What's Tony Thinking

“The Science”

February 21, 2023 — Our book group started a new series on Climate Science the other evening. We had a choice of two books. I chose Unsettled by Steven E. Koonin, a Cal Tech physicist who had been the Undersecretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy in the Obama Administration. The book was a surprise to me. I had... Read More

Something’s Happening Here

February 20, 2023 — Over the weekend I read two posts about the revival going on at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. It began February 8 and has been continuous since then. And I mean, really continuous, 24/7. Here’s a moving post from the Free Press. That story begins with a young man named Gracie Turner, a student at Asbury.... Read More

Mass Shootings: Asking Deeper Questions

February 15, 2023 — Does the current, if temporary, status of abortion suggest a solution, of sorts, on guns? The abortion “solution” has, in effect, been to return the matter to the states to decide. We now have a checkerboard of different laws, varying state to state. In my outrage and frustration with gun violence, I wonder if we... Read More

Love Never Ends

February 14, 2023 — On more than one occasion over the years I have “explained” to couples and congregations that Paul’s “hymn to love,” I Corinthians 13, is not really about romantic love or the love between two people at all. It is, I pointed out, about the absence of love in a church. Paul wrote to a congregation,... Read More

Jesus or “He Gets Us” Goes to the Super Bowl

February 12, 2023 — I first wrote about the “He Gets Us” Campaign last fall when it began to show up during the baseball playoffs. Any other year, I would have missed the ads, since the Seattle Mariners hadn’t been in the playoffs for 21 years. But because they finally ended the playoff drought last fall I saw the... Read More

Instead of Advice, Grace

February 9, 2023 — Perhaps, you have seen David Brooks’s recent piece on “How Do You Serve a Friend Who Is in Despair.” But I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this one, as well as adding some perspective of my own. Brooks writes of his long-time friend, Peter Marks, beginning with the antics and joy of their boyhood... Read More

Jesus Ups the Ante: Thoughts on a Tough Text

February 7, 2023 — I’m not preaching this Sunday, but I am thinking about those of you that are, and who are grappling with a tough text. Namely, the so called “anti-theses” of the Sermon on the Mount. Each follows the pattern of “You have heard it said,” then Jesus saying, “But I say to you.” That latter bit... Read More

God-Bothering

February 6, 2023 — The other evening at a dinner party we met a lovely Australian gal who spoke about her elderly mum’s recent move to a supportive living situation. She and her brother were helping with the move. Her brother was on about mum’s collection of “God-bothering” paraphernalia and what in the world to do with it all.... Read More

The Urgency of Grace, A Sermon Preached on February 5, 2023

February 4, 2023 — The Urgency of Grace* Matthew 5: 13 – 20 February 5, 2023, Guemes Island Community Church First, here is the link to the audio recording of the sermon on zoom. Written text follows. Audio should not require a password. Simply click on this, then on the zoom link that appears. After you start the audio,... Read More

Urgency, Updates and Questions from My Bubble

February 2, 2023 — Urgency. I liked this from Dave Zahl’s talk, “The Urgent Hope of Unreasonable Mercy,” at the Mockingbird Orlando Conference last month. “I don’t know about you, but I happen to find any kind of talk of Christianity that isn’t understood as urgent to be boring. We tend to focus on all these little behavioral issues,... Read More

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