There Are Some Things To Die For

I Moved To Philadelphia To Go To School At Eastern Partly Because I Wanted To Study The Bible And I Also Went To Study Sociology. I Like How Karl Barth Said We Have To Read The Bible In One Hand And The Newspaper In The Other So That Our Faith Doesn't Just Become A Ticket Into Heaven And A License To Ignore The World Around Us.

Philadelphia Caught My Attention In 1995 When A Group Of Homeless Families Were Living In An Abandoned Cathedral. Even From The Beginning They Connected Theology With What They Were Doing. They Put A Banner On The Front Of The Cathedral That Said, "how Can We Worship A Homeless Man On Sunday And Ignore One On Monday."

I Am Convinced That If We Lose Kids To The Culture Of Drugs And Materialism, Of Violence And War, It's Because We Don't Dare Them, Not Because We Don't Entertain Them. It's Because We Make The Gospel Too Easy, Not Because We Make It Too Difficult. Kids Want To Do Something Heroic With Their Lives, Which Is Why They Play Video Games And Join The Army. But What Do They Do With A Church That Teaches Them To Tiptoe Through Life So They Can Arrive Safely At Death?

Perhaps There Is No More Dangerous Place For A Christian To Be Than In Safety And Comfort, Detached From The Suffering Of Others.

We Don't Actually Have Rich And Poor Together Instead We Have A Family. What Does It Mean? If You Have Resources, You Hold Them With Open Hands. The Mark Of The Early Church Was That They Began Sharing And It Said There Were No Needy Persons Among Them. They Ended Poverty As They Created This New Loving Community.