parables of a prodigal world

Given the "juiciness" of the Obama/Jeremiah Wright controversy , I guess it was inevitable that we would start to get bombarded with stories of presidential candidates and their affiliations with controversial religious figures. So here we go. The brain trust over at NBC came up with this "bombshell": Some disclaimers. I'm not a huge fan of Douglas Coe, not so much because of the "point" of the NBC story, but for reasons I have touched upon elsewhere . And I hope I don't have to delve into the obvious and say that I'm no fan of Adolf Hitler, et al. Having said that, I think the comparison that Coe is making, in this context, between Jesus and Hitler is dead on . What do Jesus and Hitler have in common? Answer: They both called their disciples to a life-altering allegiance, an allegiance that would necessarily transcend and trump any rival allegiances they may have had. The difference, of course, was in the nature of that to which those disciple...

A new blogger whose site I recently ran across notes the following in describing that site: "I hope to be able to look back over time and see how I have grown." That's always a good strategy, not just for a blog. For me, it's been almost 3 and a half years since I, starving and destitute, decided to humbly seek the position of a slave in my Father's house, and He, seeing me coming in the distance, shamefully and ecstatically ran down the road to welcome me back. Soon after, I was gripped by a burning desire to investigate the nature of that Being who I had just met. Not being one to seek much in the way of guidance from others, I began to read...anything I could get my hands on that had "God" or "Jesus" or "Bible" or "Christ" in the title. No rhyme or reason, mind you. Just anything . As you can imagine, my early Christian education was comprised of quite a potpourri. I read some Pagels and Crossin, but they simply didn...