Here are three excerpts from an article about "new media" that I was recently asked to write for Reflections: A Magazine of Theological and Ethical Inquiry. The question was how we can think about our faith in our "wired" culture. You may find the rest on the Reflections website. From "Connecting With a Theology of Technology": ... A conversation at the ideas festival about education turned to how educators might keep the attention of students in the face of so many distractions in their hyper-mediated world. We spoke of the new normal in the upper middle class: an iPhone in one’s pocket, an iPad in one’s purse, and a laptop in one’s bag, all 
syncing every 15 minutes with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever one calls...

(A much expanded version of this was published as "Christian Anarchy and Reconciliation: A View from the Pulpit" in Reflections, Fall 2007. Thought I'd share some of it here.) “We believe that everyone — political figure or commentator, citizen or alien, man or woman, black or white, conservative or radical — who at this particular time says that this people and this nation are in deep, perhaps irremediable political trouble, speaks the truth.” — Will D. Campbell and James Y. Holloway. Some words come back with haunting relevance. Back in the 1960s, these two southern churchmen, Will Campbell and James Y. Holloway, co-edited the journal of the Committee of Southern Churchmen, called Katallagete: Be Reconciled. A collection of their essays from that journal was published in 1970 under the title, Up To Our Steeples in Politics (Paulist Press). The words above led the essay from which the title of the book was drawn. Wipf and Stock Publishers re-released this book. It’s eerily timely, but not for reasons a quick reading of this lead might have you believe. For these writers go on to unsettle an...

I was at a gathering last week at which there were a variety of folk from various backgrounds, professions, ages, and interests. It wasn't a religious event. The last panel of speakers was called "Last Remarks," for which several of us were asked to give two minute "final thoughts" for life to this mixed and attentive group. This week, I share with you my remarks. "Last Remarks" There is more. There is more than the power and real pride of accomplishment. There is more. There is more than the overwhelming grief that can texture loss. There is more. There is more than anger at injustice, or yearning for healing. There is more than vast multi-layered cosmos that is itself more than what we can imagine. There is more than the smallest proton or the simplest gesture of...

Dear friends, As we enter a new program year, there are both familiar and new faces leading us at Pinnacle. The congregation has received correspondence about our staffing over the summer, but I thought to take my column this month and update you all on who’s doing what these days — at least in the pastoral and program areas of our ministry. So, let’s go in some sort of order! Me: I’m looking forward to a new year of preaching, care, teaching, learning, and leading. I look forward to working with the Session on plans regarding finances, education (see exciting news in September’s Pinnacle Vistas), and improving our communications. I look forward to more time to get to know you all! I also look forward to leading an effort to advance our educational offerings in all areas, and more. Rev. Kristin Willett: Kristin looks forward to concentrating more energy on our growing youth program. Alongside this, she’ll provide pastoral oversight and guidance to all of our...

In my 2005 book, Where the Light Shines Through (Brazos Press), I begin the chapter, "9/12 Living in a 9/11 World," with this memory: In late September of 2001, not long after Sept. 11, the Washington Post ran an article by Hanna Rosen called, “God, You Around?” It was about the noticeable resurgence of both outward religious practice and private prayer in the wake of that September’s events. “It’s not just that the faithful are flocking to houses of worship,” she wrote, “it’s that people who have never been and still won’t go, who passed all those candlelight vigils . . . and kept on walking, are finding themselves, despite themselves, praying.” She quotes the head of a network of counselors working mostly with New York business folk: “‘Every other person we spoke to would get to a point where...