Peripatetic Pastor

Tag: Belief

  • LIVING SMALL

    Sadness settled over many of us like a Bellingham fog. We were gathered with friends last Tuesday when the votes began to come in from the eastern part of the US. It quickly became apparent that disaster was in the making. We talked a while about what it meant, about why people voted the way…

  • A WORD FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT BELIEVE: FAITH AS ENCOUNTER

    In the Bible “faith” rarely means “belief”—at least, not in the sense that “belief” has come to have in popular Christianity: what I will call “belief about.” We are not saved by belief. This is not what the Bible teaches. But if my experience is at all representative, this is what many in church think…

  • Retrieving the Words of Faith

    LOSING THE THREAD: HOW BAD THEOLOGY THREATENS THE CHURCH Lately, some people—I, among them—have despaired as the churches we grew up with have slid into right wing politics. It’s not just that a vast majority of people who identify as evangelicals voted for Donald Trump (according to exit polls, it’s somewhere between 76% and 81%),…