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What Language Shall I Borrow: Reflections on Faith — 78 episodes
In Texas, the government wants to require public school students to learn about the Bible.
Would we recognize an authoritative voice if we heard one?
Some scriptural stories shed light on others.
The Lord’s Day liturgy resembles a dance.
We can’t easily calculate how things will fit together to shape the future.
Christian theology is communal at its very core.
There! Does that make everything perfectly clear?
The new convert had been led to expect the Holy Spirit to do something dramatic.
He ascended into heaven.
Jesus “descends into hell” to be where we are, where we have been, or where we may yet be.
To speak of holy things requires using earthbound language in creative ways.
Neither English nor any other human language has the capacity to speak directly about God.
The Apostles’ Creed is a brief summary of the Christian faith.
In baptism, we encounter the God who reaches out to lift us from the dangerous flood and pull us to safety.
The Easter story is set in a graveyard.
How could the Roman soldiers possibly take seriously this Jewish carpenter they were supposed to crucify?
Easter without Holy Week can be dangerous to one’s spiritual health.
The American Funeral
Rehearsing the grand homecoming that is to come. The sure sign of home: sharing food together.
Life isn’t fair, and we’re outraged, because it seems as though it ought to be fair.
What does what we do in worship say about God, God’s character, and God’s disposition toward us?
In Scripture, “evil” always has a face. The adversary, the tempter, the fallen angel reenters the Biblical story at many points.
There are afflictions that don’t precisely fit the usual diagnostic patterns.
Fundamentalism isn’t the only option for serious faith.
Preaching is meant to be a “sacramental act.”
Indiscriminate Baptism
Jesus was baptized alongside “sinners”
Is there anyone in charge here? Some way to know for certain that there is some conscious intentionality behind the origin of the universe?
A star shall come out of Jacob
It’s a simple story.
Ave Maria
“Is this the best of all possible worlds?”
He descended into Hell
There is a difference between a trip and a journey.
"So it goes."
Saving the World
She gave away “everything she had.”
Judgment and Grace
What my mother told me.
Missed the Funeral
The very architecture of our souls requires that there be seasons of lament.
The Risks of Liturgical Indifference.
Liturgical Testimony to a Cosmic Redemption
How easy it is to get the Eucharist wrong.
Evaluating Our Loyalties
Anxiety, Deception, and Idolatry
Doctrine
Real Presence
What motivates people to worship?
Liturgical Essentials: Bath, Book, Meal, and Attentiveness to the poor.
You can baptize with sand.
Embracing Ritual
Spiritual death
The cultural authority once granted to the church has been withdrawn.
Atheist?
We have a soul-sickness problem that manifests as a language problem.
The power of Evil.
Basic values require a sound foundation.
The Holy Trinity
Why the church?
Doubt doesn’t have to be cynical.
The kingdom of God is about justice, but justice is elusive in history and often thwarted.
A traveling Bible study for some whose faith has been shaken.
“’In the afterlife,’ Maud May told me, ‘God’s got a lot of explaining to do.’”
The eucharistic prayer in the newer service books highlights the central affirmations of the Christian gospel.
The anticipation of heaven’s refuge did not reject the hope of a cosmic redemption, but gradually pushed it to one side.
Adam and Eve had persuaded themselves that God might not be playing fair with them.
Faith is, in some sense, always a mystery.
“I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” says Jesus.
Why Does Love So Often Elude Us?
Disenchantments
Judgment and Love go Hand in Hand
An Easter Visitor
The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought it Would Be
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of All Nature. . .
Walking on Water
Preach the Hard Texts
Same Words; Two Languages