Confessing Jesus Christ is Lord And pledging allegiance to America Are incompatible commitments Choose one Choose this day Choose whom you will serve

This Sunday I'm preaching in Denver. Amazing Grace Church, 10AM. My sermon is called, "The Lord Said to Satan..." You're invited. www.agcdenver.net

This photo is upside down. It is also an illustration about the nature of reality and illusion, heaven and earth, the eternal and the temporal. I'll talk about this next week at our Mountain Retreat where the theme is "In Search of Narnia."

Beware of isms. There be devils.

The rapture happened. I’m in heaven. 😎

A sermon in which I attempt an interpretation of what may be Jesus’ most difficult parable—the parable of the Unjust Steward. youtu.be/bYOLy7OeAjo?...

It grieves me to see people I’ve known for years (some as far back as the Jesus Movement of the 1970s) seduced by a mean-spirited culture-war Christianity that is but a perverse caricature of the authentic faith formed around Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, it grieves me terribly.

Reading.

The task of preaching is not to bring commentary on current events but to bring a word from elsewhere.

Some of us turn off the lights and we lay Up in the moonlight shooting by Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark To be where the angels fly ~Dylan

“If any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name of Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.” ~The Last Battle

Holy Cross youtu.be/-8XpbyY3i0M?...

When theology is forced to bow to a particular political ideology, you are going to get bad theology. The Subject of theology cannot be accurately described or curtailed by the politics of this age.

Just arrived in Chicago to participate in the Church at the Crossroads Conference. To be Christian does not entail the embrace of an aberrant eschatology used to justify war crimes; to be Christian is to walk this world in a deliberate attempt to imitate the Prince of Peace.

Seeing Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) tonight at the Midland Theatre was just what I needed. The song is “Her Mercy”—a song I used a few years ago in Finding God In The Music.

A Christianity that revels in cruelty stinks of the devil.

A Summer Conversation in Copenhagen www.podbean.com/pw/pbblog-9g...

Finding God In The Music Sweet Sounds Of Heaven youtu.be/Vttdq5YM1G4?...

A playlists of the 99 songs I’ve used in 17 seasons of Finding God In The Music. open.spotify.com/playlist/7z7...

“I will draw all things to myself” Detail of a stained glass window in St. Etheldreda's church, London. (We had a nice chat with the priest.)

Why only are active duty military personnel invited to pre-board the plane (“thank you for your service”) and not active duty public school teachers?

👀…

Northumbria open.spotify.com/playlist/4Ia...

At St. Cuthbert’s Cave with St. Stephen’s University students teaching on Cuthbert’s evangelization of Northumbria in the seventh century and our need to stay open to miracles in the twenty-first century.

I absolutely refuse to be an accomplice in trying to turn the church into the religious wing of a political party. Republican, Democratic, whatever—I won’t do it. The church is an embassy of the kingdom of Christ—a kingdom that is not from this world.

Scenes from St. Cuthbert’s Way in the Scottish Borders as St. Stephen’s University students walk a section of it as part of their study abroad program in the British Isles.

Trump has never told the truth But he is the truth About America Selah

Hello from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

St Gregory’s Minister in Yorkshire—an Anglo-Saxon church built in 1050. It’s still an active congregation. We met the vicar—a woman named Susan.

When people advocate for Christian Nationalism, their aspirations are not driven by a desire to actually live the Sermon on the Mount, but by a wrongheaded nostalgia for an irretrievable Christendom—it’s naïve at best and diabolical at worst.

Shelter from the Storm youtu.be/jweDFZCxieE?...

“Talk of hell is required by the sober realism with which we must view history. Talk of hell is demanded by our gigantic responsibility. But it must always have a counterweight that is much heavier: God’s absolute will for salvation.” ~Gerhard Lohfink, Is This All There Is?

I can't believe it's taken seventeen years for a song from this masterpiece to appear in Finding God In The Music. But tomorrow the wait is over.

Judea in the first century had many movements, isms, and activists… Pharisees Sadducees Essenes Herodians Zealots …but Jesus refused to join or endorse any of them. My friends, stick with Jesus.

“I should like a great lake of ale for the King of Kings; I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.” -Abbess Bridget of Kildare (454-524)

Nick Cave helped me preach this one. youtu.be/APC3gp_Y8Eg?...

Finding God In The Music | S17 E3 The album was released a year ago this month. Peri and I saw the artist earlier this year. That’s lots of hints. And I can’t wait to preach it!

Should I teach an online course on Dostoevsky’s “Demons”?

FGITM S17 E2 | Good Old Days youtu.be/czVN7mu4B6s?...

The people have told me that bumping the Rolling Stones (feat. Lady Gaga) off of Finding God In The Music Season 17 is unacceptable. I may have to rethink this.

Finding God In The Music turned into Finding God In The Movies. I went from the Revivalists and "Good Old Days" to Terrence Malick and "The Tree of Life." Amen. youtu.be/CK9I39wCLsg?...

This looks promising. I’m fascinated with the utterly improbable spread in the first century Greco-Roman world of a religion that worships a crucified Jew.

FGITM S17 E1 Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne youtu.be/Lum4iY5FKQI?...

Live by the conspiracy theory, Die by the conspiracy theory.

There is no Christian theology or eschatology that can justify man-made starvation. Even if people are viewed as enemies, the Scriptures still tell us what to do: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them.” The baptized have pledged their allegiance to Jesus Christ, not the Pentagon or the IDF.

This Sunday is the first song in season 17 of Finding God In The Music. I had the artists and songs chosen months ago, but this week I made a last-minute change. That should be enough of a hint to guess the artist. But what song?

Why I Cannot Despair youtu.be/ikN78l7X4Ao?...

“Who is your neighbor? According to Jesus, your neighbor is not limited to your friends, your family, and your fellow citizens. Your neighbor is anyone in need of your mercy.” - @brianzahnd.bsky.social

Dirt Road Blues youtu.be/5RFPkmi4DQI?...