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Central to Advent and Christmas are the stories of two women: Mary and Elizabeth. Luke, the beloved physician, takes a professional and personal interest in their experience during pregnancy. Immediately after Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she is to bear a...
SOLIPSISM
Solipsism is the view that ourselves is the only thing worth knowing. Today it is the view that our identity is the only thing that matters and that only we can determine what that identity can be. This view would have been incomprehensible to John the Baptist. He was...
ADVENT
The four weeks before Christmas Day constitute the season of Advent, which marks the beginning of the Christian year. Advent means ‘arrival’. It refers to the coming of Christ: his first coming in humility at Bethlehem, and his second coming in glory at the end of...
THANKSGIVING
What reasons can we find to celebrate Thanksgiving Day? In a world where there are wars and rumors of wars, where refugees are hungry and in danger of being killed, where people are in pain and suffering it is hard if not impossible to be thankful. It is always...
SPIRITUAL DEMENTIA
John Swinton, Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care in the University of Aberdeen, in his book on Dementia writes, The problem of forgetfulness is not confined to the individual with dementia. The experience of dementia brings to the fore a broader amnesia...
GOD’S RIGHT HAND
I was raised on the Articles of Religion of the Church of England found in the Book of Common Prayer and written by the Protestant Reformers. The first Article is of faith in the Holy Trinity. “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or...
FALSE PROPHETS
Nobody likes to think ill of people. You always want to give people the benefit of the doubt. Jesus tells us not to judge others harshly. Yet here he warns us to beware of false prophets who come to us in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. They...
LOVE SUFFERS TOO
As I enter into old age (I am 82 years old in 2023) and experience physical challenges I find consolation in Miguel de Unamuno’s classic written in 1912: The Tragic Sense of Life. Let me share with you some of his thoughts which stimulate my thinking. Love, pity,...
SUFFERING
Recently Rod Whitacre died of lymphoma. I had known him for many years as a student at Gordon College when I was Dean of Christian Life and as a theologian after he earned his doctorate at Cambridge University. He taught at Trinity School for ministry, where I was on...
WHY I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST
It would take a whole book to give you the reasons why I believe in Jesus Christ and follow him as my Savior and Lord. Those reasons have been accumulating over a lifetime. Some of them have been discarded or changed as I have grown older. Others are newer as I have...
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