by Ken Sehested
U.S. President Donald Trump is a self-obsessed, infantile, demagogic and malicious huckster without a shred of moral capacity other than self-promotion.
There. Say it out loud.
Read more ›Author: ppadmin
Three exegetes—a traditionalist, a modernist, and a post-modernist—walk into a bar
Pastoral commentary on Ephesians 1:3-14
by Ken Sehested, slightly adapted from a Feasting on the Word article
A traditionalist, a modernist, and a post-modernist walk into a bar. Over shots of bourbon, the three friends discuss the prologue (1:3-14) to the epistle to the Ephesians.
[The following exchange is fictitious—though quite plausible—imagining the voices and perspectives of three particular friends.]
Read more ›News, views, notes, and quotes
Rouse yourselves
A litany for worship inspired by Ezekiel 2:1-5
by Ken Sehested
Rouse yourselves, O creatures of clay, for it is I, the Potter of Heaven, who commands your attention!
We tremble, but trust that your grace is sufficient.
Read more ›Arise and arouse
The Blessed One is a stronghold of safety for those crushed by the world.
In every season of trouble, cling to this promise.
May this Name be upon your lips in every waking hour.
Read more ›Blessed assurance
Call to the table in the face of terror
by Ken Sehested
One important thing that hasn’t been said this week [about the savagery of separating of children from parents at the US-Mexican border] is that this Department of Justice policy change is in fact a form of terrorism.
The point of terrorism isn’t killing people. Terrorists make strategic use of aggressive trauma to spread fear for the purpose of affecting social or political objectives. Look up the FBI’s definition.*
Read more ›Early Church Fathers on refusal of the sword
A collection of quotes
TERTULLIAN (160–220)
§ “Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.”
§ “Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.”
§ “It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.”
Read more ›Out of the House of Slavery
Bible study on “immigration"
by Ken Sehested
This material was delivered in 2010 to a North Carolina Council of Churches-sponsored series of clergy gatherings in various cities.
My assignment is to do a Bible study relevant to the intense conversation underway in our nation over the question of immigration. Others will offer social analysis and practical strategies. But I should mention three presumptions I bring.
Read more ›Let Wisdom’s Way endure
A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 107
Listen now you who linger in wasted lands, consumed with wanton hearts: The Blessed One has eyes and ears opened and tuned to the cries of your distress.
Give thanks and rejoice you faint-of-limb and sick-of-soul: An open gate of Quenching Delight stands eager to receive you.
Listen now you who languish athirst, bowels rumbling in hunger: Bountiful tables—too wondrous to behold—are spread as ransom for your ruin.
Read more ›Amnesty
A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 130
If you, O God, should keep track of all our failures,
none of us would make the grade.
But your hands heap pardon on all the penitent.
Forgiveness is your middle name.
Mercy is your mandate; pardon, your provision.
Declarations of amnesty flow from your lips.
Every remorse is met with remission.