Cultural ethics

Lately, I’ve been swamped with temporary though important projects consuming my time and attention. Feeling guilty about delaying or limiting focus on more regular needs, I recalled a booklet in a seminary class: Tyranny of the Urgent, by Charles E. Hummel. The primary lesson from this brief...

The dangers facing the church today are subtle. They are like those facing the family. Imagine a young man sits his parents down at the kitchen table for a talk. He then outs himself as gay or perhaps transgendered. The danger facing that family at that moment is very real. Traditionally they have...

When I was a young teen trying to get comfortable in my own skin words were a commodity that could make or break you. Utter one wrong word and social standing could be tenuous. The best you could do was hope that people had short memories and so never bring up your words again. Today things are...

Maria Fearing and the Mission to the Congo If you think you are too old for something you wish to do, Maria Fearing can prove you wrong. She learned to read when she was 33 and became a missionary at 56. She would have continued until her death if the Presbyterian mission board hadn’t stopped her...

Georgi Vins and the Christian Resistance to Soviet Religious Persecution On April 26, 1979, 50-year-old Georgi Petrovich Vins was woken up in his cell in the labor camp where he had been serving sentence for four years. He was asked to change into his own clothes, flown to Moscow, then told that he...