I have always been fascinated by the practice of libation. I first saw this done in a movie over twenty years ago where Ice-Cube (Dough boy) poured his malt liquor on the ground in honor of his murdered brother Ricky played by Morris Chestnut. I thought that the practice was...

"And a young man followed [Jesus], with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked."

Jesus had no help at the cross from his followers. Only he could bring about our salvation, and so he had...

David is one of my favorite characters in the Bible and a statue in Florence of him gives us perfect insight into the character of David, a man after God's own heart, who got dirtied by pride and sin. Only confession and repentance could clean him up and restore him...

After traveling to the Holy Land for two occasions, one of the places that I looked forward in visiting was the site of Jesus's birth. In a brief query to our tour director, I realized that the present-day story of Bethlehem is of a sacred place now enmeshed in concrete...

I have always been attracted to the city of Detroit, the culture, the teams and even the food it is indeed a special place so to a point it is where I proposed to my beloved spouse. Not everyone will find Detroit beautiful, but with its wide, often empty boulevards,...

This coming Tuesday, November 6th we will be engaged in the election of Mitt Romney or reelection of our current President, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. This election has been the most tense and anticipated since I begin watching Presidential elections in 1988. It is a clear divide among American voters...

As a junior at Morehouse College, I was first introduced to a German monk by the name of Martin Luther in Roland Bainton's autobiography Here I Stand. I was enthralled by his volatile stand against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church.

The day was All Hallow's Eve, the precursor...

According to data that I read from the Washington Post recently about 1/5 of all Americans say they are "nothing in particular," with agnostic or atheist, up from 8 percent since 1990. Many pray, believe in God and have regular spiritual routines. What is even more alarming is...

There's something about the Mother of Jesus? John 2:1-12

The debate of whether Jesus was married has come back in the forefront with the recent discovery of a papyrus being called Gospel of Jesus Wife. According to archaeological evidence, it was originally written in the late second century which shows...

I recently read Elaine Pagels rather recent book on Revelations and began to ponder on the relationship of Hip Hop in addressing the dominant themes of power so prevalent in this apocalyptic book.

Just as John, the revelator that had a vision on the Isle of Patmos, I believe that...

Last week, I was scheduled for an informal conversation with a pastoral colleague at the Atlanta Bread Company. After arriving there a little early, I was quite hungry, to say the least, and gravitated to the counter lined up with an eclectic mix of people. At first, I was quite...

I have always been fascinated by the continent of Africa, especially the country of Ethiopia. It seems to me that my heart literally skips a beat when I think about Ethiopia and what it means to me personally.

Recently, I have studied the meaning of Ethiopia in the Greco-Roman...

As a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I have experienced the realities of how church factions can divide friends and families into making decisions based on conviction and theological doctrines. This to me is very disappointing that the very thing that separates us as humans the ability...

Billy Graham, perhaps the greatest preacher/revivalist of our generation, in a recent interview asked us to remember Jesus' final command to His disciples to go into the entire world and preach the Gospel has never been withdrawn, and we must take it very seriously. Then he claimed that present churches...

I am just getting back adjusted to the rigors of church life after returning from the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. This gathering held every three years had almost 40,000 youth and volunteers who are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with the main themes of justice,...

The prophet speaks, first of all, about the behavior of their judges: They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals (2:6). Those who were rich behaved as they wanted to, without being questioned: silver passed hands and the corrupt judges convicted those who were...

In 2005, I took a class at the University of Chicago Divinity School entitled "Deus Absconditus: The Hidden God." In this class, I grappled with the question "Why does God hide Himself?" is asked at times, not only by the atheist or agnostic seeking to cast doubt on God's existence,...

From a jail in Birmingham, Ala., Martin Luther King Jr. discussed civil disobedience, noting that "there are two kinds of laws: just and unjust" and that there is a "natural law" to which we are subject. He was right: We shouldn't say we know right and wrong only because "the...

In the movie "Leap of Faith" there was a con-man preacher that ran a traveling revival show. In the movie, the semi-truck breaks down in mid-America but despite the break down the show went on. There is a sequence where the trucks move into place and the tent is raised,...