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Our Call to Creation Care
An Unpopular Topic for Many Evangelicals As a fifth-generation Oregonian, I grew up in a context where people were into creation care before creation care was cool—nones and Christians alike, no matter what kind of Christian we were. When our family relocated to the Washington, D.C. metroplex in my fifth-grade year, we started attending a United Methodist Church. And that congregation talked about creation care as part of Christian faith. Rooted in Genesis. At age thirteen, I became a Bible-church attendee in our northern-Virginia suburb. And although we focused more on “it’s all going to burn” than on stewardship of the earth in the meantime, we still never ascribed…
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Prosperity: The Devil’s Gospel
Some of us feel entitled to the “good life,” equating hardship with a life gone awry. The prosperity gospel aligns with this ideology—that God ordains health and wealth for Christians. “Name-it-and-claim-it” theology further perpetuates this notion that Christians can up their luck by speaking positivity over situations to alter outcomes. Taking bible verses out of context, and cutting and pasting them to make crowd-pleasing sermons, prosperity gospel preachers apple-polish the gospel (Rom. 16:17-18). Pastor Joel Osteen has preached, “Maybe Alzheimer’s disease runs in your family genes, but don’t succumb to it. . . . If you’ll rise up in your authority, you can…
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Vanity of Vanities
A sixty-two-year-old man went to the ER. Doctors found a large mass pushing his stomach down between his hips. They removed the twelve-pound mass. It was not a tumor. The man had swallowed $650 worth of coins. He had a psychiatric condition called pica in which a person eats inanimate objects. Are you a glutton for possessions? I did a recent closet inventory to prove I don’t hoard. Purses: twenty-nine; earrings: sixty pair; shoes: fifty-two pair. I see shopping as a boring, time-sucking inconvenience. So why do I have so much stuff? …
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Thanksgiving: Are You Rich? Take This Test.
Repeat after me: “I am filthy rich.” I know. I know. I learned this week that we need $15,000 to replace the cooling system in our home. And that’s the off-season price. I know you have bills and pressures that are probably even more pressing. But still…. Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on how much we have for which to be grateful. So I’m thinking some categories from leadership expert Robin Sharma, author of The Greatness Guide, might provide us with some structure for thinking how much we have. He identifies seven forms of wealth: · Inner wealth · Physical wealth · Family and social wealth · Career…
