O, Man of Islam

December 19, 2018

Recently, I was visiting my friend and Christian brother, Darryl, in Mahanoy State Correction Institute (SCI) outside Frackville, PA. Darryl is serving a life sentence, and has been at Mahanoy about four years. Although Mahanoy is a medium security institution, it is a newer facility and a preferred place to Huntington SCI, where he spent 26 years. Darryl is African-American, close to 60 years old, of medium height, has snow white hair and has gained a little weight since his […]

Read the full article →

A Response to an Op-Ed by Justice Stevens to Repeal the 2nd Amendment

March 27, 2018

Recently, in the wake of the Parkland shootings, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment.  Below is my posted response. The real purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to prevent the federal government from disarming the states. It was, as all the amendments comprising the Bill of Rights were, a limit on federal power, not directives or prohibitions to any state by or from […]

Read the full article →

Part IV of That Coffee House of Grace – One Spirit to Drink

February 3, 2018

Part IV of that Coffee House of Grace – One Spirit to Drink For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given one Spirit to drink. – The Apostle Paul Music to open the Coffee House. White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, by the Beatles. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, by The Grateful Dead. The Big Rock Candy Mountain, […]

Read the full article →

Back to the Coffee House, Part III – Arriving

January 3, 2018

He sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing . . . The wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, Her feathers with shining gold. – Psalm 68 Background music of ‘Song to Woody’ by Bob Dylan. My adventure in hitchhiking across the United States in June of 1967, from Lansdale, Pennsylvania to San Francisco along Route 66, stalled in Elk City, Oklahoma. Prior to that I had gotten two long rides through Pennsylvania and […]

Read the full article →

That Coffee House of Grace, Part II

December 22, 2017

          – How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. A short rhythmic introduction on the bongos is called for here. When I was arrested in San Francisco at the age of 16 they brought me to the juvenile hall. My arrest was accomplished on a Sunday, probably October 15, 1967. I was walking along Haight Street from Golden Gate Park to my shared […]

Read the full article →

Hoping for that Post-Apocalyptic Coffee House of Grace

December 13, 2017

If Christ is for us, who can be against us? Being in the world, but not of the world, occasions some interior conflict at times. It is possible to avoid some of that conflict by giving everything a soft and fuzzy focus; that avoids the harsh criticisms resulting from a spotlight, glaring and unforgiving on the people and acts who are in the world. But that isn’t really love, either. When you put a soft and fuzzy focus on someone […]

Read the full article →

The Coming Millennium Part II-a (Direct Examination of Martin Luther)

October 31, 2017

We begin our questioning of Martin Luther. I note in passing my debt to John Dillenberger’s Edition of the Writings of Martin Luther, upon which I have relied.  In my intellectual life in my mid to late 20’s, everyone was telling me what free will could accomplish.  Only Martin Luther told me what it couldn’t.  The title of his book ‘Bondage of the Will’ was worth a million words of self-help and self-congratulation.  Finally, finally, an adult had entered the […]

Read the full article →

The Coming Millennium, Part 2

September 6, 2017

Theological Foundations of Christian Optimism: Faith, the Vision, Voluntary Self-Government The Faith of Abraham Abraham leaves his tent.  And behold, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then he brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And he said to him, “So shall your descendants […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →