The Templeton Committee met for the first time on October 21, 2015. Pastor Michael Tavella had received a $5000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation through the auspices of Earl Whipple, a staff member of the organization and a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. The grant will be used to develop a manual for churches and individual Christians on how we should conduct ourselves when in conversation with atheists and others who do not attend Church (the “nones”), either one on one or in a public forum. The biblical basis for the project is I Peter 3: 15b-16. The proposal includes field testing the manual in church adult classes and then holding at least one public forum in which Christians and non-Christians dialogue with one another. These conversations will constitute a Christian defense of the faith (ἀπολογία, apologia, English-apology) and a witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The virtual environment has become pre-eminent in American life. Young and old spend an enormous amount of time in front of a computer screen. The word, virtual, in its use has become almost completely identified with the computer age in which we live. Virtual is opposite the real physical environment. It is an imitation of…
Some time ago, a young man approached me on the street to show me a picture of Christ rendered by Rembrandt. He asked me, who is this? Such was a perfect time for witness. What would you have done in this situation? We must always be ready to witness to others so that they can…
The beginning of the Gospel according to Saint Mark does not include a birth story. Accounts of the birth of Jesus are found in Matthew and Luke. After the superscription in this shortest and oldest of the gospels are found passages from Exodus, Malachi, and Isaiah in the Old Testament that announce the coming of…
Kensington Avenue and the surrounding area is drug central on the eastern seaboard and in America. It is an extraordinary experience to drive on Kensington Avenue from Frankford Avenue to Lehigh Avenue and beyond. The tourist (and I do not take the term lightly) will see many wonders: tent encampments; drug users injecting themselves with…
The word, gospel, is used eight times in Mark, only seven times if you exclude 16: 15 that by many scholars is not regarded as part of the evangelist’s work, but a later addition. Its first usage is at the very beginning of Mark where our narrator announces, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus…
When Saint Paul was visiting the Greek city of Athens during one of his missionary journeys, he noticed an altar dedicated “To the unknown god.” In his address to the men of Athens on the Areopagus, he refers to this altar as testimony that the unknown god is in fact the God he was preaching–the…
When I was a youth, two novels that I didn’t read until recently caught my attention, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger. My interest in the first was stirred by an article I read long ago in Atlantic Monthly. I had been repelled by the second; but, I was…
These days, many American seem to have great trouble with authority of any kind whether it be religious, familial, educational, governmental, etc. Some educational leaders and civil servants have supported this tendency of disrespect. The result of this erosion of respect for authority is increased public disorder, crime, and contempt for others. Those in authority…
In the Gospel of John, the Greek word for world can mean two things. First, world describes the inhabited universe. We humans are in and part of the world. It is stated in this gospel that the world needs a Savior. This implication connects it to the second meaning that suggests the opposition between the…
The flickering flame was the only light in the darkened church, When I arrived to take a seat in a choir pew, Away from the spiritual amnesia that comes from daily life. In this holy place the soul can hear God speak anew. The hours fled swiftly, as I fell more deeply into my…
