The Secret Wireless

The Huffington Post actually published a good article.  I know, I know.  Usually the HuffPo is garbage laced with poison, but this really was a helpful article...one religion of all topics! In his article "Why We Know So Little About Moses and Jesus" author Bernard Starr helps to explain why the record of the lives of these two Biblical figures do not include detailed accounts of their upbringing. Ever since the dawn of the age of psychoanalysis we have been trying to understand what makes a person tick by asking where they came from.  The keys to a person's identity lie in the past, in their youth.  That is, at least, what we believe to be true. And so we often want more information about the young life of Moses.  What was it like to grow up as an outsider in Egypt?  Was he ever mistreated?  Was he spoiled?  What was his education like?  We assume that these are important questions. The same goes for Jesus.  We want to know ...

On January 9 Rupert Murdoch tweeted this: “Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible”  To this author JK Rowling responded: “I was born Christian.  If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I’ll auto-excommunicate.” Whatever you think of Rupert Murdoch, and whatever you think of JK Rowling, this does make an interesting exchange.  My concern, however, is not with Murdoch’s view of Muslims, nor Rowling’s.  I am far more interested in her statement about Christianity. Now, I am not an expert on Rupert Murdoch and I will not comment on his faith, but I will take JK Rowling at her word and assume that she is indeed a Christian.  And that makes her tweet problematic. First, Christians are not born, they are made.  Most Christians hold to the doctrine of Original Sin which confesses that human beings are conceived in a state of unrighteousness.  You...

Have you heard that joke? One Sunday a Sunday School teacher asked her class, "What is small, has a bushy tale, climbs trees, and eats nuts?" A bright student raised her hand and answered, "It sounds an awful lot like a squirrel, but this is Sunday School so the answer must be 'Jesus'." It has become a thing lately to beat up on Sunday School and the answers we learn there.  The good old, tried and true lessons of the Sunday School teacher are downgraded, laughed at, even mocked. People don't want the Sunday School answers.  They want what they perceive to be the deeper, more satisfying reasons.  And above all they want to be able to struggle and doubt without judgment. Those who struggle and doubt are seen as "real", while those who stick to what they learned in Sunday School are looked down upon as "simple" or even "fake". But there is nothing simple or fake about holding on to that good, old fashioned Sund...

(To read the first sermon in this series click here .) What did 3000 people do after they had been baptized?   They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching.   They began soaking up Christian doctrine.                 Now, I think I know what you are thinking when I say “Christian doctrine”.   You think: “Ugh!”   How boring.   How dreadful.   How pointless.                 But doctrine is nothing more, and nothing less, than what is taught.   It is the teaching of the Christian faith, the content of what we actually believe.   So 3000 people were baptized at Pentecost, as we discussed last week, and they immediately immersed themselves in Christian doctrine.                    Obviously teachin...

                                  In the final phrases of the Nicene Creed we confess that we are looking “for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”   My question for you this Easter is: “How hard are you looking?”                 Are your eyes constantly fixed upon the horizon, joyfully awaiting the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come?   Are you eagerly anticipating the day when Jesus will reveal Himself to the world as its Lord and Savior?   Or, like most people, do you have bigger fish to fry?                 The Resurrection of our Lord is a foretaste of the feast to come.   He has conquered death itself and so He guarantees that we too will rise upon His return. ...