Another Mainstream Misunderstanding By Thomas Lambrecht It is instructive to hear how others perceive what one is saying or doing. Having an alternative perspective often sharpens up the message and enables corrections to misunderstandings. Such is the case with the most recent Mainstream UMC newsletter. (Mainstream UMC is a self-identified
5 Strategies for Reaching the Hispanic Community When we reach out to our neighbors, including our Hispanic community, we invite the Holy Spirit to do His work in our churches. It’s Time for a New “Finest Hour” The title was meant to shock: “Britain Is No Longer a Christian Country,
In 1953, while The Lord of the Rings was being prepared for publication, Tolkien wrote: The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically
Nobel Prize-winning J.M. Coetzee’s new novel, The Pole, is an uneasy secularization of Dante’s love for Beatrice, his beatific muse. If Christopher Beha is correct and “the novelist . . . is a person for whom secularism presents a problem,” the disgrace and dis-ease Coetzee captures so gracefully put him
Historically literate Americans to identify James Madison as “the father of the Constitution.” Not so. Much as I admire Madison, the real father of the Constitution—the man without whom it could never have been framed, ratified, or implemented—was George Washington. Washington saw the need for a strong, national constitution before
Contrasting Views of Scripture By Thomas Lambrecht The essence of the conflict currently roiling The United Methodist Church is a disagreement over the teaching and authority of Scripture. This disagreement is manifested in the church’s attitude toward same-sex romantic relationships. But the reason that traditionalists are unwilling to compromise on
Because of the overwhelming variety of form and content in a multiplicity of artistic, poetic, religious, and philosophical expressions, often conflicting with one another, some scholars have concluded that it is vain to search for a definition of Romanticism. Nevertheless, despite their irreducible differences, all Romantics shared an awareness of
Divisions in Africa By Thomas Lambrecht Recent meetings have clarified a developing divide in Africa between some bishops and other leaders who want to remain in The United Methodist Church and other leaders who are seeing the need to disaffiliate. The question will be: which group is more in sync