Mother’s Day is not primarily a call for sentimental reflection about our mothers. It’s a call to disarm. It’s a call to nonviolence. It’s a call to follow the God of nonviolent love, not the violent Caesars of our world. Finally, Mother’s Day is a call to peace, justice, and love for all of creation. Only when our lives are patterned in that way can we live out Howe’s dream to “solemnly take counsel with e ...

Watching sports is not as much fun as it used to be. I blame Jesus for that, because he just had to say, “Love thy enemy.” Or, as Chad Gibbs puts it in the title of his fantastic book on spirituality and sports, “Love thy Rival.” Here’s an example of how Jesus ruined sports for me. The University of Louisville and the University of Michigan will face off tonight in the final game of the NCAA men’s basketbal ...

Yesterday was Easter – the day we celebrated the Resurrection of the Son of God. It’s the day when we finally realize that God isn’t out to get us. In fact, three days after a bunch of people abandoned, betrayed, and killed him, Jesus came back. And instead of following the same old script of holy-revenge-in-the-name-of-justice (thanks to Saturday Night Live for that skit!) Jesus offered forgiveness and pea ...

There was an angry deity in need of appeasement at the Cross that day, and it was us. As it has always been us when it comes to sacrifice. ...

I risk losing all respect from my hipster youth group at church, but I have to talk about Phil Phillips. The American Idol winner (yeah, there goes my youth group cred) from 2012 has an amazing song called Home. The song is deeply spiritual and relates specifically to the Christian season of Lent... ...

God doesn’t hate sin; we do. We hold trespasses against one another in the spirit of revenge; God doesn’t. God is reconciling the world to God’s Self, not counting our trespasses against us, and looking for people to participate in that reconciliation. ...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/457670 Whenever I talk with people about Jesus and nonviolence, a curious thing happens. Someone will inevitably raise his hand (and it’s always his hand), call me a wuss, and then accuse me of making Jesus-Christ-Our-Lord-And-Savior into my own wussy image. First, the accusation that I’m a wuss is totally true. No one can surpass my wussiness. I run from confrontation and if I eve ...

It was a proud moment in the Ericksen household. The five of us sat down for lunch and my six-year-old Boy said, Let’s pray. This is every pastor’s dream. Usually I have to coerce people into prayer. Now my Boy is offering to pray. With great pride and a smile on my face I said, Yes my Son. Will you lead us in prayer? He took a pensive moment and agreed. We bowed our heads, closed our eyes, and then … this ...

Valentine believed in love more than he feared some Roman Emperor, so he kept providing the marriage sacrament. He put himself in danger so that Christians could share the love of God with one another in marriage. I’ll admit it, that’s romantic, and pretty b.a. ...

For Benedict, the Christian axiom that God is love means that you are the object of God’s love. You are loved more than you will ever know. Benedict knew the urgency of this message. “In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant...” ...