As Wycliffe College Chaplain, I spend a lot of time creating lists. I consider doing so a critical part of any pastoral practice.

Do you, like me, have a complicated relationship with the news?

Do you, like me, have a complicated relationship with the news? I find it almost magnetic—I want to know “what is going on,” to think myself part of current social dramas. I also find the news disorienting and discomfiting—it depicts a world out of control.

There’s a growing ache at the heart of many of our western societies. Its name is loneliness. And a stream of actors has been calling it out of late: psychologists, pastors, pandemistas, even politicians.

On this day the Lord has acted. We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)

“Stuck at home”

stuck: “mired, glued, compelled, resolutely adhered, halted, saddled disagreeably”

home: “one’s place of residence, domicile, habitat”

How very good and pleasant it is

I am in the middle of reading St. Benedict’s Rule with my 30 students in the first year MDiv course at Wycliffe called, “Life Together: Living the Christian Faith in Community.” We have come to the fun part of this portion of the class.

We’ve all had enough, it seems. And yet we only want more. Shoulders curled forward, phones in our hands, eyes fixed to the screen, our brains wired to thumb endlessly deeper into the digital matrix: this is becoming the posture of humanity.

Why is it that Christians—particularly evangelical Christians—are increasingly seen as the enemy of the common good?  A Google search for “evangelical” in The New York Times quickly locates numerous articles about the evils of Christian evangelicals.