Joyce “For Dummies”

If you are looking for a quickie introduction to Joyce’s Ulysses (and, gosh, who isn’t?), you might check out this site . Don’t neglect to examine the home page, and the exchange of letters regarding the web site’s disclaimer. . . . . Continue Reading »

CA Bayly on Global History

In a brief article in the Feb 2004 issue of History Today , C. A. Bayly describes the current state of global history. He points out that even postmodern historians who stridently oppose history as told by the colonial victors, are beginning to write a new form of global history of their own. He . . . . Continue Reading »

Wedding Homily, December 30

In the past week, we have celebrated Christmas, commemorating the human birth of the Only-begotten Son of the Father. At this feast, we were reminded of central mysteries of Christian faith: The Son who is eternally in the bosom of the Father is born from the bosom of a virgin; the firstborn of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Church’s Kingly Ministry

The Blackwell Companion to Ethics (edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells) looks to be a stimulating collection of essays. The contributors examine ethics through the lens of liturgy, on the assumption that what God seeks are worshipers, companions who will walk and eat with him. Thus, for . . . . Continue Reading »

Anger

“In most of our scholarly literature about the classical world,” writes Columbia University’s William V. Harris in his Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity , “political and religious change . . . seems to take place in a remarkably calm . . . . Continue Reading »

Sermon Outline, January 2

So, What Are We Anyway? INTRODUCTION The liturgical changes recently introduced at Trinity might well provoke an identity crisis for members of the church. Have we become Lutherans? Or Anglicans? Or have we abandoned the Reformation altogether? Are we still Protestants? Are we on the road to Rome, . . . . Continue Reading »

Eucharistic Meditation, December 26

1 Corinthians 11: the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it. Division and reunion, death and resurrection, is the basic pattern of human life. Marriage is, as Pastor Wilson has taught us, woven into the fabric of creation. It is not . . . . Continue Reading »

Exhortation, December 26

As Pastor Wilson will explain more fully in the sermon this morning, division is an essential part of creation. God creates by dividing light and darkness, by separating waters above and waters below, by drawing a boundary between sea and land. This creative division continues throughout Scripture, . . . . Continue Reading »

Baptism Meditation, December 26

Matthew 18:1-6 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, ?Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven??EAnd He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of . . . . Continue Reading »

Lordly Obedience

The following is a Christmas Eve homily, largely paraphrased/quoted from Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics , 4.1, pp. 185ff. John 5:30: ?I can do nothing on My own initiative As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.?E In the . . . . Continue Reading »