And the last thing I would consider doing would be to show them that illustration of a lone zebra on the run from a lion. Instead I will show them the painting that Heidi has in our church office--of a Shepherd walking among a flock of sheep, holding one in his arms. That one he rescued from the lion, that one who left the church because the church didn't understand, that one whom church leaders abused, that one who those in youth group taunted, that one of color who the white sheep told "just get over it," but that one that Jesus  never lost sight of and never stopped chasing down.

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

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But I so often think it’s in the ordinary moments of our lives when the holy shows up if we have ears to hear and eyes to see it. The holy seems to hide when we build up our expectations and then sweeps us of our feet when we least expect it. Either way, the point is, as the resurrection stories show us, Jesus just keeps showing up until we’ve got to decide to open the door or put up our “closed to the divine sign” up that we’ve all got stashed somewhere in our closets.

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

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Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

As evangelicals these days, the mantra of "Jesus is God" has become a kind of weapon that we brandish against others and other faiths. It has been our way of crusading once again against those of lesser faiths, those who have embraced partial truths, those who have chosen other ways to heaven. I for one do not deny an ounce of Jesus' divinity, but that's not exactly what we see Jesus promoting much of the time.  In fact, he was often shy about his origins. "Don't tell anyone," he said or "if you say so." But gathering a bunch of rebel rousers with Jesus flags flying and marching on the Roman Senate building was the last thing in his mind. Those who do so are from such a different kingdom than Christ's 

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

Friends, we can never hit the mark of the law, but we can always turn our gaze back to  Jesus. And when we do we will always find him smiling at us, never rebuking us because we missed that damn mark again, never criticizing us for failing to jump high enough, but always saying, "Come back into my safe and loving arms, for today and for every day hereafter, you shall be with me in paradise."  And that my friends, is the truth of the Resurrection that I choose to live within!

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

This is Holy Saturday friends, made holy not because the news is good but indeed the opposite--the worst news possible. God is dead. And there is no promise for tomorrow. The Enemy has won. We were so close to winning the war, so close to seeing all of creation come to life in a cacophony of awakening sounds from graves, hospitals, morgues, addiction treatment facilities, prisons, half-way houses, shelters for victims of domestic violence, streets where those of color are forced to the ground crying out for life like their ancestors centuries before, those cast aside from a church that offered no hope because they couldn't keep the rules, and from the self-righteous within that church that also broke the rules but had crafted the skills of covering up their sins so well. From all of these quarters we had expected the light to break through, new songs to emerge, the promise of a new future, and justice to reign and evil to be overcome.

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

But the drama wasn't over yet. A crowd began to gather--folks who wanted to see Lazarus--risen from the dead, the stench of death long gone, now walking around more full of life than ever and more full of life than most of them. But while some came to gawk, others came to murder--not just Lazarus, but the very movement of the divine that had brought Lazarus back from the dead in the first place.

For the resurrection of Lazarus was a reminder to these church leaders that the power they clung to was nothing compared to that of this prophet and mystic from Nazareth, this wondering sage whom so many of those who were lost--including so many in the very churches of these leaders--"were going over to and putting their faith in [Jesus]." 

What drove these leaders nuts, I suspect, was less about Jesus and Mary and Lazarus, and more about themselves and the loss of power, prestige, and privilege that lay ahead if they allowed this man from Galilee to carry on his little circus among the misfits much longer. 

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

In a segment just for Etown alumni, Dr. Conrad Kanagy, Professor of Sociology at Etown, gives a special insider's look into the digital content he has been creating since the beginning of he pandemic including his new podcast.

Listen in on Dr. Kanagy's personal and spiritual journey, in this special presentation titled Parkinson’s, a Pandemic, Podcasting, and Prayer.   This episode can also be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am-5XrTQTFY.

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

For just as he carried with him the scars in his hand and side, he continued and continues to carry the emotional and mental trauma that he experienced and absorbed that week. In some way, I wonder, does God have PTSD?

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!

A friend who follows my podcast, recently noted that I certainly have absorbed the sociological perspective. My immediate response was something to the effect that "I think that it was always embedded within me--that I found sociology because I had always questioned the reality of the cultural context within which I grew up." I added, "In fact, I think that is how I survived."

RNS news release

 Walter Brueggemann has been writing for the American church for six decades and continues to produce four to five books a year.  His biography has finally been written by Conrad Kanagy of Elizabethtown College, PA. Amazon currently offers a 45% discount bringing the paperback to 13.80.

Support the show

Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!