Approaching God with Confidence

Is it easy or hard to pray? Many Christians have experienced both: times when prayer is as natural as breathing, and times when it seems hard, even impossible. We suspect that for more Christians than care to admit it, prayer is often difficult. But no one else would...

Ideas That Challenge our Assumptions

Plato said the unexamined life is not worth living. Could it also be true that the unexamined faith is not worth believing? That might overstate the case. But there is value in holding our beliefs up to scrutiny, seeing how they fare under critical analysis. There is...

The Present and Future Kingdom

“Your kingdom come,” we pray, as Jesus taught his disciples to do. “Teach me kingdom ways,” we sing. But what do we mean? The concept of the “kingdom of God” of which Jesus spoke often, is a fertile one, rich with meanings. The...

Inclusive Bible Speaks Clearly

My family helped me with an experiment. I read some Bible verses and asked if they had anything in common. After about half a dozen verses, our 8-year-old daughter, Abigail, said, “They’re all about boys and men.” Apparently, they were. The verses...

Selling an Offensive Gospel

No one wants to be offensive. Least of all Christians, whom one might think would be the least displeasing people of all. Christians try to love their neighbors. What’s not to like? Nothing, if that were all there is to Christianity. But there’s also the...