Bill's Faith Matters blog
WEB4 days ago · O nce upon a time, when I knew a lot more than I know today, I thought, sort of, that the world would be a lot more peaceful if everyone became, say, a Presbyterian like me. Or a Methodist. Or a Muslim. Or a Jew. Or, or, or. . . My immaturity and foolishness were little short of monumental. My thinking at the time, as I recall, was that such unanimity would end a lot of fighting that is rooted ...
Confronting trauma not with explanations but with love - Bill's …
WEBJan 20, 2024 · Confronting trauma not with explanations but with love. E very human being at some point experiences pain, grief, catastrophe, loss. In fact, I wrote about a few examples in my own life in my most recent blog post here. The ultimate question is how we respond to disasters so they don't irrevocably break us. Institutional religion and psychology ...
Lives full of both rejoicing and trembling -- as they should be
WEBFeb 3, 2024 · Lives full of both rejoicing and trembling -- as they should be. February 03, 2024. Nashville, Tenn., and Delavan, Ill. -- I've double-datelined this piece because I want to tell you two interrelated family stories that are rooted in faithful living. Recently my wife Marcia and I drove to Nashville to celebrate the 19th birthday of our grandson ...
Two lives, two models for living well however long we have
WEBApr 6, 2022 · D elavan, Ill.-- As some of my extended family gathered here recently to celebrate the wonderful reality that my late father's brother Lawrence (pictured here with me) has reached age 100 but acts like he's about 60, I was trying to process the memorial service I had attended by Zoom a few days earlier for Jim Lippold (pictured below), a childhood friend who hadn't yet died.
Can American Christianity reverse its downward trend? - Bill's Faith ...
WEBFeb 15, 2023 · F or some years now, I and many others have written about the diminishment of Christianity in America. Falling church membership and worship attendance numbers are signs of what's been happening. You can find two recent pieces I've written about this here and here.. The question, of course, is whether the trend will continue until there's not a single Christian church left in the U.S.
When faith needs to be torn down and rebuilt
WEBFeb 2, 2021 · A few days ago, at their invitation, I spoke to members of the faculty of Central Baptist Theological Seminary about my new book, Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an Age of Anxiety.. Our general topic was religious extremism and what we can do to unplug it, which is part of what my book is about. In our conversation, one of the faculty members mentioned his ...
November 2021 - Bill's Faith Matters blog
WEBNov 3, 2021 · A rabbi has an intriguing idea worth considering as we think about ways we could remember and commemorate the upcoming first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at our nation's Capitol.. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, writing for Religion News Service, proposes that Americans engage in a fast that day.He writes: "Congress or the White House should echo the prophet Joel, who proclaimed:
May 2021 - Bill's Faith Matters blog
WEBC hristian churches around the world celebrated Pentecost last Sunday, May 23. The day, 50 days after Easter, often is called the "birthday of the church." It's a simplistic label, given that it took as long as 100 years or longer in some places for what became Christianity to separate itself decisively from its root religion, Judaism.
As the pandemic recedes, will faith communities adjust?
WEBMar 3, 2021 · F or several Sundays now, a few worshippers have been present in person in the sanctuary of my congregation, and it looks as if the switch from the all-virtual service of the past pandemic year to a hybrid may be able to start to accommodate more people in person as time moves along.(The photo here today is one I took of the second worship service available to a small number of worshippers in ...
As we welcome today's change, it's time for a reckoning
WEBJan 1, 2021 · W e greet a new U.S. president and vice president today, and as we do we should be looking forward to a restoration of civility, of the rule of law, of basic human decency in the White House.. As many of us are. But we can't simply walk away from the four-year dumpster fire that constituted the Trump presidency and especially not from the last few weeks that included the 1/6 terrorist attack ...
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