This blog entry is designed for follow-up comments to “A Community Conversation About Homosexuality” at Lenoir Rhyne University November 4, 2010.  You may read the entry and comments without registering on my blog, but to post a comment you need to register. 

As long as Linda I have been in the United Church of Christ, the issue of homosexuality has been an unavoidable subject.  Well, maybe “unavoidable” is the wrong word.  You can avoid almost any subject you want in our culture.  We could have avoided the UCC altogether.  But we sensed God’s call to be right [...]

Jesus prayed in John 17 that all who would ever believe in his name would be one as he is one with the Father “that the world may believe.”  What does that mean?

I love the church.  Since I was a teenager I have never waned in commitment to the church or hope for its future.
Believe me, I also know the dark side of the church.  I know its history.  I know its flaws – up close and personal.  I am one of its flaws. 

Elijah is my patron saint.
That’s a line I have used several times recently in speaking to or about my calling as a pastor in the mainline church.  Last month Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte invited me to speak in chapel about the upcoming conference, “Renewing the Call,” to be held in Chicago August 8-10, 2010.  [...]