Recently I began working my way through a book entitled Ancient Christian Devotional. The book provides a year's worth of scripture readings in combination with selected comments from the church fathers. Thanks to excellent work on the part the editors, Thomas Oden and Cindy Crosby, some of the wisest insights from the church fathers are now readily available.

For example, in a commen ...

When did it become sinful to change one's mind? When did the ability and willingness to think, learn and adjust cease to be a sign of maturity and wisdom and become the sin we labed "flip-flop?"

Don't get me wrong. I value consistency. For example, I expect a Christian to be consistent in his or her determination to worship only God, practice kindness and generosity toward all others, bear witne ...

Over the past few decades a substantial number of Baptists have fallen in love with lists of beliefs. All deal with theological matters. Behavior, sociological, and political positions often crop up as well. Some lists are public, approved by a church or denomination or other organization. Others are personal.

The lists are used in various ways. Some Baptists utilze them as litmus tests for employment, pa ...

Someone once asked me for a one sentence description of a pastor's life. Many possibilities, of course, came to mind. With Ed Scrugg's recent decision to accept the position of Conductor/Artist in Residence with Mid-America Productions in New York City, the response I once gave popped out of my memory. I answered, "The pastor's life feels like a ongoing series of farewells."

Farewells constitute ...

Religious freedom, actually radical religious freedom, is in the DNA of all healthy Baptists. Truth to tell, religious freedom may be the only special theological contribution Baptists may claim to have made to the broader Christian community.

Our Baptist forebears insisted such freedom must be absolute. It is for everyone, regardless of the decisions they may make with regard to religion. Thomas Helwys, ...

A few years ago a seminary student on the verge of graduation asked me a question. The student had served in some part-time church staff positions but now faced the prospect of being called as pastor by a small church. The question came over coffee at a local fast food establishment:  "What does it take to be a pastor?"

Since then I've pondered the question, and my answer today would in ...

What do we do after Easter? That's a tough question for most Baptist Christians. Our typical response is to "let down." It's almost as if the end of Easter marks the beginning of summer vacation! Sure, the children are still in school, but otherwise we relax, step back from church a bit, and figure we'll gear back up spiritually come September.

The New Testament presents a better option: life-ch ...

Once again Tony Campolo has gotten to the heart of what it means to live as a Christian. His latest book Letters to a Young Evangelical ought to be required reading for Christians of all ages (not to mention a model of effective, engaging writing for would-be authors!). All of the chapters deserve careful reading. Personally, I found those on how history might end, transcending partisan politics, women and the church and a Christian work eth ...

I've been thinking about the nature of the church. Doing so puts me in good Baptist company, for the truth of the matter is that the Baptist movement has been and is fueled by a passion for defining church. We tend to devote a great deal of time to matters such as how one enters the church, the ways in which love and power interact in the context of church, the course or courses of individual Christian discipleship in relation to the larger Body of Christ, and t ...

I've been preaching a series of sermons on the theme "How to Build a Christian Character." This past Sunday I focused on courage. In the course of sermon, I tried to paint a picture of what courage in action looks like when seen in Jesus. One of my church members asked me to post a summary of that portion of the sermon. You'll find it below.

When I look at Jesus I see what courage looks ...