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A Challenge from our Born-Again and Devotionally-Oriented Siblings
Twenty years ago, the renowned scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, gave a series of lectures to an ecumenical audience on how the various New Testament writers understood the church that Jesus
https://ronrolheiser.com/a-challenge-from-our-born-again-and-devotionally-oriented-siblings/
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The Churches and the Social Gospel
It’s fashionable today to bash the churches, not just in terms of the scandals within them that hit the newspapers, but, more importantly, in terms of making them out to
https://ronrolheiser.com/the-churches-and-the-social-gospel/
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In Defense of Mystery
Recently I attended a symposium on Interreligious Dialogue. The keynote speakers were all excellent, with a single exception. One speaker suggested that one of the problems with Christianity is that
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The Loneliness of Leaving Home
Among the kinds of loneliness that afflict us, there’s one we don’t often recognize and deal with very well, the loneliness of moving on. There’s a loneliness that comes with
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Pentecost Happened at a Meeting
If you’re someone who’s at all concerned about community, family, church, justice, education, culture, or civic issues, you will, no doubt, find yourself at a lot of meetings. A colleague
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Ministering with Authority
Recently, inside church circles, a debate took place as to whether Therese of Lisieux should be named a “doctor” of the church. Her proponents pointed to her influence within the
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The Need to Admire
Several years ago, Roger Rosenblatt, in an essay in TIME magazine, offered this advice to his son who was graduating from high school and heading off to college: “Whatever you
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Perspective on a Scandal
A number of things should be clarified to help us properly contextualize the present crisis of sexual abuse within the church. What needs clarification? Three things in particular: The effect
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Awakening the Christ-Child
Christmas cannot be taken for granted. Swiss theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, once wrote: “After a mother has smiled for a long time at her child, the child will begin
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On Being Loved Sinners
We’re strange creatures, more lovely than we think and more sinful than we imagine, too hard and too easy on ourselves all at the same time. Human nature is a