Stump Speeches

In one of John Wesley's addresses ("An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion") he writes: "And, indeed, it is obvi...

I think I've decided that the blog is not the venue for expository philosophizing. I think the journal article and the monograph evolve...

OK, so I'm fully aware that there is a bit of revisionist history going on here, but I'd like to claim that among the early ascetics...

The last post could leave the impression that the flesh is bad. On the interpretation I'm trying to articulate, flesh in itself is not b...

OK, let's try this again. Galatians 5:16f in the NRSV (not the NIV, because it translates sarx as "sinful nature" rather than ...

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." So said Jesus about the disciples when they couldn't stay awake. There is a con...

I wish I had a million dollars; I wish I were snorkeling in the Caribbean; I wish the Sunnis and Shiites would quit blowing each other up. ...

Here are the claims made so far in my spiritual formation series: There is a gap between what we are called to be and what we too often are....

Continuing with the spiritual formation posts: we're at the point now where one of the most important points must be made. At the basis ...

So unless other noteworthy things happen and need blogging about, I'm continuing to work through the main points of my spiritual discipl...

At its essence, the WWJD movement is right on target. We are to be emulators of Christ, we should be doing what Jesus would do if he were i...

I'm headed for Venezuela tomorrow. There is a conference going on there this week for representatives of all of the denominational affil...

"Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded." I talked about this briefly on Thursday. This is the last of those participia...

I spent the whole day at work schlogging through our institution's self-study. Once every ten years (if all goes well) the regional acc...

My son got a kite today--a prize for practicing the piano a certain number of times this month. Wouldn't you know it, there's no wi...

It was a lovely spring weekend in Northern Indiana. I spent a lot of time sitting on decks--both my own and some friends'--enjoying the ...

I just finished teaching a six week class on the spiritual disciplines at NMC. It was designed to be a sampler class, exposing people to var...