Dear Friends, Diversity is an interesting thing. A couple of weeks ago I spent time in Louisiana, about an hour north of New Orleans, where I ate alligator sausage for dinner and grits for breakfast. Plus there was okra, and gumbo, and coffee with chicory. Out in the pine forest where we were staying I saw oyster shell fossils and spiders as…

Dear Friends, In this week’s edition of Contact both of your pastors will share a single column. It is important for us to speak in one voice in these days of anxious division. In response to a Presidential election whose results we found to be gut-wrenchingly awful, we found ourselves considering what the Church can be, indeed what the church must be,…

Dear Friends, On October 31, while most Americans celebrate Halloween, a few of us who are church nerds will be observing quietly the 499th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, for it was on the eve of All Saints Day in 1517, that a German monk and scholar named Martin Luther, published a list of 95 theological propositions about the theology and conduct…

Friends, This week marks a happy milestone for me: for the first time in more than 23 years of pastoral ministry I am teaching or leading four different classes or informed discussions in a single week. In addition to my regularly-scheduled weekly Bible study, I am leading a discussion around what it might look like for our congregation to declare itself a…

Dear Friends, Last week I wrote about The Red Pill, a documentary a couple of filmmakers I admire had asked me to review. The movie looked at the so-called “Men’s Rights Movement” and I would give it a mixed review. On the one hand, the film did a great job of chronicling the inner journey of one of the filmmakers, as she…

Dear Friends, It came to pass that an unexpected bit of correspondence washed up over the transom of my electronic inbox yesterday. A filmmaker by the name of Nena Jaye asked me to review her newest film which, ordinarily, I’d be very happy to do.  Nena and her daughter Cassie have made a pair of excellent documentary films, one that explores the…

Dear Friends, Like many Americans I was drawn to the Presidential debate on Monday night. I am, by inclination, a political animal. I think a lot about public policy, I follow the goings on in Washington and Sacramento and in the buildings that surround Frank Ogawa Plaza downtown. I have opinions–some of them are strong, some of them misguided– but I like…

Friends, In my sermon this coming Sunday, I will be addressing the subject of compassion and I will be asking if we can celebrate a person’s compassion if that person a)expresses his or her concern in ways that don’t do much good, b)holds religious or political views that we find repugnant, or c)both.  In particular, I will be looking at Mother Theresa,…

Dear Friends; As part of my sermon on Sunday, August 28, I read the following letter, which I addressed To Whomever Is In Charge of Waging American Wars. Some of you asked to see a copy. Here is an excerpt.  If you’d like to read the letter in its entirety, you can find it here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-daniel/to-whomever-is-in-charge-_b_11763034.html? “Perhaps the problem is the so-called…