Stumbling About for Truth

...maybe it should start with itself. Church discipline troubles me. I am well aware of the Matthew passages and even agree with them. Problem is, the church has so screwed up its influence and place in society with believers and non-believers alike, I am pretty sure I would tell a pastor or church deacon or elder board who likely doesn't know me, but wants to correct me, to take a hike. Further, the church has no business in my personal life - it doesn't even have its own personal life in order. Church authoritarians many times just want you to know they have "power" over you. Because of its failings, the church has long since been stripped of any authority God gave it - it has suffered the natural consequences of its own lukewarmness in failing to to be salt and light in the world. It is no longer the center of life. And don't blame the secular society for this. Blame the church - and uncomfortably, this means blaming the leaders and ourselves. It has been said

Check these buzzards out.

I was sitting in church last night - well, actually, I was standing since we were singing. We were singing "Your Grace is Enough" and as usual, when I sing a song about one of God's immeasurable attributes, my mind begins processing what I am singing a million miles an hour. So I quickly wrote a few notes down right after the song - thinking I would blog about it later. The whole concept of God's grace has become such a cliché in Christianity today. We throw it around pretty easily. We say, "Grace and peace be with you." or "Go in God's grace." Or "But by the grace of God, there go I." Or we say "Grace" at meal times. And then in the larger secular world, we hear about a celebrity's "grace and style" or her "graceful mannersisms", or how she dances with such "grace and power". It's actually quite easy to forget what grace means in God's economy. When I looked up the word in the dicti

I am in the midst of reading The Appeal by John Grisham. I don't feel like typing a synopsis of the book - it's not really pertinent to what I am about to say anyways. Grisham slipped in a line in the book saying that opposing abortion and supporting the death penalty are contradictory. The headline of this post says everything you need to know about my argument that there is no contradiction.. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong...

Not sure if you've seen this or not... how in the world does a kid get to the place where he thinks that this is not only okay, but funny?

... someone who is doing something good for the right reasons. This man exemplifies Jesus' teaching - His whole teaching. Click here to read the story.

... maybe to Iraq. Click here . Read the story. Then email him at csatullo@phillynews.com to let him know what you think.

Remember the photo from the Vietnam war era of the little Vietnamese girl running naked down a road after being napalmed by I assume American forces. It's one of the most famous and well-known photos from that war. Well, here's the rest of the story. Here is a link to her foundation.