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Mr Rogers, the bird, and context

October 2, 2012 Leave a comment

I love Mr. Rogers. I really love Mr. Rogers. The more I hear about him the more I love him. I recently heard that for the last decade of his life he weighed 143 pounds and was thankful every morning when he stepped on the scale because he thought of it as a message from God saying, “I love you” because of the number of letters in the words. Only Fred Rogers would think that way. When he won his lifetime achievement award at the Emmy’s he asked everyone to be silent for a moment to remember the people in their life that encouraged them to get where they were now. He really was as kind as his show would have you believe.

So then what is this about?

Was Jesus Married? A Short Lesson on Textual Criticism

September 28, 2012 Leave a comment

EDIT 4.10.14: This fragment has been verified as authentic since this post was originally written. This does not, of course, mean that Jesus was married. I just thought I should update since I originally said it may be a fake.

Last week a fragment of a Coptic text was released that quotes Jesus as saying, “My wife . . .” It has gotten a lot of attention and has even been referred to as The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Even though Karen King, the scholar who first presented the fragment, stated that this is not evidence that Jesus had a wife, the Internet has taken to using the fragment to reignite the debate about whether or not Jesus was married. King is right; this is not evidence in that debate. But the reaction to it is evidence that people need a crash course on textual criticism and why the Bible includes what it concludes.

Tell Your Kids Pointless Stories

September 21, 2012 Leave a comment

This is part 3 of a 4 part blog series. The other three posts can be read here, here, and here.

About a month ago Paige and I let Soren watch his first superhero movie. We try to avoid anything in which violence is glorified and with most superheroes they win only by being the best fighter. But the old Superman cartoons are different. Superman isn’t violent at all. The bad guys are violent, but he never throws a punch. So we sat down and watched a Fleischer Superman.

And now he is obsessed with Superman. Obsessed.

Stories have a hold on us that we can’t quite shake. They are how we experience and explain the world around us. They get in us and change us. Yesterday I wrote about what to tell your kids about God, but I didn’t tell you how to tell them. Tell them in stories.

Talk to Your Kids About God

September 20, 2012 Leave a comment

This is part 2 of a 4 part blog series. Part 1 can be read here. Parts 3 and 4 can be read here and here.

As I said yesterday I’ve been thinking about how we are to talk to kids about God. The first, and clearly most important, part of all this is to talk to them about God. And do it a lot.

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

-Deuteronomy 11:18-19

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Talking to Soren about God

September 19, 2012 Leave a comment

This is the first of a 4 part blog series. The last three can be read here, here, and here.

I asked Jesus into my heart in the parking lot of Gerland’s grocery store when I was six years old. A few weeks later I put on a white robe, stepped down into the warm baptistry and was baptized in front of hundreds of people and was raised into “newness of life.”

And then I asked Jesus into my heart in my parents living room when I was 13 years old. A few weeks later I put on another robe, this time a little larger, stepped down into the same warm baptistry and got baptized in front hundreds of people (many of them the same) and was raised into “newness of life.”

Ecce Homo and the Image of God

August 24, 2012 2 Comments

This week it turned out that the apparent vandalism to this painting was actually a misguided but earnest attempt to help. The painting, Ecce Homo, is a fresco in the Santuario de la Misericordia in Borja, Spain which, as the middle photograph shows was in need of restoration. Cecila Gimenez, a parishioner in her 80s who loved the painting, decided to do something about it and undertook the restoration project herself. The result is the third image and a quickly spreading internet phenomenon.

What to Do During Devotion Part 1, Suggested Reading

July 11, 2012 Leave a comment

Often people who are finding themselves unsure of what to do during a devotion time ask me for a few book recommendations to help them along. So, I’ve compiled a short list of a few books I believe every Christian should read. These books are all meditations by the authors themselves, which serves the double purpose of providing those of us reading them with a solid example of how to reflect on scripture and God’s presence.

Christians and the LGBT community-Alienating, Accepting, and Affirming

May 11, 2012 11 Comments

This week the video above of a North Carolina Pastor has gone viral and North Carolina passed an amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman. This has brought, once again, the issue of the church vs. the LGBT community to the very front of most people’s minds. What is the role of Christians when it comes to issues like this?

Wil Ramsey

Spiritual Formation in a Digital World

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