Luke 2:1-20 In the summer of 1992, I was blessed to go to the Barcelona Olympics, to serve as an editor at that great sporting and cultural events. To do my job properly, I had to lug along one whole extra suitcase filled with reference books not for sports, but for the world – because this was in the days before the Internet, when Google wasn’t even a gleam in anyone’s mind. The summer of 1992 was the culmination of some of the wildest three years in history. The Berlin Wall had come down, the Germanies were united, and the Soviet Union had collapsed. … [Read more...]
Suck it up! Deal with it!
December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mark 1:1 Good old Mark – he never misses a chance to beat us over the head with the obvious, does he? I once sat in a theology class with one of the most respected theologians of the Church, Bishop Mark Dyer, shortly after he came to Virginia Seminary. “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he intoned. We all looked at him blankly. “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he repeated, giving us one of his sterner looks. More blank looks. “Who said that?” he asked. Even more blank stares. “Which Gospel … [Read more...]
Now thank we all our God …
December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In the early 1600s, Europe was torn asunder by the Thirty Years’ War, a war that began because of religious intolerance between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire and devolved into a power play involving most of the European powers. It was one of the most destructive wars ever in European history.[1] The walled city of Eilenburg, Saxony, was a flash-point in that war. The town changed hands repeatedly, and was filled with refugees fleeing the destruction. Toward the end of the war, in 1636, Swedish forces laid … [Read more...]
