Displaced and dislocated. Wandering. Home has drifted away, as quickly as the raging wind sweeping over the glacial, barren, white landscape. Shelter has vanished. Still hoping all is well, - but no, no it’s not. Pain seeps uncontrollably through flesh and bones, leaving a fractured heart. This sense of loss runs deep within and shakes the confines of self. Being home-loss is not supposed to happen – broken home is a betrayal and a love-less pseudo reality that devastates the very guts of who we are. Crying for home, tears of sorrow flood the eyes. How we long for a homecoming, not so much as merely a space, though that’s important, but as a community of trust, acceptance, grace, and love, which is offered first and foremost by the audacious trio of the Infinite. When this reality becomes our address, liberated and transformed memories now surpass the treacherous debris of disruption and defeat, as being at home will begin to heal our wounds, to reset our hearts, and to grant us a place to dwell.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Pseudo-gospel babblers in church and culture are taking all too many for a ride to nowhere. Practioners of the real call to good news will want to voice care and concern for those trapped in the fake and dubious, while being aware of the risk of blending into the flow non-sense. If ever there was a time for compassionate confrontation, it is now. There is a desperate need for spiritual wisdom and the force of a hermeneutics of trust and suspicion in knowing how to live the truth in love in the world of increasing hype and spin. Presenting a cutting edge message and an engaging faith will testify to the credibility of this prophetic invitation and to entering a destiny that ends where it all began.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The real problem for philosophy remains, as it has been throughout time, subjectivity, not objectivity.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
A post post-modern malaise permeates the cultural landscape. Political deceit, economic oppression, and social blindness are gaining ground. While the O(other) was of momentary curiosity, the play now goes on and the discourse of a secular kingdom, demeans what it seeks to enthrone. When beauty is exchanged for debauchery and love for possession, it becomes more than difficult to find our way, since the very fabric of what can release us lies deeply buried under the artifacts of self-interest.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Drifting away into arctic waters, our hearts and minds slip into glacial uncharted seas. The cold seems as unbearable, as does the lack of direction. Gasps of warmth dissipate and the compass freezes. To be chilled and lost leaves deep traces of disenchantment, piercing flesh and spirit. In the midst of shivers and aimless floating, a gradual but bold divine touch adds renewed substance and clarity to the mission of love, which offers tenderness and an itinerary for shelter to the salvaged.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Walking through the shadows of death is a lifelong journey. As we ramble along, there will be struggles to find the way. The promise of God in Christ is light, a piercing and revealing action that illuminates the path, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, who will not lead us in a false or dubious direction: life is our destiny. This two-fold covenant blessing ensures us that we are not left to merely our own devices for developing deeper community with God, self, other, and world, even when foreboding silhouettes shroud our every step.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
I hope the 50 or so Reflections of the Week and other posts this year have been helpful, challenging, and spiritually illuminating. A special thanks to you for taking time to ponder the thoughts expressed here, make comments, and support this blog. Every blessing in Christ to you all this Christmas season.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Deeply engraved with complexity and mysteriously forged by extravagance, the drama of the biblical and natural world informers presents significant challenges for readers, taking us to the limits of imagination. Pushing reality to the edges raises questions and issues that mustn’t be ignored. To take each informer seriously means being open to learning and embracing truth wherever it is to be found.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Intentionality is a moveable key to fidelity and commitment. Pledging ourselves to God and the other therefore far surpasses any form of self-constancy with its desperate staticity and facile regulation of obstacles and problems. Placing inertia, mired in stoicism over changing desire and challenging risk, will decrease our capacity to be ‘available.’ Autonomous selves are an untruthful fiction, yet so frequently a pretension embraced by people today. Shattering self-constancy brings release from falsehood and ‘availability’ opens us up to a true dialogue with the O(o)ther to whom an obligation is owed. Keeping promises is just and being intentional in motion. Not keeping promises is unjust and it betrays both self and O(o)ther.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Tragic wisdom and practical wisdom are related and distinct. They are related as to wisdom of action, but distinct in the sense that the tragic creates difficult tensions and irresolvable problems. Tragedy disorients action, yet practice becomes the best response of reorientation to the inevitable place of lament. The itinerary of reconciliation – a poetics of wisdom – avoids both univocity and arbitrariness and charts a course through the maze of life’s conflicts, offering a transition from catharsis to conviction, which is rooted in a meditation on the cross and the mediation of the incarnation and resurrection.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Awakening to a balmy sky, as glimmering vistas escape into clouds and mist, creates a sense of the slippage and eventual loss of time. Eternity beckons, but only for a lingering moment and then its gone. Caught up into the chaos of the here and now blurs vision and devises its own way of seeing the invisible, while forever becomes ungraspable by the rhythm of a blinking eye.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Broken promises and betrayals of trust leave deep wounds in our flesh and bones. Fear and suspicion then become our primary skills in coping with scar tissue, which leaves its mark in the memory of our being. Yet the call to imagine again draws us out and past our ways of survival, transforming what had become essential into that which is merely secondary.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Jesus calls his followers to have faith, as he himself does, in God. There is so much in and around us that lures us into a false sense of hope and security, while having faith in God is a challenge filled with tension leading us into the pathway of life. Jesus, therefore, does not merely want to cleanse us of the idols in our lives, but like the image of the fig tree, he wants to destroy them from the roots to the leaves, as a pre-figuring of the judgment of God on all that is false Purging our deep attachments to the unholy and cutting away our meta-religious god identifications will no doubt be an uncomfortable operation that takes place over the course of time, yet this liberation is crucial for developing a radical and uncompromising trust, which Jesus himself exemplifies with: Have faith in God.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself. God has declared, through Christ and the arrival of the New Covenant, that he no longer counts sins against us. This act and message of reconciliation is handed over to God’s people, so that they might become ambassadors of Christ and the righteousness of God, announcing and living his settlement for all to hear and see. Stunning! A heavy responsibility, but as we work together with God let’s do our utmost not to accept his grace in vain, nor in the mission of reconciliation to set obstacles in anyone’s way.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
When we lose the ability to understand that centaurs and dragons are more real than technology and mechanics, we’re in deep trouble. Impoverished imaginations create unfaith and a loss of meaning, neither of which have anything to do with following in the footsteps of the Crucified and Risen One. An enlightened biblically shaped and Christ focused imagination will be attuned to the interpretive space of dialogue with symbol and story, which eloquently heighten and enrich meaning as an augmentation of reality that is now able to be understood, yet remains inexhaustible – there is always more to be imagined, found out, and discovered.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Sometimes it seems our lives are going so well – at least no disasters or catastrophes – yet our faith is waning and losing traction. Where’s God and where are we in the story line? The continuity and repetition of daily life appears to go on and on with no resolve, and this can weigh heavily upon us. We want to know where and when it’s all going to come down. But what beginnings there must have been some many, many years ago as God spoke to fill the starry sky and shape a barren earth, and what endings there will be perhaps many, many years from now as God dwells with his people. The story of commencement and ending in the biblical text gives a sense of direction for our lives that in spite of an ongoing now or the cessation of an individual existence, promotes the notion that life as we know it will not continue ad infinitum, but there will be a change – a present and future transformation – that is to be fully realized in the consummation of the coming Kingdom of God, which will bring renewal.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
If we are to find out who we are and what to do, we have to be willing to consider what story we are part of. Being situated in the Christian story of God’s mission to humanity and the world translates into living in Christ like ways – costly love will hopefully begin to shape and identify who we are and what we do. While this being and doing is never perfect, there should be a marked sensitivity towards dispensing grace to the stranger, the weak, the disenfranchised – victims of the economic, religious, and social meltdown of the early twenty-first century. The failure of Christians to recognize what story we are part of will result in our leaving people ungraced and history will not forget our hardness and lack of hospitality during these shattered years, and our selfishness will not go unnoticed and unmarked in the flow of time.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Slick apologetics attempts to offer fast and easy answers to serious questions. If you’ve got a question, SA will make sure to give you an answer. This tactic is most unfortunate, if not deceptive. Driven by the disguise of “having it all together,” this type of apologetic endeavor will ultimately fail to convince, and do more damage than good. People, when they find out the strategy of contrived answers is bogus, being exposed for its lack of integrity, will turn away and go in the opposite direction of the faith that has been so ineffectually defended. There are some questions that simply cannot be answered, which is not to say there are not appropriate answers to honest questions. Apologetics that seeks to have it all is an apologetics without love. Loving apologetics deals with real people and actual life settings, admitting to uncertainties and dilemmas that do not detract from, but enrich the Christian faith.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The failure of the grand narrative of modernity – achieving it all – absolutism, progress, reason, – is shattered. Its replacement is the master narrative of post-modernity – achieving nothing – relativism, consummation, contradiction. The former attempted to construct a unified story for all humanity, while the latter left behind shards, fragments, and sub-plots with no beginning or end. Unfortunately, many Christians have bought into one or the other of these story lines and uncritically woven it into the biblical faith. Moving away from the power schemes of modern or post-modern meta-narratives is an essential task for believers, if we are to be able to present the gospel in a credible and persuasive manner to a world that has lost its way.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Superficial and agenda driven readings of the Bible plague the church. Too many readers make up their own meanings as they go along, showing little concern for the orientation of the text. Instead of paying close attention to author and context, there is a tendency to drift from one passage to another in hope of a jolt for the day. Such a strategy, so widespread in our times, puts us at the center of meaning, and in so doing, therefore underplays the power of God’s revelation in its offer of a living and sustainable spirituality. Recovering credible biblical interpretation remains a long and difficult road ahead, but should we be unwilling to engage and to be engaged by the text and its meaning, the integrity of the faith we profess will suffer a serious blow and people will rightly turn away.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Quitting church is reaching epidemic proportions. Caught in the vice between those who exchange the gospel for a social code and those who market it as a consumer product, streams of people are flowing out of churches. From what I can tell many of them long for God, love, truth, credibility, justice, and redemption but are disappointed with what the church is offering. Bagels and coffee, and promises of health and wealth are limited and breaking down. Thus, today’s pseudo–gospel is having less and less traction and for this we should rejoice. Yet, the fallout is serious, in that the legitimate questions people are asking are not being addressed, nor are these folk being provided with a place to dwell, which has more to do with spirituality, than merely a geographical home. Rich and diverse gospel centered communities are essential to renew and redo the faith in what appears to be the demise of what has been known as church for all too long.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Promising is one thing, but being obligated to keep our promises brings the sincerity of action into light. A theoretical promise without compelling force and lacking application does not do anything. Of course, on the action level of doing our promises, we will run into conflicts and obstacles that challenge our fidelity to the other. Yet, being committed to engage in dialogue with the other raises the stakes of our personal integrity, as well as underscoring that broken promises do violence to justice and the other, to whom we are to be available for. In times like ours, where false and broken promises are front page news, from pulpit and pew to politics and economics, fidelity and commitment to promises for the sake of self and other should be two hallmarks that identify followers of the Crucified and Risen One, as a testimony to the church and the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
One of the most impressive features of human thought is that we are capable of creating and configuring symbols in an effort to express meaning. Recognizing this relationship between language acquisition and symbolic thought provides the opportunity for a phenomenology with theological clout. God’s speech acts give rise to revelation in language and symbol. This interlacing of conceptual fields effectively expanded the function of symbols so that they were seen to reveal God and being in the world in polyphonic ways. At the same time, being human was envisioned as uniquely connected to language, and language to reflection, and reflection to hermeneutics. Thus, God’s speaking embedded in Scripture by symbol and thought finds its connection through the hermeneutical nature of being in the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The validity of the Christian faith will only continue to suffer if we do not engage the issues and ideas of our day. To bury our heads in the sand and hope the challenges to the truth of what we believe will all go away, is wishful thinking. We have the significant calling to be a testimony to the love of Christ, but this will not be heard, if we speak an entirely different language unrelated to current discussions, nor will it be seen, if we live in a spiritualized world of our own making, divorced from that which is really happening. Being informed about what’s going on is a responsibility for ourselves and others, as we tell the story of life and death in a pertinent and persuasive manner that has traction in the listening and watching world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Self-interest does not always translate into selfishness. God calls us to accomplish things and to take some credit for these, yet we are to avoid arrogance and self-centeredness like the plague. Confidence and humility are both markers in our stories. As created and spiritual people, who are gifted with the Spirit of God and Christ, this feat is not entirely beyond us, as we embrace the tension of working out our salvation, because God is at work in us.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Given the folly of debt circulating around the world, it’s no wonder the bankruptcy or potential default of countries, has not resulted in the fateful crisis that it should. Not dealing with the truth and reality of overspending and accumulating massive debts, will surely jeopardize the future for many, as it will inevitably bring about warlike conditions between nations of power.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Unmasking and denouncing the fear of exposure is no doubt a step towards trust, but we rightly wrestle with ‘who’ is trustworthy – Self, other, God. Surely this is not a venture for the uncritical, yet criticism is never an end in and of itself. Letting go of that which entangles us and moving into the laboratory of trust is a challenging task and a liberating joy that begins to diminish illegitimate coverings, while increasing appropriate disclosure.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Coercion, manipulation, and dishonesty are power tools of the trade for the selfish self, while love, justice, and mercy battle it out within the theater of life to promote redemption. Graciously convicted of sinful practices by the Infinite One, allows selfish selves to undergo the penalty of death, in order to be offered new life in Christ, the Unselfish One.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Demands for exhaustive truth will continually fail to meet the target. Such illusions are tempting though unfulfilling, and they do a tremendous amount of corporate and personal damage. The sooner we face the truth that there are no meta-narratives, the better. No one has a total explanation of everything, even though at times a person can act as if this is the case. So be it. Illusion peddlers have been around for a while, and are likely to continue to be with us. Conversely, Christians proclaim their freedom from meta-narrative and therefore distance themselves from illusions. In doing so, we rightly let go of attempts to portray a comprehensive story, and embrace a mega-narrative of possibilities for the credibility of the existence of God and his creating and saving action through the Crucified and Risen One in faith.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Emerging out of the darkness into the light can be a daunting adventure. Grace and compassion, for example, seem more contrived than anger and malice, while self-constitution reigns over being given a self. We’re plagued by the unreal that appears real and much of the time our awareness level is so low, we can’t fathom anything but the same and obscurity prevails. Yet God has created luminosity, as well as revealing it through the Christ, so that we might have a vision of majesty. Enlightened imaginations heighten the acuity of perception, which begins to enable us to venture out through the illumination to embrace a radiance that glistens with all that’s transformative for good.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
While it is true that biblical interpretation is always mediate, indirect, a task of seeking sense, as opposed to immediate, direct, or a giveness of complete sense, a text is never entirely semantically autonomous. Texts are author intended entities, not necessarily enclosed within the psychological constraints of the mind, but opened by a literary act, which unfolds a world out into the world, which a reader's world is then able to engage with. An author’s intentions must be considered as pertinent to textual interpretation as it is communicative actions that set the literary genre for and the content of the text. A search for the meaning of biblical texts, therefore, is to be concerned with what the author has accomplished as an action of communication and then how that arrow of sense points the reader towards a meaningful encounter that will refigure life in ontological, epistemological, and ethical matters, to the glory of God.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Being responsible and being faithful are crucial elements of the Christian life in witnessing to the Crucified and Risen One. Keeping these essential features in separate compartments or to embrace one over the other is folly. These two characteristics of living spirituality are to complement and re-enforce each other, as we seek to follow Christ, who is life. Testimony nowadays, therefore, has to embody both actions and beliefs, if it is to have traction in the watching world. And when the world watches and merely sees itself in a mirror, the grim reality will be that we have not done our part to present that which is true and credible with integrity.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Flowing out of redemption, we receive a cleansed heart and a renewed mind. Therefore, we are to put away falsehood and embrace truth, receive grace and abandon malice, live in the light and discard the darkness, as we seek to learn to practice the habits of living spirituality. Habit forming takes effort and responsibility, while it also requires being attentive not to grieve, but to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Following in the footsteps of the Crucified and Risen One means no less than to sacrificially embrace the fragrance of life. Being a new creation, a new self, has the distinct aroma of forgiveness, mercy, tenderheartedness, and hope. Do not lose an appropriate trust and suspicion, therefore, and remain unwavering in doing good to all.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
A torrent of rhetoric flows at us and we are inundated by dubious prospects of freedom, equality, and rights. Some speak of gathering behind the veil of ignorance, others of a liberty without constraint. Autonomous notions of the justice like these, however, will be unsustainable. Conversely, to be called by the Infinite One and to respond to his voice, while not supplying a perfect resolution to all our quandaries, opens up the possibility to embrace being justly loved and to love justly that which is lasting and sure. Beyond the pale of self-determination lies the Giver who situates us in being and being in a world that is not our own. Only in the light of this giveness can we truly work out a just dependent independence.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Self-absorption binds us to false commitments, while deceptively assuring us that an ‘I’ focus will be safe and sustainable. Insecurities, complexes, and doubts weigh all too heavily in preventing us from engaging relationality. The O(o)ther, however, calls us from both near and afar, colliding with our pretensions of self-enclosure as a viable option for the minutes, days, months and years; all that lies ahead. Tearing down the barriers and dismantling the walls of estrangement is a continual challenge, and should we refuse to embrace the O(o)other, we shall never find ourselves.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Lord, please give us the gift of patience as we live together in our churches and communities. Help us to be kind, gentle, and forgiving in the struggle for unity, and lead us into delight with you and each other. Let us learn to love as you have loved us, as we seek to represent and demonstrate something of who you are to the believing, to those who do not know you, and to those who do, but have gone astray.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Stories help us come to terms with sorrows. No time to read and recount leaves us little time to mourn. And mourning is now more necessary than ever for the faithful. There is so much to mourn, be it political, social, ethical, or personal. When memory, imagination, and testimony provide an opportunity of working through the darkness of loss and suffering, it is crucial to recount and read, and to do so in the light of redemption and transformation that will eventually turn our mourning into rejoicing and our sorrows into joys.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
One of the major fallacies that many Christians embrace is that they don’t have biases, problems with ideas, or serious shortcomings. If anything undoes the necessity of the cross and resurrection of Christ, it is this kind of perspective. When we are pointing the finger at everyone else and arguing they’re influenced by secularism or materialism and therefore have it all wrong, we forget that critique needs to start at home and that our own views also have to be examined, evaluated, and assessed in order to help us sort out our own blindness, before sorting out that of the rest of the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
May we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit a fresh to renew us in the ever increasing conviction that God is there and that he has acted, is acting, and will act on behalf of love and justice for his own sake, for the world, for Israel, and for us.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The spirit of fear, not the Spirit of Christ tends to dominate in many Christian circles today. Fearful of being carried away by the spirit of the age, the faith can grow narrow, lack credibility, and become lifeless. While it is true that believers want to be cautious about adopting the cultural, philosophical, or scientific trends of any given moment, there is an important place to engage new ideas and to be somewhat open to where they may lead. The Spirit of Christ casts out fear and releases us to a new configuration of confidence and humility. This Spirit allows for discussion, questioning, and, investigation. To have received the life giving Spirit who inaugurates community with God, over against a spirit that leads to a separation from him, means that we are free to seek, find, and follow truth where it may be found. Fear not, says the Lord, for I am with you.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
In this post-Easter week, as our world continues in its rhythm, seemingly untouched by the dramatic event of the resurrection of Christ, we want to focus on at least these five points: 1) The resurrection of the dead is relevant to creation, salvation, and eternity; to the past, present, and future. 2) Death, as a separation from the Living One, is an enemy that will one day be destroyed. 3) The body is important to and for Christian spirituality—it is and forever intends to be embodied. 4) Resurrection is an affirmation of life that puts us in conflict with sin and evil. It provides a way into a deep and living tension. 5) Faith and action must be grounded in the truth and reality of the resurrection of Christ, which is to permeate all of who we are and what we do.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Christians all too often become inoculated against the real. Plagued by inauthentic churches peddling illusions, and the covert deception of unreal images that manifest themselves in misplaced expectations and extravagant regimes, believers are facing serious impoverishment and succumbing to bogus spirituality. Instead of having the power of the real, the testimony to truth, and a life of authenticity, we unfortunately seem to have little to offer a world gone mad. Our plight, at times, seems overwhelming, yet God continues to shape and form a people to proclaim the good news and its credibility, and longs for us to leave the rest behind and to join in the drama of his creative and redemptive intentionality, which is as real as it gets.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Empires are impersonal. Trading in statistics, quotas, and mis-information, they entice us into embracing a falsification of the real and authentic. We tremble at the call to resist and fear the prospect of an exile from the facts, figures, and calculations. Threatened by the radical turn to a personal relationality and a potential loss of an assumed sense of equilibrium, we are then comfortably recycled back into the flow of the Empires. To leave Empire ways behind is a continual challenge, but the stakes are high, as a fear of failure to engage with people, to be personal and relational towards the other, will silence our ability to speak, to hear, and to love.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Being captive to the ideologies of certainty or uncertainty is like being pulled into a vortex that leads nowhere. Certainty aims to insure us that we have it all together and that everything is straight forward, while uncertainty attempts to illustrate that we don’t have anything together and that nothing is clear. We can become so addicted to polarizations, that moving into the middle seems highly unsatisfactory. Withdrawal symptoms are required and sometimes painful, as uncovering that which binds us and leads us astray is so deeply entrenched in every perspective and dimension of our identities. Letting go will be extremely difficult. Release, however, comes from learning to follow in the footsteps of Christ, which is not least to discover the hidden ideological trends and currents in our lives, and in so doing, to open us up to the possibility of a refigured destiny, culminating in a transformation into his image.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The biblical text is comprised of a medley of genres that reflect on and name God. To be sure the Revealed One inspires the plot and characters in the story, who are given creative license to explore and configure the Being who Is. Prophecy, apocalyptic, wisdom, law, psalm, and narrative send polyphonic tremors throughout the textual sea, as Infinite meets finite and tracks the traces of the communicative action of the Speaker. Surely, now we can move critically through and gently beyond Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, or the likes of the more contemporary influences of Heidegger, Derrida, and Ricoeur, as we seek to encounter a naming and thinking which stands next to none.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Cacophony drums its steady beat through the soul, leaving a scar of perplexity. Faced with a surging discordance, our attempts to recover and to find concordance seem vain. Like being told a never ending story in which we struggle to discover the plot, hope seems to escape, as a vapor that disappears with the rising sun. Behind the shades of disheartening and the lines not yet written, however, lies the searing character of unbound love, which creeps into the narrative with a shattering power that goes beyond the resonance of time.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Finding shelter in our world from the vacuous and inconsequential is harder and harder to do; the rhythm of trite leaves us exposed to a devaluing of heart, mind, and imagination. Rapid-fire bs captures the air waves and infiltrates our capacity to think clear and true thoughts that can be lived, in contrast to the prevailing and woeful meltdown of the critical adventure. While it’s true that criticism is never to be an end in and of itself, it is an essential component to chasten naïveté and to promote the virtuous life of following in the footsteps of Christ. Engage, critique, embrace―the Infinite One, other, and world; the given of giveness and the power of this trinity that offers us the spooky haven of relationality; the space to dwell in oneself as another.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Scripture provides direction, but does not work out every detail, as to how we are to live in the world. Surely, there are many clear imperatives that shed light on the path and we should be grateful for the revelatory insight and knowledge we do have. Yet, the biblical text often challenges us to express these truths in compassionate and loving ways that takes the other seriously; ontologically, epistemologically, and ethically. This means that if we are to find traction, there’s no use looking for simple formulas or mechanisms. Conversely, we have to stand against that which will insulate us from the relationality that forces otherhood upon us, and see that it creates a myriad of joyfully taxing choices concerning how to live responsibly as God’s people in the twenty-first century. May we have the strength, patience, and wisdom to do so for the sake of Christ.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
A tendency to equate bread and love leads to an impoverishment of love. Love cannot be bought and sold; it is not a consumer product, even though commercial and personal interests may want to convince us otherwise. Since we can’t purchase love, we may figure the best way to obtain it is to make sure that we receive before we give. Whenever we center on “what’s in this for me?” or “why should I do this unless I’m going to get that?” we’re losing love and operating in a manner akin to living on bread alone.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Retreating behind walls of fear blinds us to the prospect of loving and being loved. There is, however, it is true, the need for spiritual strength and wisdom to be able to come out from hiding and to embrace possibilities, albeit without the assurance that it will all work out in one’s favor. Terrible hurt and pain can make such a move seem impossible. Rejection and reaction reign as the only features that make sense, as new suffering always appears to be inevitable. Yet grace is corrosive and cuts into the fiber of wounds, gradually mending that which is bleeding.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Plug and play spirituality is an unfortunate expression of contemporary Christianity. No wonder the faith is losing traction. While redemption is powerful and realistic, we mimic the trite and superficial. The watching world is getting tired of looking and seeing itself in a mirror. There’s no better time for those willing to think and question to move in new directions of deeply living truth and love in dynamic ways. Enhancing the credibility of the faith is not entirely our responsibility, but it is something that should be dear to our hearts for the sake of Christ and others.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The trauma of loss can overwhelm us and deplete our strength for embracing life. Our rights, relationality, and stories will not sever us from being suffering selves; a true part of our identity as humans. Thank you Lord that you have covenanted to join us, and now you know the bleak path of desire failing, though in following the will you find your journey never ending, never ending. And so it is: passing through the territory of darkness can seem like an eternity, yet light does slowly appear through the cracks and we emerge scathed, but alive and released.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
He who was seated on the throne says, “I am making everything new.” In renewal, we are not offered an escape, but an engagement with heaven and earth—the material world where matter and spirit will meet in visible ways. We need to recall and re-affirm that there is already a present aspect of this newness in our lives as Christians. If we are in Christ, we are new creations. However, notice that God’s salvific activity includes the political, social, economic, and the creation itself. John is instructed to write this down as it is trustworthy and true (Revelation 21:5).
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
When our worldview assumes that everything is headed for destruction we tend to reject the worth and value of God’s creation. It becomes misused and misunderstood, depleted, and torn apart. All manners of disfiguration blot out creation’s capacity to praise God. Some Christians believe that destruction is God’s way with the created, so what does it matter? Go ahead and let it go. It’s all headed for the flames anyway. Yet, this is not the case, for the intensity of redemption burns into transformation already now and then ultimately at the end of the age. In this way, creation will be enabled to give praise to the Infinite personal One who created it, attaining its final and glorious destiny.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The threat of becoming part of the machine is ever growing. A fierce battle of realities invades our daily lives, as we are lured into a mechanistic world of our own making. Facing this powerful force of de-humanization and fabrication, and standing against it is a biblical virtue. The lost relation and distinction between Creator and creature has to be recovered, and lived in imaginative ways that underscore the value of humanity and the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
We are on the way to becoming fully sanctified—imaging Christ through the power of the Spirit. As we move in this direction, we will find ourselves attaining different degrees of this ultimate destiny. When it comes to sanctification, some of us will be living sanctified lives in lesser degrees, while others are living sanctified lives in greater degrees, and this may fluctuate in different areas. Yet, no one is ever completely sanctified in this life. That awaits a future reality. There’s always room to move ahead toward the goal of more faithfully imaging Christ.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
This visceral longing to be cleansed from our own faults, those perpetrated by others against us, and the burdens of the world, leaves us in a state of searching for redemption. These deep etchings scratched into our flesh are like a flow chart leading directly to our battered hearts. Living this way takes its toll. The challenge before us is to continue the dialogue between the “in spite of” and the “because of” that concerns all of reality and truth. We are followers of the Crucified and Risen One, who are suffering, yet committed to a journey of renewal.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Finding a truthful dwelling in the middle of polarized extremes is a fitting place to be; it’s often the space where life is to be found. Extreme positions usually only produce further extremes and that’s why they are merely referents for themselves, inevitably pointing to an ideology of death. Fear not the middle voice, which speaks softly, yet with rigor and passion.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Living spirituality is a web of truths that flow out of and back into being in community with God. Take personal evaluation as one of these. Surely, this dimension is interconnected with many, and is desirable and necessary for developing a deeper interface with God. Our tendencies usually run along these lines. Either we focus way too much on the personal - God and ME, or we ignore it all together – God and THEM. Living the spiritual life – living spirituality falters without insightful assessment of the past, present, and future, but it is equally impoverished without a personal us in the picture. So goes the tension of life with God, as we work out the varying degrees of community that are appropriate for each context.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The virtual silence of God is deafening. It may go on for days, weeks, months, or even years. But then speaking comes, like precious gold, in its splendor and value, it enriches and orients us. Yet cycles of disorientation re-appear and we again find ourselves seemingly deaf to the sounds of action performed within the economy of light, shrouded in darkness. Awaiting the orchestration of reorientation calls for patient listening, for the Divine will surely be heard from soon on a coming horizon.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Renewal in these days of December, a friend wrote recently, is a desirable phenomenon. Yes, indeed, and especially during the last moments of the year, which mark the end of one period of time and the beginning of another. Being renewed is connected to a variety of dynamics, not least to the hearing of the communicative action of God in time. To receive the Voice opens us up to embrace living spirituality in the present, as we develop a realistic retrospective of the past and a viable vision for the future. In experiencing a time of reflection here and now, where renewal can break through into the whole of our lives, we find a trajectory of interaction that has the theological force to shape our destiny.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Forging our way forward, following in the footsteps of Christ, is no simple task. We can be thankful that God has promised to be with us and that the Spirit is in our midst directing our pathways. Still, there is uncertainty and disorientation - these don’t disappear - but are salient reminders of what is real within the evolving process of transformation towards our ultimate destiny of imaging the crucified and risen One.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There is a place in living Christian spirituality for being responsible. God wants us to care for what has been given and to accomplish what we can in its midst. Don’t fear doing something well – to the best of your ability – as if God would somehow be against this. Go for it! And if you get there, forget about being arrogant, but by all means do enjoy the moment and appreciate God’s applause.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Paul’s statement to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:3) that no one speaking by the Spirit of God can say, ‘Jesus is cursed,’ and no can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit, is radical stuff. True, in most situations today anyone can say what they will, but that’s not the point here. These early Christians, some who came out of pagan contexts, would have been politically cautious about calling anyone other than the Emperor, “Lord,” as may be the case in some political environments in the present. The apostle wants to re-enforce that Spirit activities are not pagan communicative acts, but are to result in the proclamation that ‘Jesus is Lord’ in spite of Roman or Jewish claims otherwise. Furthermore, Paul is aiming to shift the focus onto the Lordship of Jesus and away from the Corinthian fascination with the manifestations of gifts. Even legitimate expressions of gifts may inadvertently direct attention away from their true aim or goal of being given in the first place.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Sacrifices on the altars of resolution rob us of the sacred. Conversely, slices of tension permeate our space, provoking thought and raising questions. God has communicated sufficient information, but there is much that is open to discovery. Embrace the tension and wait for that day when we shall see face to face and know as we are known.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The Western church has further impoverished itself by ignoring or excluding the artist, musician, and poet. These creative people have a whole lot to teach us about Christ, culture, and living spirituality. Let’s make every effort to invite and welcome these players into our communities and to open our horizons to their insights. We desperately need fresh perspectives that will enrich and illuminate the path ahead. Being closed minded is not a Christian virtue.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Seems to me we’re living in a post-trust world. When the major trust identities in a culture are shattered, there is little left to promote confidence. Since we have no where else to turn, it must be time for renewal.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
On the global register the financial picture is bleak. There is no better moment than now to set in motion an economy of gift, which goes far beyond the economy of exchange. The notion of exchange dominates our cultures and influences all we do and say. While there is some validity to and place for exchange, it is not, as it pretends, the end of the story. Let’s beat back this omniscient narrator, through a grace and generosity that is linked into God’s economy of superabundance.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Our lives are so cluttered with debris that it’s harder and harder to think. It’s almost as if there is a conspiracy to prevent us from thinking about anything at all. Being zombies and robots – that’s it – that’s what it’s all about. Don’t bother attempting to reverse the flow. Beware! Thinking may do some serious collateral damage to us all.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Feeling at peace with something may not be a reliable source of confirmation that this is what you should do, or what God wants you to do. To feel this way or that is an important factor to take into consideration when deciding something, but it is wide open to duplicity. Making decisions and commitments anchored in theological truths, however, is a more sure and trustworthy guide for following in the footsteps of the crucified and risen One.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The way knowledge operates in our lives is often tricky. That is, some claim to not know much, but they have a trenchant critique of those around them who, in their eyes, do not measure up. Further, they sometimes assert exactly what God is doing in their own lives and in the world. Such contradictions show that those who say they know little is a foil for the manipulative power play of having a God like knowledge that is wielded like a sword and stabbed into the flesh of anyone willing to listen to the propaganda. Knowledge is important and we want to be as honest and theologically accurate as possible concerning what we know. When we are not, it can lead to serious misunderstandings of God, self, other, and world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
It may be relationally risky to follow in the footsteps of Christ. We pray, dear Lord, for strength, patience, and wisdom to stay on the path of truth and love, as we live as children of light in this world of darkness.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
We should outright repent for our inappropriate polarizations. Among the many that plague us, take the mind and heart dualism as an example. Some Christians say all that matters is the heart, while others focus solely on the mind. Yet, the developing of a Christian heart is as relevant as promoting a Christian mind. Gravitating towards God requires both, and a whole lot more – namely all of who we are.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Being and knowledge given. What a sensible perspective. The given precedes being and knowledge, as the One who gives stands apart from and is prior to all else. This theological consideration has strong implications for philosophy and the whole of life. That is, ontology and epistemology cannot go it alone, as both are preceded by a life of giveness, which has to begin to be recognized for what it is.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Freed for life in a new community with the one who was, is, and will always be, is a startling experience. Broken and enslaved to dying, moment by moment, brings sadness and lament. Renewal shatters the well worn grooves of non-existence, overcoming the threat of terror that so quietly, yet powerfully aims at the grave.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Lord God, we call out to you for wisdom, strength, and patience. Help us know how to love more deeply, to be courageous when so much that is wrong with us and with the world appears to be out of control, and to have endurance in serving others as we look forward to and await the glorious renewal of all things.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Finding an original is like looking for the first pair of Levis or the first aspirin. God is the only Being, so it seems to me, who is capable of originality. But what is breathtaking is that out of what precedes us, we can produce something new. Sedimentation therefore shrouds who we are and what we do, yet innovation persists to contribute to life in discovering more and more what can be, from what already is.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Notions of the possible should illumine our lives. God is the God of the possible. Think of creation. Reflect on humanity. Ponder the incarnation. Envision all things renewed. Strangely and mysteriously incomprehensible all, but we can know sufficiently and find ourselves known intimately. Being here and there is a wonder of imaginary ontology and representing the incomprehensible on the face of the earth.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
In the midst of catastrophic destructions of the natural world, lamentable economies, and ruinous governmental policies, necessary reform seems far from being a priority on the environmental, financial, and political agendas. Maybe we just don’t like bad news and once it arises, we do everything we can to ignore it. God is not pleased by the folly of our times. Confession, rooted in the foolishness of God expressed in Christ crucified, is a first step in moving to fresh and innovative directions. Embrace the good news of God’s kingdom, and help bring its resources into the whole of life.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
No doubt we have much to mourn as so often we find within the church a complacency that amounts to no moral courage. Be it in Europe or some other part of the world, pride and self-assurance have become identity markers and badges that fend off valid critique. There is a real and desperate need for the confession of sins and for this to translate into convictions and actions that are reminiscent of following in the footsteps of Christ.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Christians are to see themselves in a new way. We have a distinct character, mission, and destiny as set apart for God, through the death and resurrection of Christ. Being freed from oppressive forces opens out onto the battlefield of time. In being set apart, we have become insiders who are sheltered and protected from the territory of destruction, as we await a new heavens and earth – a dwelling place where it is safe, under the blood of Christ, to flourish and live.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Becoming aware of our limitations should be considered a virtue. Embracing our limits opens up imagination for the intrigue of God and the whole of life in all its wondrous dimensions, while wishing it was different leaves us spinning round in circles of unimaginative bliss. Some of us complain and shake our fists because everything is not all figured out. Well, I say, let it go. When the time comes, we will see as we are seen and we will know as we are known. God’s salvific action results in our being able to see and know through an imaginative intrigue that begins now and will never end.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Dialogue animates and breathes life into ideas, which tend to stagnate into oblivion when reduced to monologue. If we take a dialogical trajectory in our thinking, we will begin to develop formulations that yield a greater credibility. This is so because we are working with a broader sphere of possibilities that combine to offer a surplus of meaning. And reality is like that – breathtaking and overflowing with meaning – which is not entirely capturable, nor however, is it anything we make it out to be.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The plight of the suffering and disenfranchised is not to be forgotten. Their reality calls forth a myriad of responses and levels of action, which should be aimed at and geared to release. Welcoming in and showing hospitality to the stranger and orphan pleases God.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Having significant roles to play in the drama of creation and salvation is both a task and a joy. Thankfully, God illumines the path so that we can give valid testimony to his existence and redemption as we work for and rejoice in his kingdom.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Being Spirit formed and shaped by Scripture will open up possibilities for us to love, forgive, and show grace. Somehow, it’s so much easier to ignore all this as what really counts because we busy ourselves with the trivial and call it life. Each day God gives us fresh opportunities, but leaves it up to us to act upon them. Acting on what is given will help transform the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The lack of love that is so prominent in many church contexts is shocking. Instead of loving each other and the stranger, we only tear down and fail to build up. Pray for personal transformation and renewal in the church. Forming our own tribes of hubris and exclusivity will be a faith defeater. God calls us to be responsible and gracious.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Proof-texting – taking a verse here and there from the Bible – can be a dangerous enterprise when it comes to understanding God, self, other, and world. Random reading leaves too much to chance. No doubt sometimes God can use his word in this very selective sort of way, but most of the time if we want to understand better, we need to be informed about the historical, theological, and literary context of a passage before assuming that it is speaking directly to and for us. Surely, this more careful approach is part of what it means to hold a high view of Scripture and to honor God and his revelation.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
When the scientific and theological communities attempt to avoid hermeneutics (interpretation) they are liable to make a mess of things. Specialists in both disciplines face the obligation to admit that they are interpreters of data and not merely assessing the bare facts. In spite of their incessant antagonism towards each other, these two communities are interdependent, and therefore need to be in dialogue in order to better understand God, the world, self, and other.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There are a myriad of tantalizing temptations in the human enterprise of culture; money, possessions, and sexual infidelity, to mention a few. While culture is a valid informer to some degree, we can be carried away in imagining it to have an authority superior to what it merits. Two other informers have to be taken into consideration when deciding how to be and live: Scripture and the natural world. Combined with culture, these two will give us a more stable and far ranging vision and illumine the path towards responsible action.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Trying harder is not a viable solution for self-hate. Those who hate themselves are operating with high levels of invalid trust and insufficient knowledge about who they are. They assume that their self-assessment is both true and accurate. Such a view is not only epistemologically faulty, but it embraces a convenient suspicion of all except oneself. Self-haters will have difficulty maintaining the status quo when they are challenged to begin to recognize what it means to be human.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
False shame and false guilt rip their way into the heart of who we are. In such cases we have to become more acutely aware and suspicious of the “lie” and its deceptive power to control and manipulate us. Real guilt and real shame for living unspiritually, however, calls us to acknowledge and trust what is “true” and its dedicated power to rescue and liberate us. Reckoned right through the mediatory work of the crucified and risen One, who illuminates the path away from the “lie” and to the “true”, brings us the possibility of living spiritually in that the false and its power begins to diminish, while the true and its power begins to flourish.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The fascination of living in the thought world of the mind promotes the woeful attempt to be a self contained self. God tells us this is not only foolish, but inevitably impossible as the other and the world break in and through the false fortress of self sufficiency. As the walls of pretending are broken down and shattered in creation and through Christ, recognition of who we truly are will begin to free us from the enticing power of self deception.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
I continue to be baffled by how many Christians seem to be so bound to the Law. God, they conjecture, is the mighty Lawgiver who condemns them at every turn. It’s as if Christ is absent. Somehow the relevance and superabundance of, “now, therefore, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” is remarkably silent in the vocabulary and voice of the one who speaks under the Law. Yet, and this is the power, “Christ condemned sin in flesh so that the just requirement of Law might be fulfilled in us who walk (conduct our lives) not according to flesh but according to Spirit.” Be free and start walking.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Lost in translation. Transversing from good theology to relevant praxis is like learning another language. Getting translation going can be like pushing water uphill. We all too often get stuck somewhere along the way between cutting edge theology and compassionate praxis and therefore find ourselves without a way to speak and act. Yet, being first-rate translators will please God and help change the self, the other, and the world. The art and labor of translation is a necessity if we are going to sufficiently move from theology to praxis and back in credible and authentic ways. Let’s learn to translate and seek to be attuned to the language of motion and dialogue so that theological truth doesn’t end up not touching anyone and not going anywhere.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Imagination is the elixir of life and the pathway to the discovery of truth, wherever it is to be found. Reason, sense observation, feeling, and experience suffer severe impoverishment without the recognition that imagination is the lynch pin that makes each of them possible and holds them together in a related, yet distinct manner. To be sure, knowing God, the revealing God, and being in community with him, is a possibility that be(s) and becomes much more of an accessible reality in and through imagination.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There are many times when we assume that we can’t do much to contribute to change and transformation in the life of the other. This is simply not true. We all have much to offer and to extend a gracious hand in the attempt to cultivate life, enrich community, and perpetuate blessing can surpass the false boundaries of self doubt in expressing the love of Christ to the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Torn apart. Voices and screams of the oppressed and disenfranchised awaken us to the plight of the majority who desperately need love and justice to reign in like the mighty power that God manifested when he raised Christ from the dead. Lord give us hearts to see those who are suffering and in pain and give wisdom as to how to follow in the footsteps of Christ to reduce the total misery and affliction that beset the world at this time.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There are at least two ways a crisis of hope may express itself. First, pessimism: cynicism overtakes us and we decide to take matters into our own hands. Second, optimism: naïve idealism saturates us and we decide that God will resolve it all for us. Neither of these false options has much to do with a Christian point of view and both will leave us empty. Yet we may tend to spend significant amounts of time and energy floating from pessimism or optimism, or attempting to solidify and barricade ourselves in one perspective or the other. Never this simple, life with God will challenge these tendencies and in so doing refigure the false options into growing opportunities for engaging in community with God, others, and the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Eyes burning and seared by the present views and circumstances of life blinds us to a passion for the possible of a different future, yet God has promised to renew the world and we must trust and act on his ability to do so. Learning to see the imprint of the future on the present is no easy task and we sometimes stray from the visionary and realistic immersed in the apparent unchanging status quo that only recycles everything into the same. Imaginary orientations rooted in God’s manifestations of hope broaden our horizons toward change and help us to look and see again.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Jesus redeems Israel from exile and thereby opens the way for all people to come into community with God. There is no longer a holy city, a sanctified place, or a Promised Land as Jesus de-centralizes and re-centers God’s righteousness in himself. All that had come previously is focused in and on him so that those who follow in his footsteps will inherit the blessings of love, liberty, and justice.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
We can easily wander away and lose patience with God. Deep renewal is crucial to pray for and to seek out during these times. Hearts, minds, and spirits are to be engaged and involved in a holistic manner if effective and realistic transformation is to take place. As we long and wait for the untranslatable splendor of face to face community with God, the lessons of time and patience will be of tremendous value.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Jesus said, love your enemies. This remarkable command shows us something of what being a Christian is all about. While loving our enemies may not always be a possibility because of broken trust, abuse, betrayal, or oppression, a gracious extension of forgiveness is a necessary step. Love remains the target to aim for and then we must see how far we can come towards this in actuality. Love is to be a lens through which we act and through which we are seen and identified by others, including enemies.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Covenant, which connotes YHWH’s love, liberation, and identification of a people to be in community with Him, is a central theological motif in both the OT and the New. Grace, love, law, and holiness find their place in this broader category of covenant. YHWH both establishes (unilateral) and cuts (bilateral) covenant, where each requires an action by the giver and yet a necessary response on the behalf of the receiver. In covenant reception we find community, a mandate, and a call, which includes to love, to listen, and to do. These are three astonishing characteristics that YHWH’s people are to engage in and act upon in order to stand out and be known as those who are marked by covenant and its vision for the redemption of the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Forget about shopping and focus on the Christ event, the Christ event, and the Christ event.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
One of my deepest hopes and enduring prayers is that we will all be more fully Living Spirituality throughout 2010 and the years to come.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
We may find it rather easy to get caught up in webs of deception. In order to counter this tendency we need to make a concerted effort, on the basis of the spiritual power at work in our lives, to bring about a Christ centered perspective and a trajectory away from our deceptive thoughts and actions, and towards a new life. Having been given the offer of resurrection, we sometimes struggle to embrace it, yet we are free to live in a community where there is no condemnation.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
When it is understood that Jesus Christ is the gateway to living spirituality, there are new and momentous opportunities that open up for us. Here are a few notable examples. We are given community with the Infinite-personal God by tasting living water and experiencing a new birth of the Spirit through faith in the Crucified and Risen One. When we accept the invitation to walk through the gateway, our world explodes because we confess that it is no longer centered on ourselves. And it is then that we start to find our place in living spirituality and to discover the true meaning of life in all its richness and mystery.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Science and Scripture are both valid informers concerning God, ourselves, and the world. Credibility is hinged on dialogue and being willing to see what comes of it.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
During this week take extra time to be thankful to God.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
May God be with us as we seek to live by faith in the crucified and risen One.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Selfishly deceptive? Sometimes we assume that if we do what we want to do that God must be against it. God only approves of us doing things we don’t want to do. It goes like this: doing what we want to do is selfish. But this may be a deception. Why? God may not be at all opposed to what we want to do. We can all too easily deceive ourselves about being selfish, either when we are or when we are not.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Someone once said to me that because Christians are parts of a body this means that God has a specific plan for each one. I think the point is rather that Christians need each other and when some attempt to pridefully isolate themselves from their fellow believers they make a mess of things. Sectarian overtures in the Christian community, as in the Corinth of the Apostle Paul’s day, will inevitably produce a lack of love. Being part of a body is a symbol of unity and mutual interdependence, and the recognition of this reality should produce a more active love towards each other.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Reading the biblical text wisely opens us up to new possibilities for living in community with God, the other, and the world. Being read by it challenges our hearts and minds, shapes our characters and identities, and changes our spiritualities and lives. Take and read. Read and be taken.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
God knows us and loves us as we are. His invitation into community is always the same and without conditions. No need to get everything right before accepting. He is waiting, just come, and you will be welcomed.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Forgiveness of someone, because of deep wounds, may be something that takes time to grow into. It is important to recall that we are beings in time. We exist in and through past, present, and future, hence should not expect instantaneous resolutions to all our issues concerning forgiving others. God is patient with us. Forgiving, then, may turn out to be a long process, but hopefully it will be one that we are challenged to take more seriously as each day goes by.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
All the justice and love of God and all the justice and love of the world converge in the cross of Christ; the crucified, dead, and risen One.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
A sign of reluctance may be a virtue, not a lack of conviction. Pastoral sensitivity is careful to seek to meet people where they are. This is far from relativism and closer to compassionate community. We all face life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of despair, joy in the midst of sadness, and courage in the midst of fear. Demanding that “in the midst of” disappear will destroy tension and our arrogance will rob us of the truth.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The disintegration of words is a common occurrence in our times. “I love that car or that movie” is okay, but perhaps it risks trivializing love. While woefully inadequate, words are often all we have to express ourselves. This means that intentionality and care for words are important. If we don’t cherish words, no one will.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The stench of niceties proliferates in many churches these days. We have nice music, nice clothes, nice buildings, nice toilets – why we’re just nice and even nice to each other. Simply delightful, it might be said - those church goers are such nice people. Let’s stop being “nice” and start to be gracious, kind, compassionate, forgiving, and loving.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
One of the stark warnings in the biblical story is to be careful of self-deception. Be it from false prophets, false teachers, the religious elite, or ourselves, we have to reckon with the ever present danger of being deceived. Our sufficient, but incomplete way through this dilemma, is the unending giveness of God in creation, revelation, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and existence itself.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Many rightly ask where God is when there is so much pain and suffering. There he is, not far from us, nailed to that cross.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Opening new ways of seeing, being, and living is at the core of the mission of Christ to redeem, renew, and transform the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Believing in love goes beyond language and transcends the things we see. Language games or materialistic ventures fail to sufficiently explain the beyond and transcendent character of life.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
A vital factor to understand about daily life in general, and concerning the Christian faith in particular, is that our feelings may deceive us. This salient feature of being human and Christian all too often goes unrecognized as we tend to implicitly trust what we feel, simply because we feel it. Living spirituality aims to call this into question, reversing the tendency and creating suspicion that will explicitly contribute to refiguring our lives in a more holistic manner.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Social disintegration, moral corruption, biblical God haters, and religious subterfuge finally took their toll on the nations. Desperate attempts to revive the patients were undertaken. Lungs, heart, and vital signs were functioning. Breath there was; a heart beat, but it amounted to little more than pumping blood through the veins. The patients faltered, gasping for a spirit that would refresh and revitalize, yet it was to no avail.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Knowing God is ideally relational, but at times we struggle with this and God seems far away, uncaring, and impersonal. Turning to Scripture will be crucial here, for finally this word must be our authority and hope. When scriptural testimony prevails, even in disorienting stages such as these, believe it or not God is with us.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
In the midst of trials and questions don’t forget to seek wisdom. Remember to look for openings and new possibilities of being and seeing, and embrace God’s love and truth and honor God’s name.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
To follow after Jesus is to deny oneself and to take up one’s cross. A denial of self does not mean to become a zero or selfless, but is stressing the necessity of setting aside one’s self-centered interests, especially with regard to messianic ideology. That is, the tendency of turning Jesus the Messiah into a savior of one’s own making, instead of a focusing on and embracing the things of God. In doing the latter the result will be cross taking, which translates into life receiving.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Re-envisioning our lives as children of the living God is a worthwhile enterprise. To do this try taking a step forward. While the routine and the every day are important, it is similarly quite essential for Christians to focus on the future culmination of the Kingdom of God and its bearing on the present. A re-envisioning of our present lives means that we are never to consider them on their own, but we are to know and embrace the truth that they are to be seen as integrated with the New Testament writings that mark out the “day of Christ” as the time in which Christ will reign not only our lives, but over everything. This future perspective should saturate the present in opening new horizons for redeeming and renewing action now.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Setting up our own standards by which to measure ourselves happens all the time. This is just the norm for so many believers. But such standards can tend to put God in the wrong place, while they also falsify us. God’s standards are not our own. They come to us through creation, cross, and new creation, which frees us from being the center of our lives.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
There is a lamentable lack of focus today on reading the biblical text. Bibles proliferate, but go unread. One of the most significant things that Christians want to attempt to do is engage and be engaged by the biblical text. In a very basic, yet profound way we want to learn more about being open to God’s word, so that it can read us. Being read will help us turn away from selfish tendencies and towards the living God, creation, and each other.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The plight of all too many churches is internal disintegration. Judgment and separation dominate, leaving in their wake bitter and unforgiving hearts. In such awful circumstances renewal and redemption need to break through the hardness, so that love and unity can flourish.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Sometimes we may feel washed over by waves of doubt. Wrestling with our faith in God puts us in good company with many a character in the Bible. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions and to seek to find true answers. God invites us to do so, giving us sufficient ways to understand Him, ourselves, and the world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Following in the footsteps of the crucified and risen One will sometimes have a myriad of difficult consequences in this life. Recall one. As Jesus went into his home town and was amazed at the lack of faith that he found there, we too may encounter difficulties with the apparently faithless crowds that sometimes surround us. Moving ahead is hard in these circumstances, but necessary. We need courage and to not fear, for God is with us on the journey, even though it may appear to us at certain times, to be arduous and unproductive.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
At this time of year, when we acknowledge and celebrate Jesus’ ascension and the day Pentecost, keep in mind that Jesus leaves the scene of this earth so that the Spirit can come and reside with us. This Spirit personal reality is unleashed on Pentecost in a fresh way, so that we too might come to know and be in community with God, through the Holy Spirit. Since God has made the ascended Jesus both Lord and Christ, being marked by the Spirit gives assurance that there is more to come as God will ultimately reveal himself to be God over all.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Indictments of the supposed guardians of orthodoxy proliferate throughout the Scriptures. Prophets are continually speaking God’s word to a faithless people who set aside his commands for their own benefit. Jesus is even more to the point with his sarcastic irony towards the religious elite of his day concerning the pretense of washing hands to be clean. Pseudo-orthodoxy called for ceremonial washing before eating. Jesus says this is an absurd charade because it leaves the heart uncleansed. Those today that wave the banner of “we’re orthodox and you’re not,” need to seriously consider where their hearts are, rather than inspecting the hands of everyone else.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Evading God’s ways for the sake of human traditions won’t do. Jesus takes a hard line on this sort of subterfuge, concerned about justice and doing well, as he is. There are subtle, yet radical ways we conservatively or liberally do what we please, instead of seeking God and his wisdom for how to live in this world. What God is after is our hearts, that is, us and all of us, not some external performance based on human ways, which belies the truth. We wrongly assume that giving God ourselves will come at great cost, but in reality the expense is hardly worth consideration.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
As we move into this week towards Sunday and the fitting celebration of Mother’s day, let’s not forget how important Mother’s are. Bless them in their various walks of life and try to encourage and care for them in the ways they need.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The church should set out to be part of the process to overthrow political barbarians who sleekly and unjustly abuse their authority. Jesus message is radically subversive and challenges those who wield abortive, yet tremendous power in their own favor. As the chilling atmosphere of political hedonism seeks to establish its own kingdom, Christians want none of it. The journey of following the crucified and risen One and participating in the Kingdom of God is not merely astounding, but it should also raise many a conflict with the ruling elites along the way.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Jesus’ ultimate mission and message is the Kingdom of God . Just read the gospels and you’ll find it there over and over again. KOG is the truth that should alert us to what God is up to. What has been awaited for from old had now arrived in Jesus and this, with all that it comprises, is the good news for all with ears to hear. Listen!
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Life often appears to be like a flickering candle flame dancing in the texturedly stark shadows of nightfall’s gentle breeze. Our dear God, you know we’re such delicately crafted creatures, and that we long for your lasting light. Burning to survive for another day moves us towards destiny and that final meeting with your piercing illumination, where darkness is extinguished and the light never ceases. Resurrection and renewal; earth and body: hope for life and light, in the end, to saturate the whole of God’s creation.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
As we enter Easter week, let’s remember that we are facing a time of unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty in our world. Take moments out, especially this week, to focus on and pray about the truth and power of the cross and resurrection of Christ being made known to all tribes and nations.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
As the once mighty consumerist fortresses of church and state begin to crumble we ask you oh God to remake our values and set us on the path to a new way of living. Money and material possessions have reigned over us for all too long. Teach us what it means to more emphatically follow in the footsteps of the crucified and risen One and help us to be obedient and willing to love you and our neighbor as we ought.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Present breakdowns can push us back to the past or forward to the future. A Scriptural vision sets out before us the following. Remembering that God has redeemed our pasts and projecting that he will completely redeem us in the future is to translate into a living hope for the present. Living hope for the present does not mean that all will go well in the here and now, but it does show us ever so extravagantly that our life stories are connected to the God of the past, present, and future. He powerfully and gently holds us in his hands.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The consumer church has adopted a new trinity of culture, experience, and feeling as its primary authority. This is a cadence we don't want to follow. Tangled webs of interconnection with these three run so deep that Christians find themselves trapped in and saturated by that with is not of God. Sapped of resistance to the banal and overwrought by appearances, Divine meaning begins to dissipate, and Christian truth and faith become irrelevant to the church and the watching world. It’s time for this to change and take a new direction. A return to Scripture and the art of reading it will open up possibilities for breaking away from the former empty indulgences and beginning anew.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Christian parents all too often provide an atmosphere of inauthenticity and legalism which, among other things, results in a failure to align saying and doing. Children see this incongruity and because of it end up rejecting the faith that it is supposedly based on. When a more real expression of Christ comes their way, instead of finding their observations reinforced, they discover that they are challenged. Good! This frequently leads to a renewed faith and an authentic embrace of Christianity that parents unfortunately reject because it is not their own. Not good! If you’re a parent reading this – be open to a reformulated faith in Christ on behalf of your children. If you’re a child reading this – don’t give up on pursing a true faith or in the hope that your parents will become more open to where you stand as a Christian.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Happy New Year 2009! May this be a year of reformation and renewal in Christ for each of us and the whole of the church.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
May be boundless love of Christ be with us all, as we more intensely focus on the cele br ation of his birth during this time of year.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Breaking through the darkness to the other side and into the glow of light that God provides in Christ is a profound experience of love and grace. As we forge through the difficult times in our own lives, a shadow is always there beckoning us towards the hope of the illuminated path ahead.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Reading Genesis 1-3 as the theo-drama of creation opens it up for dynamic re-interpretation, first of all in the Old Testament itself, and then the New, and then for the many generations preceding ours, and finally for refiguring readers lives today and into the future. This mighty theo-drama represents a script that is a legitimate informer about God and nature, which has the capacity to situate readers on the stage and to refigure their lives in the name of the Creator.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
What’s happening to our world? We find ourselves in unprecedented times. We’ve never been here before. Yes, the world’s previously been a mess, but the scale of our plight has now dramatically increased. Financial markets are crumbling and in turmoil, natural catastrophes are creating havoc and destruction, governments are run by incompetent and sometimes corrupt elected officials, political sovereignty is awfully close to being a consumer product, and much of the Western church is not only ineffective and woefully impoverished, but it is tanking and its very existence and sustainability are under threat.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
God’s new city measurements emphasize its perfection and completeness as the dwelling place of God. John continues to describe in further detail, at the very limits of human language, the reality of the Holy City (Rev. 21:15-21). It is made of pure gold, transparent as glass, with walls of jasper, and visible foundations decorated with a list of precious stones.
The general picture of God’s city is one of magnificence, brilliance, purity and the assured rest of completion as all waiting is now translated into the present. In the midst of the great city there will be direct fellowship with God and the Lamb. The ‘not yet’ will be ‘already.’ In the literal and figurative sense, blurred vision will be corrected, healed, and brought to perfection. God will dwell with his people, and they with him in everlasting fellowship.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
We should neither be reading every event on the world’s stage as end times prophecy, nor should we be naive. Interpreting the times calls for Christians to have minds of wisdom and hearts of patient endurance, so that we can continue to trust in both God’s faithful working out of his purposes and the victory that believers already participate in because of the blood of the Lamb.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
The tragedy of monologue is that it impoverishes our spirituality. A one dimensional perspective is ruinous for living spirituality as it robs us of what is really true. We are made by God to be in dialogue – God and self, self and others, others and world.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
God is the great sculptor in time. Catch the vision of this imagery for yourself and live it out as you sculpt a life in time.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Theology cannot remain stuck in books and classrooms, but must become part of our own stories. Making truths our own is crucial and there is nothing more vital for living spirituality than welcoming new and foreign redemptive perspectives into our lives, that in turn will be lived out for others.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
Wisdom emerges in our lives slowly and sometimes painfully. It invites reflection, question, and struggle. It covers everything from advice on how to take care of daily tasks, to the absurdity of them all. Wisdom, without the illumination of the fear (awe, reverence) of the Lord, loses its way. For true wisdom relates to living spirituality as it deals with facing life in all its ups and downs. God graciously meets us through living as we shape the contours of daily routines and choices, so that we might learn to wisely follow the path to life. The fear (awe, reverence) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This saying targets a two-dimensional reality: wisdom as internal; focused on the individual, and as external; situated in a variety of social contexts in the world. Life is to be filled with the gift of the wisdom of God, which applies to the whole of human activity as we forge ahead on the journey.
Dr. Gregory J. Laughery
To better understand God and ourselves, we have to read and study three books: Scripture, nature and culture.
Dr Gregory J. Laughery
Grace has been misplaced. Everything seems to be focused on negotiation. Surpassing notions of exchange or “let’s make a deal” however, is the directedness of God for our lives.
Dr Gregory J. Laughery
