sermons

Fletcher Harper 9-16-2021

Religious leaders should stop saying things like, “We must be good stewards of Creation” or “Our faith teaches us to protect the Earth” and instead getting comfortable saying things like: “ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and other oil and gas companies are systematically destroying the planet — and financial giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, and Vanguard are bankrolling the destruction.”

Jenna Barnett 11-09-2020

In president-elect Joe Biden’s acceptance speech on Saturday he “pledge[d] to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States.”

Yet over the weekend, some social media users used their platforms to warn pastors not to conflate peace-building and unity with forced reconciliation.

Eugene Cho 8-19-2014
Protests Aug.17. Photo courtesy Heather Wilson / PICO

Protests Aug.17. Photo courtesy Heather Wilson / PICO

I have so much emotions and thoughts in my mind, heart, and body – in light of the oh-so-much that is going on all around the world – including the utterly tragic, brutal, and unnecessary “death” of Michael Brown.

But I thought it would be helpful to share a few thoughts how churches, Christians, and leaders can be engaging the events of the past 11 days in their respective churches – now and in the future. I’m not suggesting that pastors have to completely alter their sermons or Bible studies, but to altogether ignore the injustice of Michael Brown’s death would be altogether foolish.

To be blunt and I say this respectfully,

The integrity of the church is at stake because when it’s all said and done, it’s not a race issue for me — it’s a Gospel issue. It’s a Kingdom issue. We shouldn’t even let isolated issues in themselves hijack the purpose of the church. The Gospel of Christ is so extraordinary that it begins to inform (and we pray, transform) all aspects of our lives. So, in other words, we talk about race and racism because we believe in the Gospel.

So, here are five suggestions for Christians, leaders, and churches.

Tripp Hudgins 3-25-2013
Rob Bell's new book "What We Talk About When We Talk About God"

Rob Bell's new book "What We Talk About When We Talk About God"

This letter was written on a plane a week ago. I posted it originally on Facebook as a status update. Out of curiosity I took a gander at it again and decided I wanted to share it here. Things are so fluid on the Ol' F-Book that I thought keeping it here would be good to do. Rob's new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, offers someting new and something familiar all at once. What I think Rob is doing is not so much giving us new ideas (though, given some of the ecclesial silos many of us have been reared in some of these ideas might seem new). Instead, Rob is lending his voice to many Christians. His pastorally framed theology is just the kind of thing many people have been clamoring for these last several decades. My grandparents would have loved his new book. So would have their parents. I kid you not.

This book is not about a "new" thing. It's simply about God and how we come to know God in this world. 

Tripp Hudgins 8-07-2012
God's hand illustration, George Nazmi Bebawi / Shutterstock.com

God's hand illustration, George Nazmi Bebawi / Shutterstock.com

This is the third and final installment of my little series on Harry Emerson Fosdick, his sermons about Modernism and Science, and how these century-old sermons remind us that our present conversations about the same are anything but new. They may be necessary, but they aren't new. You can read my first post, “I Love How History Repeats Itself,” and my second post, “Science, Faith, and An Ongoing Conversation.”

I want to continue to focus on the same two sermons, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" and "The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism," and finish up a line of thought about American Christian Fundamentalism and interlace a third and final sermon entitled, “The Greatness of God” in which Fosdick outlines some of his own understandings of atheism, science, and religion. Typical of Fosdick, there is a tome hidden in between the lines of that sermon. Nevertheless, I'll try to share some of it with you.

What does Fosdick say is the trouble with Modernism? In “The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism,” he lists a few problems. Here's a list:

  • “... it is primarily an adaptation, an adjustment, an accommodation of Christian faith to contemporary scientific thinking.”
  • for this reason it tends “toward shallowness and transiency” and thus cannot adequately represent the Eternal;
  • “Unless the church can go deeper and reach higher than that it will fail indeed.”
  • “... excessively preoccupied with intellectualism” eschewing the heart and thus missing much of Christian spirituality
  • excessive sentimentality, which means the eternal progress of the human character and the eradication of evil and the loss of moral judgment, scientific progress being equated with human moral progress
  • “... modernism has even watered down and thinned out the central message and distinctive truth of religion, the reality of God.”
Tripp Hudgins 1-19-2012
SOPA protest illustration from Unvirtuous Abbey via Facebook

SOPA protest illustration from Unvirtuous Abbey via Facebook www.facebook.com/unvirtuous-abbey

"Wisdom wants to be free. As a Christian, I believe there is actually some theology to this....Wisdom is a woman and she stands at the gates of the city and she cries out to the people, 'Be free. Be free to love and be free to share.'...What if we understood creativity to be wisdom?"

Watch Tripp's v-log on SOPA, creativity, freedom and wisdom inside the blog...

Steve Holt 7-11-2011

I was not one of the 1,500 who attended the inaugural Wild Goose Festival in Shakori Hills, North Carolina last month, but I did grow up going to Christian summer camp. What’s the connection, you ask, between a festival and summer camp? Summer camp -- like festivals and extended retreats -- is often deeply formative because it gives kids (and adult counselors, for that matter) a glimpse at a kingdom lifestyle.

Claire Lorentzen 6-28-2011
Scott Kinder-Pyle is a Presbyterian pastor in Spokane, Washington, and the featured poet in Sojourners' July issue.
Kathryn Reklis 6-20-2011
As I play with my young son, walk to the grocery store, or wait for a subway, I feel the presence of emails I haven't answered, Facebook invites I haven't responded to, tweets I haven't sent.
Lynne Hybels 6-06-2011

No, I am not submitting a belated entry into the heated conversation about Rob Bell's latest book.

Becky Garrison 11-15-2010
How are we to respond as people of faith to the recent revelation that more than 66,000 civilians have died in our two wars?
Ruth Hawley-Lowry 8-25-2010
[Editor's Note: In anticipation of the anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, God's Politics will feature a series of posts on the
Eugene Cho 8-12-2010
Several years ago, I spent several hours/week doing research (and meeting with other pastors) about pastoral health and vitality for my denomination.

Jim Wallis 4-29-2010
We are all familiar with the famous pop culture image of a street evangelist holding up a sign reading, "Repent, for the end is near!" But repentance is actually a fundamental religious theme, and
Douglas Kmiec 4-15-2010
It is far too easy to blame the highly publicized priestly scandal for the alienation of Catholics in Europe or the United States.
Ruth Hawley-Lowry 1-15-2010

This year, as we celebrate the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we are too often tempted to celebrate what has been achieved rather than examine what God continues to call out of us. Hopefully we know that there is no such thing as "post-racial," even after the election of an African American president.

Jarrod McKenna 12-16-2009

Many would have read reports of Rowan Williams wonderful sermon in Copenhagen. Below are some of my favorite quotes. What some may have missed is this fantastic talk he gave. ...
091216-rowan-williams

Efrem Smith 11-04-2009
In this clip, Pastor Efrem expands on the very familiar verse John 3:16.