John Buchanan presented the following lecture at Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, in January 2015. People are curious about clergy. Even people who are not particularly church-oriented regard ministers and priests as curiosities. They think we are somehow fundamentally different from everybody else; that we are untouched by the normal matters of life that […]
Becoming like Little Children
August 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
When Jesus told his disciples one day that unless they became like children they would not qualify for entrance to the Kingdom he surely didn’t mean childishness. They had just asked a very adult question, a typically human question about status and privilege: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom?” His response – “become like […]
Peace Among Religions
August 20, 2015 by 2 Comments
Jonathon Swift, (1667-1745), Irish poet, essayist and satirist, observed that “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another”. I have thought about Swift’s maxim on and off over the years in the midst of church conflicts over controversial issues that became hateful. I thought about […]
The Joy of Summer Reading
August 13, 2015 by 1 Comment
I don’t know what it is about the ocean that is so conducive to reading. I experienced it again this year, returning, as we have for almost four decades to the same barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Maybe it’s the absence of distraction with the only really necessary activity planning what fresh […]
Hold to the Good 
The Power of Forgiveness
Even in Chicago, where there are multiple shootings every day and where little children are shot with such regularity that nobody pays much attention any longer – even in Chicago what happened at Charleston’s Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church feels uniquely and unspeakably evil. Nine people, African Americans, attending a Wednesday evening Prayer Meeting, were […]