Samuel Wells
Free and flawed
The first Sunday of Lent is the best time of the year to talk about sin. Many people in the church, especially the mainline church, are stuck when it comes to the overlap of sin and sensuality. No one really wants to be the pastor who comes over all judgmental about sex.
Sunday, March 13, 2011: Genesis 2:15-17
The serpent was right: when Eve and Adam ate the fruit, they did not die; they saw more clearly.
How should we live?
No one has done more than N.T. Wright to make the broad sweep of the scriptural narrative speak vividly to laypeople--while challenging the academy by pressing profound motifs as far as they can go.
Doctrine of children
Adults underestimate children's capacity to experience God and reflect on that experience. This inhibits the gifts children and the church can bring to each other.
Ways of peace
There isn't a tidy way to write about forgiveness. It's the whole gospel, for sure....
Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology
Theology sits precariously between two precipices. On one side is a sharp drop called “Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.” On the other side is an equally sharp drop called “Speaking about humanity in a loud voice.”If these precipices endanger theology in general, they are particular hazards for the branch of theology known as anthropology. David Kelsey is sure at every step to avoid the second danger. His magisterial two-volume theological anthropology offers an exemplary approach to avoiding it.
Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury
The wise Anglican priest who instructed me in how to go about hearing confessions closed his lesson with some memorabl...
No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims About Jesus
Theologians and biblical scholars don’t usually trespass into popular religion....
The Fear of Beggars: Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics
Why is that man holding a sign, Daddy?” “He wants us to give him some money.” “Why does he want money, Daddy?” “B...
Five different lenses for reading "render unto Caesar"
No political ethic without social location
Remade: Matthew 22:1-14
When early Christians saw the word robe, they thought of one thing only.
A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming
A theological engagement with the current global environmental crisis needs to do four things....
Raging with Compassion
When I talk with Christians about their struggles in faith, the question of evil invariably surfaces early on....
God's justice
Woody Allen famously pointed out that the problem is not that God doesn’t exist, but that he is an underachiever....
God in the hurricane: A confession of faith
The writers of great hymns were deeply aware of the relationship between God and the forces of nature....
Broken and shared: Worship: Act four
All the elements of worship have led us here, to the Eucharist, or communion table. Now a reshaping of human society begins. Just as the bread and wine are offered, transformed and received, the congregation—and through it the whole creation—is offered, transformed and received by God.
Courage to respond: Worship: Act Three
Members of the congregation must ask themselves, “Do I dare to say the creed?”