Models of Virtue
Some literary characters are models of virtue. They serve as a celebration of an ideal, and as a reproach to pretenders. Maybe we could too!
Confessions of a Heretical Author
Hello, merry and mystical friends!
In this video I make an embarrassing confession, and then I introduce my new book: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility. The book was a labor of love; special thanks go to the reading group at the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois, who read and discussed an early draft. They put up with me as their pastor, even though I am both a wild-eyed Christian mystic and a skeptical and irreverent heretic. (But I don’t suppose Merry Mystic subscribers will be surprised on either count!)
New Book: My Burden Is Light
Hello, friends! I have a new book just out: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility. I’ll be releasing a Merry Mystic video which introduces the book. Following that, I’m making a series of posts with some short excerpts from the book.
But in case you just want to read it now, you can find it on Amazon here.
The Scary Motion
How can the church avoid turning into a Halloween horror: a Bates-Motel Church, a Vampire Church, or a Mummy’s-Tomb Church?
Keeping It Simple, Making ’em Think
Why didn’t Jesus always give simple answers?
Doing What Brings Peace
The Apostle Paul has some advice for all of us: not about what to believe, but about what to do, to have peace.
Story and Allegory
The Parable of the Tenants in the Gospel of Matthew is strongly allegorical. The version found in the Gospel of Thomas is quite different.
Come and See
Hello, Merry Mystics!
I’ve been working as a pastor, and part of that work is writing and delivering a new sermon every week. But there’s a paradox at the heart of all such work, and all religious teaching: the very thing we most want to communicate is a thing that can’t be put into words. Sometimes, as Philip said to Nathanael in that story at the start of the Gospel of John, you just have to come and see.
Here’s a (typically wordy) song about that: Come and See.
Come and See
Last week, we heard the story of how Jonah tried to run away from God’s call. Not all call stories are so conflicted, of course. There are some much simpler ones from the first chapter of the Gospel of John: the callings of Andrew, and Peter, and Philip, and Nathanael. I have song to go with them: come and see!
Welcome, Jonah!
The book of Jonah is a comic masterpiece, and Jonah himself is both a warning and a comfort to all of us. This sermon includes a dramatic interpretation of a part of the book of Jonah, and ends with the hymn, “Welcome, Thomas, Doubts and All,” which has a verse about Jonah. The hymn-sing is led by Ron McCutchan. (Sheet music for “Welcome, Thomas, Doubts and All” is available in our Free Stuff area.)