The other day Becky and I were streaming the movie Mission Impossible III from our Netflix account, a mindless diversion at the end of the busy day. Early in the movie, and really just part of the setup for rest of the story, a colleague of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is viciously murdered by the arch villain who will not know justice until the end of the film.  So there is a funeral scene, actually a graveside service scene, the kind that Hollywood likes a lot and that have little basis in the way graveside services actually go. The mourners are gathered around the casket and the pastor is droning on about the sadness of the death. As usually happens at Hollywood graveside services, the important action is at the edge of the crowd of mourners where clandestine contacts are made and important decisions are reached. We hope that a really good chase scene ensues. Continue reading →

It’s a story that’s gotten some attention, much of it mocking. On June 24 the Vatican issued a decree on the upcoming World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. It made it official that those in attendance would receive a plenary indulgence for making the trip and attending seriously to the program of this once-every-three-years event. I’m not Roman Catholic and I have some serious doubts, as in I don’t believe it, about the reality of purgatory, but according to Roman teaching, a plenary indulgence cancels the “temporal punishment” due us for a particular sin. That is, whatever time might need to be spent in purgatory for some sin is canceled by an approved act of faithful discipleship in this world. Continue reading →

It happens every year. The question has to be answered. What shall we sing on the Sunday closest to the Fourth of July? For some the question is easy. Find hymns that support the biblical text for the day – Obadiah, in our case this year – and if such hymns can’t be found, then general hymns of praise, thanksgiving, penitence and prayer. For others the answer is equally easy. We should sing “God Bless America” (the Irving Berlin show tune) and drape the pulpit in red, white and blue.

The question behind the question, of course, is how are we to regard the nations, our nation in particular, in light of God’s sovereignty? Continue reading →

(The second part of this week’s post, More Questions than Answers, some initial reflections on this week’s Supreme Court rulings, is posted on line and you may find it here.)

Ten days ago the church gathered for prayer. It was occasional prayer, that is, circumstance itself seemed to be calling us to prayer. Twenty-four hours earlier, Bret Lynn had been viciously assaulted and wounded at his place of business, and even as we met, Brenda Clabbers was in an operating room in Denver undergoing a long-anticipated complex and complicated surgical procedure. Continue reading →

I have a dictionary on my bookshelf. It is a Merriam Webster Collegiate, the 1974 edition. I’ve had it for a long time, but I rarely use it any longer. So much easier to go to one of the many online dictionaries.

This past Monday as I was preparing for a Session meeting, however, I pulled my old friend from its place of the shelf, blew the dust from the top of the pages and looked up the word “marriage.” Here’s how Merriam Webster answered my inquiry with its 1974 understanding of marriage (and, as it turns out, in the 1993 edition that sits unused on a book shelf at home, as well):

a. the state of being married. b. the mutual relation of husband and wife whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. Continue reading →