Category: theology
-
Pastoral Authority
My latest article for the Leadership Journal blog has been posted, “Pastoral Authority: Earned, Taken, or Granted?” Typically I come up with the topics for these articles, but in this case Brandon suggested that a few of us tackle the theme of pastoral authority. I’m glad he did. This isn’t something I’d have thought to…
-
Everything Is Evangelism
This is why St. Paul in his letters does not find it necessary to urge his readers to be active in evangelism but does find it necessary to warn them against any compromise with the rulers of this age. Leslie Newbigin’s words about evangelism in The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society will catch some readers…
-
The Sabbath, the Stranger, and Commodification
An article I wrote about the Sabbath and undocumented immigrants is now up at UnDocumented.tv. Does anyone keep the Sabbath anymore? I’ve come to the conclusion that the fourth commandment is the most ignored of the Ten Commandments. If we did keep Sabbath, I wonder how our thoughts about our undocumented neighbors might change. The…
-
Roadside Sabbath
Do you ever pay attention to the highway median when you’re on a long road trip? The space between a divided road and the few feet of no-man’s-land just beyond the blacktop have intrigued me since reading A Sand County Almanac in college. I’ve lost my copy but, if memory serves, Aldo Leopold sees in…
-
“A story that’s bigger than ourselves.”
Nick Liao has written an article for our church website showing the peril churches face when the stories and histories of the black Christians are ignored. Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813. Like the scores of black women who anonymously labored under the institution of antebellum (pre-Civil War) slavery,…
David W. Swanson 