Tag: faith
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Love, Caress, Difference (for valentine’s day?)
In my book Becoming Two in Love I have created brief, first-person “moments” that give expression to the account and ethics of sexual difference otherwise described somewhat abstractly. An ethics of sexual difference is one that affirms the fundamental mystery that the sexuate other is/represents. It is an ethics that entails a refusal of relations of appropriation…
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skirmishing over good sex #pietka
Skirmishes about good sex (bad sex?) are breaking out all over the place. With her recent, widely read and distributed post, Rachel Pietka has set the cat among the pigeons, arguing as she does that Christians should not assume or expect that sex in marriage will be great. It might never be great, and that’s…
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Jonah is on his way down – A Sermon (1/8) #God’sStrongLove
My sermon from this morning – in which I in many ways follow the brilliant Brazos theological commentary on the book, by Phillip Cary. ______________________ He is sound asleep in the boat. He sleeps so peacefully and confidently that when the storm begins to rage, and the boat begins to rise and fall heavily, he…
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What have we done, Kensington Church? #renewal #change# #future
This summer will mark 5 years of ministry for me at Knox Crescent Kensington and First Presbyterian Church. And over the past weeks I have been taking a tally of some of the changes the congregation has been through over the past 7-8 years. (My family worshipped here before I was called as minister, so I was able to…
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I’ll stop pretending to be a Christian… #AttackOnChristendom
A piece I originally intended to submit to the Presbyterian Record, but then decided not to. For what it’s worth… ____________________ Quid pro quo. You do something for me and I’ll do something for you. It’s an eminently reasonable formula, and I’d like to propose just such an exchange. I’ll get to the details in…
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who is thomas? it’s complicated #sermon #identity
Thomas is at the centre of things this morning. His name is there in the text – plainly in black and white. But who is this Thomas? Who is this one whose name appears so starkly in the text? Perhaps he is not so clearly defined as we might like him to be. Even if…
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let him kiss me – doubt and distance
Doubt corresponds with distance. To feel in our hearts and minds and bodies that God is removed from us, is perhaps equal to an experience of doubt. On the other hand, faith corresponds with closeness. To feel in our hearts and minds and bodies that God is close to us, is perhaps to be in…
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three easter conversions – which is yours?
There is a lot of running going on in John chapter 20 – a lot of running in the gospel’s narration of the events of that Easter morning. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb early on the first day of the week, when the glow of morning has barely appeared on the horizon. All she…
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come for breakfast…
Our New Testament lesson this morning from John chapter 21 is jam-packed with activity. Full to over-flowing with interesting and even astonishing moments. There is Peter inviting the disciples to go fishing. There is a long night of catching nothing. There is a stranger on the shore telling them to try the other side of…
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gospel and the gazette – remembering
Last Saturday’s Montreal Gazette carried a news story about the Berlin Wall. In fact, over the past week or so, newspapers from the London Telegraph to the New York Times to der Spiegel have carried stories about the Berlin Wall. The reason is that August the 13th marked the 50th anniversary of the building of the…
encrusted words 