What's Tony Thinking

So Much for Self-Righteousness

October 25, 2021 — As mentioned in a recent blog, I did much of my growing up in the D. C. suburb of Arlington, my father being an employee of the Interior Department. But even as we lived “in the south,” or at least on its northern fringes, I was aware that I was from the Northwest, an Oregonian,... Read More

Back in Seattle

October 23, 2021 — Linda and I spent a longer time in the Wallowas this year than ever before. Basically six months. And it has been a especially beautiful fall season there. I got in one last hike on the Ice Lake Trail last weekend with my good friend, David Laskin. The first photo captures the blaze of Tamarack... Read More

A Personal Epiphany

October 22, 2021 — Do you ever wonder about decisions you made in the course of life and why you made them? In college I decided, after a brief dalliance with biology, to major in history. Specifically, Modern European History. And then, in graduate school, European Cultural and Intellectual History. I’ve always wondered what drew me to European History,... Read More

Why God’s Love Isn’t Enough

October 19, 2021 — Let me begin this one by noting that of late, for reasons not entirely clear to me, a greater percentage of my blog posts have been straight up religious, Christian or theological. I realize that at least some, perhaps many of you, dear readers, are not religious or Christian or maybe much interested in theology.... Read More

Give Me a Place to Stand

October 17, 2021 — “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the world.” Those words are attributed to Archimedes, the 3rd century B.C. Greek philosopher and mathematician. For the previous two weeks I have preached on texts from the The Letter to the Hebrews. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, this letter, really a sermon, is... Read More

The Church After the Pandemic

October 16, 2021 — I had a dream a couple nights ago. It was Easter Sunday. I was a minister at a church somewhere. We expected the normal Easter throng, but only a handful of people showed up. Finally, it dawned on us: no one felt comfortable being in a crowd anymore. I wonder if that has something to... Read More

Narrow Misses

October 14, 2021 — There’s something about the story of 66-year-old Ruth Hamilton’s visitation by a 2.8 pound meteorite on October 3 that can’t help but make you wonder, wonder and smile. Not that this was the initial reaction of the resident of Golden, B.C., 440 miles east of Vancouver. Hamilton, understandably, didn’t go back to sleep after the meteorite... Read More

The Cross and the Lynching Tree

October 13, 2021 — I thought of theologian James Cone’s 2011 book The Cross and the Lynching Tree while reading Blaine Harden’s book Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West. Cone argues that interpretations of the cross that do not hold it in relationship to the scourge of lynching of African-Americans... Read More

Quick Takes: God Would Have Forgiven You, Twitter Never Will

October 10, 2021 — I liked this from Richard Beck and his blog “Experimental Theology” on our “age of authenticity,” particularly the final sentence: “This age of ‘authenticity’ is actually characterized by a massive amount of social conformity. “And not just conformity, anxiety. We fear social censor and stigma. We have to perform our identities with the utmost care for... Read More

The Great Resignation

October 9, 2021 — There was a segment on the PBS Newshour last evening (October 8) that we found especially interesting. The title was, “The Great Resignation.” It was reported by my personal favorite at the Newshour, Paul Solomon. This guy makes economics stories interesting by showing us the human face of such news. So what is “The Great... Read More

Older posts