITY

The Trinity, as a conceptual effort to better understand Jesus’ own use of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” in Matthew 28:19 regarding baptism (its only appearance in the Gospels), has a very long history, dating back to at least the early Christian thinker Tertullian in ca. 200 C.E., when he coined the term trinitas. Although […]

The Tremorous Invisibility of God

After reading Michael Novak’s book, No One Sees God (2008) several years ago, as much as I enjoyed the book, it has been its title that has stuck most with me, the clear simplicity of this most vexing aspect of God: His invisibility. It forms the basis for all the various religious ideas, doctrines, practices […]

ALL THAT GOD ALLOWS

I am writing this shortly after two major hurricanes have ripped through both my adopted state of North Carolina as well as Florida and Georgia. These hurricanes have flooded or destroyed homes in North Carolina and flattened entire towns in coastal Florida. As always, there were personal stories of both people who either dodged tragedy […]