Category: Theology
Bullying isn’t just for kids: why dialogue is essential in Wisconsin teachers’ strike
Over the past few weeks, I have been fascinated at the cat and mouse game that is happening just over the border from me in Wisconsin. The big bully Governor Walker is metaphorically taking away the... Read More
Harding University and The State of the Gay
Nestled in the heart of Arkansas west of the mighty Mississippi, but east of the Ozarks lies a quaint Southern town with a big college atmosphere. It’s quiet and hot (the humid type!) during the... Read More
Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Tibetan Buddhist Mandala
I spent a lot of time at the Gyuto Monks’ mandala at the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. The mandala is the traditional Tibetan Buddhist form of sandpainting, pra... Read More
Birth, Old Age, Sickness, and Taxes: Buddhism and Fiscal Policy
With the recent controversy over a compromise to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, with congress threatening to de-fund everything from AmeriCorps to NPR, and with fiscal battles ragi... Read More
You Probably Do Not Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder
I was an undergraduate when I started hearing my classmates speak in reverent tones about Buddhism. Suddenly everyone was reading Hesse’s Siddhartha and setting their watch timers for twenty minutes... Read More
An Upset in Piperville: An Object Lesson in Loving the Theologically Ridiculous
Over the past few days, one three-word tweet has put the evangelical world into a tizzy: Farewell Rob Bell. The tweet came from John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN and ... Read More
New Life in Lent through a new lens
When I was growing up, I just assumed everyone celebrated Mardi Gras. In my family, when Fat Tuesday rolled around, my mom always made a great meal (it wasn’t until I was old enough to tolerate sp... Read More
What Are We Saying?
For me, this raises important questions about the power and significance of words. The words of prayer are so important that I don’t want to change them, yet they are often so problematic for me tha... Read More