Category Archives: Editorials

Editorials, Food for Thought

Five Books About Faith

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Apologetics is the practice of defending a position, usually religious, through the use of reason. It is an especially useful practice in our pluralistic society known for its tsunami of ideas.

There are enough apologetical books to fill a room, however, only a few are needed for helping to sort out the questions that surround whether to believe in God or not. Skepticism without complete information is foolish. Faith without skepticism will not stand the fires of examination. The following is a short list of recommended books on the subject of belief. Continue reading Five Books About Faith →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Missional

What’s so bad about religion?

Prohibition Signre·li·gion
noun
[ri-lij-uhn]
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.
2. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices.
4. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith, something one believes in and follows devotedly.

It’s a universal law of conversation; you can’t talk about politics or religion. Too inflammatory. Conversation about either erupts into argumentation and worse. Continue reading What’s so bad about religion? →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general

Fear sells!

The ScreamFear sells books. Like the one a man was reading in a local coffee shop about how to stock your pantry for the coming apocalypse.

Fear sells magazines. Like the Newsweek cover that recently declared, “Apocalypse Now.” In that article, writer Simon Winchester declared that recent quakes in New Zealand and Chile, has ratcheted up the chances of a catastrophic seismic event striking in California.

Fear sells medical quackery like it did when thousands of people bought potassium iodine to protect them from the radiation cloud they feared was coming from Japan. Continue reading Fear sells! →

Editorials, Food for Thought

Blindness

Man with white caneWhen Harvey got on the treadmill at the gym, he placed his head within a couple of inches of the control panel, and he cocked his head slightly. Harvey’s world was donut shaped. The center of everything he looked at had a big blind spot in it.

Harvey could no longer drive. He loved to read but could only do so with great effort. When he got on the treadmill at our gym, he had to put his face really close to the controls in order to change the settings. Continue reading Blindness →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general

How much can I keep?

Hand gripping moneyThe man was wealthy and young. Luck had gone his way, and he had amassed a large amount of money and property. He used his money in make more investments and purchase his way into the power structures of his community.

Those who knew him believed him to be an upstanding and religious person. If Time Magazine had been around then, he might well have made the “Man of the Year” cover because of his accomplishments. Continue reading How much can I keep? →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, Missional

The Importance of Community

In the 1830’s Alexis de Tocqueville wrote this about the United States. “Individualism is a word recently coined to express a new idea…Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself.” Continue reading The Importance of Community →

Editorials, Food for Thought

Health and Wealth Gospel

Television CameraA friend said, “I really like to watch his program on Sunday morning.” He was talking about a popular televangelist–coiffed hair, expensive suit, huge megachurch, beautiful wife at his arm.

The preacher’s Sunday morning message is something like, “God wants you to be fabulously rich and happy.” That may be the reason my friend likes him. Who doesn’t want to be fabulously rich and happy? Continue reading Health and Wealth Gospel →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general

How to Finagle Your Way Out of a Promise

Law BooksIn Jesus’ time it was not uncommon to hear someone begin a promise with, “I swear by the altar of the Temple.” It sounds like a real promise. Like swearing on “a stack of Bibles.”

But swearing by the altar was a first-century version of crossing your fingers behind your back. The person swearing by the altar believed that oath was not binding and never intended to keep the promise. Continue reading How to Finagle Your Way Out of a Promise →

Editorials, Food for Thought, Life in general, sermons

How Seeds Are Like the Human Heart

The SowerAncient sowers did not know what they were going to get when harvest time came.

Without multi-row cultivators, GPS, and high tech pest and weed controls they didn’t know what challenges lay in the soil. Out the sowers marched, row-by-row, scattering seed by hand. Only time, sun, and rain would reveal which seeds would grow and which would not. Continue reading How Seeds Are Like the Human Heart →