Opinion

It was 40 years ago, but I remember it like yesterday. My sister called, “We took Mom to the hospital today. It’s her heart. Doesn’t sound good.”

Last summer, I had the privilege of hearing noted author Brian McLaren speak several times at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly. During one of the Q&A sessions, I asked him a question which had been rolling around in my mind for quite some time. “What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism?”

Five hundred years ago, a clergyman named Martin was reading his Bible and felt something was wrong. What he had learned in church and seminary did not jive with what he read in his Bible. “Perhaps, I am missing something,” he thought.

During the month of October, Christians all over the world will be commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and reflecting on the impact of Martin Luther’s life and legacy. Whether you realize it or not, your spiritual life has been somehow touched by Luther’s hymns, writings, theology and courageous challenge to a powerful Church desperately in need of renewal.

I recently lost a tooth. And the tooth fairy didn’t even bother to give me a quarter — or whatever the going rate is these days.

What comes to mind when you think of the kingdom of heaven? Based on the visions of Old Testament prophets and descriptions found in Revelation, most of us think of heaven only as a physical place.

For Christmas 1942, my parents gave me a book, “Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible.” For the first time, I could read the Bible for myself. You can well imagine a first grader would have difficulty reading the Bible. This book was written with children in mind, and I could read and understand.

Bitterness seems to be the occupational hazard of church people, including clergy. Because we are socially conditioned to be nice, we often swallow our rage when something irritating or hurtful happens to us, all in the name of keeping the peace and taking the high road. The problem comes when we neglect to deal with the anger, either because we dislike confrontation or because life simply moves us on to the next unpleasantness.

At church, we make it an unspoken “policy” to stay away from blatantly political discourse. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are unable or unwilling to take a stand on the issues of right and wrong.

A popular myth surrounds the hymn “Amazing Grace.” It illustrates that how we tell a story matters, because the details teach us the moral of the story. The simple version makes it seem like someone just needs to get saved and then magically they will walk away from all bad things like slave trading.