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This month we will be reading Inspiration & Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns. I've heard much buzz about this book in the last year, and as both a former seminary student and lover of the Old Testament I was intrigued to read his approach. I've encountered Peter Enns on his Patheos blog and enjoyed this thoughtful commentary on a variety of contemporary cultural matters as well as Biblical mentions. I also consider him one…

If I’m honest, raising a son is hard. His constant motion, excited yelling, incessant questions and natural velocity try me. Every day. Keeping up with his curiosity, appetite and homework wear me out. But it’s not what keeps me up at night. How do I mother my spirited son toward peace in a world bent toward violence? This circles round me like a small but ever-present, ever-determined mosquito. Spending summers in Africa I know something of determined mosquitoes – get…

[caption id="attachment_351" align="aligncenter" width="500"] copyright J.J.Kercher Photography, taken in Bujumbura, Burundi.[/caption] These women, these saints, they’ve given us so much over the years. Something is quite right about setting aside time to remember them, a day to celebrate their legacies of faith. I remember when she told me ‘we have a point of view, only God has view.’ I recall the words about how faith infuses art, poetry giving way to prayer, writing as sacrament. She showed me icons could…

Mark tells of a woman who comes to Simon the Leper’s house one night, knowing Jesus was dining inside. She pours costly perfume over His head out of a small alabaster jar. Jesus discerns her prophetic gesture. He honors her. But those surrounding him at the table, disciples and Pharisees alike, couldn’t get past the price tag on the alabaster jar. They did the math – that perfume if converted into denarii could weigh down their collective purse. And think…

http://vimeo.com/50374789 How do you read the Bible? An ominous question when posed to an Old Testament scholar like Ellen Davis. She charmed me right away – back and forth. How simple and elegant. She sums up so much of Biblical scholarship when she instructs us to read back and forth to allow one text to illumine another. I’m still smiling, she’s still smiling, when she pushes me to a new edge: …and don’t expect to agree with everything it says…

Last week I wrote about moments I've felt baptized here. This is the back story. [caption id="attachment_237" align="alignleft" width="196"] photo by Geograph[/caption] Baptism is a weak sacrament. Admitting it hurts. Saying it out loud for the first time stings - both my tongue and my theological sensibilities. Years in various churches, study groups and even seminary muzzled me. I’ve let people think I waded into a pool (or river) and been dunked. But I’ve come clean here. I’ve never been dunked.…

Once I relegated stories to the featherweight division of theology.  More flash than substance, stories amused but were not intended for the heavier tasks of instruction, education or ontological reflection.  Certainly story and theology lived at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Story-telling and truth-telling could hold hands, but Truth demanded (and deserved) Fact. Maybe this is why I never cultivated the habit of reading novels, always preferring non-fiction.  A few exceptions stand out like ‘Till We Have Faces’ by C.S.…

Sitting in the passenger seat as we whiz through the streets of Bujumbura, I close my eyes to avoid sight of the crazed and chaotic driving required to cut across town.  Pushing through knotted intersections with cars tangled in multiple directions, accelerating with a wish and a prayer-hoping to take advantage of a hint of an opening in on-coming traffic, weaving on uneven roads to dodge stalled cars, bicycle taxis, slow-moving mamas or a cluster of cows – all part…