My Own Essays and Other Writings

• Sermons
  
  
• My Thoughts on the Texts for Epiphany 6 - How to approach disturbing biblical texts.
  
  
• "Ministry as a Subversive Activity" - An Address to the graduates of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary at their commencement exercises, May 14, 2005.
  
  
• Book review of Mark D. Jordan, The Ethics of Sex, Blackwell 2002, in Advent, the newsletter of Lutherans Concerned--San Francisco Bay Area, Fall 2002.
  
  
• Constructing Spiritualities Responsive to Our Age (2001) - a version of an article published as "Constructing a Christian Polydoxy" in dialog: A Journal of Theology. Winter 2001, pp. 264-269.
  
  
• Sin: An Abusive Doctrine? (1998) - "Sin" is a word that describes our distorted and irrational belief that God expects us to be something we are not.  It was published in the fall 1999 issue of dialog, together with five responses and my "Response to My Responders. For these and other responses, click here.
  
  
• The Gospel in Evolutionary Perspective (1998) - This is my attempt to think positively about the implications of evolutionary psychology for the Gospel.

• The Gospel (1997) - A chapter for a book I planned to write on Christian maturity from theological and psychological perspectives.

• The Need for Critical Consciousness - fundamental to my understanding of religion

• Enlightenment, Evolution, and Christianity (1998) - These are my reflections on religion against the backdrop of the sociobiology of Edward O. Wilson and his appeal for a unity of knowledge.

• Bible (8/16/98) - Why and in what sense is the Bible inspired, revelatory, and authoritative?

• God (2/4/98) - In this piece I contrast popular anthropomorphic understandings of God with God as Ground of Being and draw implications from the distinction.

• "Goals and Plans for Minority Ministry," LCA Partners 1:2 (April 1979), pp. 7-9.

• "A Tale Told by an Idiot"? Finding Meaning When Myths Collapse (9/22/1999) - My inaugural lecture when installed as Professor of Pastoral Theology.

• Demosthenes' Use of Epideictic Commonplaces in His Deliberative Speeches Against Philip, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton University, 1981. (large file - 12 MB)