“Don’t talk politics…”   I can remember my parents cautioning me against, even demanding this as it relates to different relationships, most notably family, friends and acquaintances.  Pretty much everyone.  And this included fellow Christians.  It seems that the subject that the church is expected to have basically no voice in is anything political.  Separation of church and state and all that.   And though I too believe that politics is a sensitive subject that must be approached with gentleness and respect, I don’t believe that we in the church have nothing to say on political matters. I’ll say at the outset that I do believe that many of the voices on the Christian right can be quite out of line and many times have misguided views on the church’s role in politics.  We quite often don’t help ourselves out and go outside the bounds of Scripture in our rhetoric in the political realm.  However, I don’t believe that we should be silent and have no voice.  I believe the church, as many have said before, should in fact be the conscience of the state.  And the political landscape also provides for us the opportunity to portray and proclaim the contrast be...

Worry — it really is everywhere. Perhaps it is the one experience that all of us have in common. What about you? How much is worry of some kind a regular part of your daily thought life? How much does worry shape what you do and what you don’t do? How does worry interact with the faith that you hold dear? Could it be that worry is a greater influence in our life than we’v...

Luke 3:1-2 1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Ever bee...

It’s hard to miss the devastation that has been the stock market the last couple of weeks.  If a person isn’t watching closely because he has money directly at risk, he’s watching closely seeing the declines and wondering just how badly it might affect his future job, income, and standard of living.  Even before these declines, we’ve watched the political processes at...