by Andrea J. Graham The question has been raised, in essence, “Is what Jesus teaches and does the same as what Paul taught?” This is asking if whether the two major sources for Christian ethics are telling the same story. My faith declaration is an automatic, “Well, of course!” But that isn’t enough for an academic paper, so I will have to prove my point. However, there are a few side issues that need to be dealt with first in order to understand the issue. First, the bible is either the infallible word of God, or it is just a collection of old stories writtenRead More →

by Andrea J. Graham The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 brought many issues crashing in on a sleepy America. One of them is the reality that we are not alone on this planet—and our neighbors don’t all consider our opinions to be normative. Now we are left with questions about who are neighbors are and why they don’t seem to like us. It was a fundamentalist group of Muslims known as al Qaeda, sponsored by the ruling Taliban of Afghanistan, that attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the United States, Western Civilization, and everyone else who relies on American prosperity for their ownRead More →

by Andrea J. Graham I don’t remember very many sermons preached at University Church, but one I do remember surprisingly well is one I heard last spring, where the preacher informed us that many of the problems he’d encountered in the people he’d counseled were rooted in a misperception of the character and nature of God. Almost exclusively this was due to an unconscious confusion of God with their father or another dominant parental figure. However, the reasons for this common problem aren’t my concern here. As many of the major blocks to a person entering into a saving personal relationship with God are dueRead More →

  by Andrea J. Graham Many have set about to write about the life and person of our Lord Christ Jesus, and as one destined to do so, I have decided to write down for you this short summary in hopes that I shall be able to produce for you a more in-depth look at a future time. Since I have but a short time in which to write, I must limit myself to primarily focusing on just one of the four gospels, and I have chosen Matthew. We see in Matthew as he details for us the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection ofRead More →

  by Andrea J. Graham Some days it seems the only thing we humans can agree on is that we disagree and how we respond to that disagreement is another point of disagreement! This disagreement is often colored in nice terms like “plurality” and “diversity”. Though Diversity makes for interesting dinner conversation (sometimes), and it can often be a very good thing (for instance, cultural diversity), but that isn’t a universal. Again, this is another point of disagreement among people. When it comes to religious diversity, suddenly, the fighting gloves come on—even among those who welcome Religious Diversity! There are two main points that whileRead More →