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201 - 210 of 662 total
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Answering Questions About Doubt: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
Just about everything about doubt is unsettling. It’s unsettling to doubt, especially if the stakes are high and if we find ourselves doubting when everyone else seems content. It’s unsettling to discover that sometimes our very best reasoning isn’t sufficient to resolve our doubts, or that the search for answers simply increases our uncertainty.
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Responding to Questions About Old Testament Law
BY: Denis Haack
Here’s the situation: A non-Christian friend asks how I can possibly take Old Testament laws against homosexuality seriously when other laws make provisions I obviously reject—such as buying slaves or stoning someone who works on the Sabbath.
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Should We Attend This Party?: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
Your small group includes a woman—let’s call her Mary—in her early 60s who came to Christ a couple of years ago. Her enthusiasm for Bible study, sharing Christ, and faithfulness in all of life is both refreshing and infectious. Unlike the Christians in the group, however, most of her closest friends are non-Christians, many of whom she has known for decades.
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Love it or Leave it: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
Since 9/11, a terrorist attack by a group of men all of whom were from countries in the Middle East, renewed debate about immigration has arisen. Should immigration be restricted, and if so, how? How open and free should our borders be? And how should we respond to those who are already here but who don’t seem to “fit in” the way many think they should?
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Can We Make Our Faith Attractive?: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
In the opening scenes of the movie Chocolat, Vianne, played by Juliette Binoche, moves into a new town and rents a dingy, dirty storefront. As the villagers watch from behind half-drawn shades, she cleans it up, paints it, places intriguing objects on shelves and in the window, and puts a new sign out front announcing it as a chocolaterie. The colors of the new store stand in stark contrast to the dark, unimaginative drabness of the rest of the town, and the Mayan objects that decorate the store contrast with the traditionally familiar lives of the townspeople.
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A Great Spirit Blessing: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
Living in a pluralistic culture, as we do, does not mean that we live among unbelievers; it means we live among people who believe in things other than Christianity. And since secularism has been found wanting, many are adopting a variety of spiritualities and religions. This means, in turn, that we must expect to find ourselves intersecting with our neighbor’s religious convictions and practices—not just in the realm of ideas but in practice.
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On Being Offensive: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
All things considered, there’s plenty a Christian can do, say, or believe which some other Christian will find offensive—perhaps even deeply offensive.
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Your God Does Intolerable Things: Discernment Exercise
BY: Denis Haack
Often the questions we face in a pluralistic culture require Christians to develop an apologetic for their faith. A reasonable, winsome defense of what we believe to be true. And sometimes the questions that are raised go to very heart of things.
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Questioning American Foreign Policy: Discernment Exercise
BY: Kevin Hilman
Christians believe that though citizenship is part of the calling of every believer, our commitment to the truth and kingdom of God must take precedence over our patriotism. “My country, right or wrong” is not a slogan the believer can adopt.
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Why I Kissed Christian Concerts Good-bye: Discernment Exercise
BY: Matt Redmond
For years I have gone to concerts done by Christians. I have seen most of the popular bands and soloists in the Contemporary Christian Music market over the past fifteen years. Some were entertaining, some were not and few were what I consider high-caliber talent. But regardless of how talented they were there was one thing that almost all of them did during their time on stage: talk.
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We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
- P.D. James
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There are tulips on my desk, and I saw my first robin yesterday, clear signals that winter is losing its grip on the landscape. The newspaper reported an ice jam on a nearby river that forced the closure of several roads. Chunks of ice the size of dinner tables slammed through a county park. Even something as glorious of the arrival of spring is never as perfectly smooth as we would hope in this broken world. We are, as my spiritual mentor used to say, glorious ruins.
Finding what it means to flourish as broken human being in an imperfect world is what Ransom is about. We believe in Jesus Christ, though often find ourselves dismayed at what passes for Christianity in our postmodern world. We hope what you find on this site will be helpful in your own pilgrimage, regardless of where you happen to find yourself at the moment.
Denis & Margie Haack
Anita Gorder
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