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Commonsense Christianity

I ran into a statement the other day that knocked me back on my fundament (isn’t that clever? I managed to not use the words, “butt,” or worse, “ass,” and thereby avoided offending anybody). The discussion had to do with Jesus, and trust — or more accurately, our tendency to not trust in Him by…

There’s a difference between the gods of the world and the one, true, eternal God. While that sounds like an obvious statement, it doesn’t seem so when you talk to many Christians who, purportedly, worship the latter. A colleague of mine — a deeply committed Christian who pursues God and lives his life by His…

Like many rural dwellers, we own a number of cats, most of which are “working kitties” that keep the rodent population down and out. They enjoy twice daily meals of fresh goat milk and an occasional visit to the Manor, if they behave. One kitty, however, is Special. A hybrid Siamese, she looks different, and…

I just returned from posting letters in our mailbox, 3oo feet from our house. It’s a cold, foggy day, and over the crunch of gravel under my feet I heard the sibilant song of a little bird. Five little notes. They transported me to spring. I spotted the bird — a drab grey thing perched…

I was chatting with a gracious and dedicated person the other day who blurted out, “I can’t read the Bible for 20 minutes without falling asleep!” You know, not many people are this honest, and if more of us were, we’d enjoy being in one another’s company. Because as I’m sure you know, the correct…

In the highly controlled, conformist society into which I was born (the United States), how successful — and normal — you are depends on certain factors, many of which have to do with participating in groups. Indeed, one of the key arguments that homeschoolers — who have a reputation for being radically different and independent…

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in a social situation, somebody asks you how you’re doing, and since the most significant event in your life lately has been the loss of your job, or the diagnosis of a serious disease, or your teenager’s totaling the car but mercifully walking away unscathed, you mention this.…

Most people, Christians or not, don’t like to talk about hell. Many seekers abhor the subject because they ask, quite logically, “How can a God who professes to be loving, kind, faithful, and merciful toss anyone into hell? I mean, I’m a lowly worm of a human being, and I would never reject one of…

Recently, the Norwegian Artist convinced me to watch the kind of movie that I — and he incidentally — hate: Pure naturalism, in which the story starts out mildly bad and goes downhill from there. Any hope that the character encounters is a forlorn one, and the end, inevitably, is death and despair. “It’s like…

Some days, I’d prefer to leave the amusement park and just go someplace else. It is on these days that I ask God, “Do you not care, anymore, about your people? Are you just going to let them die, asleep, complacently living a life of outward ablutions and inward materialism?” I was in Costco the…
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