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A Personal Journey, 7: Paul, the LGBT-Rights Convert??!!

Real Evangelism

A couple of years ago, I was invited to serve on a clergy panel of Equality Texas, a group that advocates for LGBTQI2-S rights, at a Texas Freedom Network conference. I was honored to be asked. Despite the fact that there were several break-out groups and panels, I was astonished at the heavy attendance to our clergy panel.

It was a room full of hurt and pain. There were men and women who’d been raised either Roman Catholic or in a fundamentalist faith, and thought of themselves as Christian, but were ostracized because of their sexual orientation.Read More »A Personal Journey, 7: Paul, the LGBT-Rights Convert??!!

A Personal Journey, 6: Paul the Progressive

What’s A Christian, Anyway?

My sophomore year in college, I was having issues with the leadership of Inter-Varsity, the fellowship group, of which I was an officer, and which I would soon leave. I started to feel the leaders were too wedded to rules and regulations at the cost of the Gospel. I’d been challenged by a fraternity president when I’d accidentally said, in line with our IVCF philosophy, that “Christians and fraternity guys share some common goals.” He’d been incensed. “I’m a Christian,” he said, “and a fraternity guy. Who are you to make that distinction?” The criticism had stung.

Read More »A Personal Journey, 6: Paul the Progressive

A Personal Journey, 3: Theology “In The Flesh”–The AIDS Crisis

Some time after seminary, when I was serving my second parish, in rural Virginia, I was in a regular case study group of pastors and counselors led by a Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor. One participant was a very sharp Christian counselor. He presented the case of a young man who came in and confessed that he was gay and wanted to leave his marriage. I can’t remember what the counselor told him, but he explained to us that his philosophy of counseling was that the Bible was like a mathematical formula, into which you plug the variable of a human life, and then you get the answers you need.

We immediately challenged him on this. The Bible is not in fact a formula, or a manual like a car’s manual, or any sort of mechanistic analogy. And people are not variables in God’s formula for life.Read More »A Personal Journey, 3: Theology “In The Flesh”–The AIDS Crisis

Easter Sunday: Go and Tell

Isaiah 25: 6-10

Mark 16: 1-8

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, Pastor

April 8, 2012

St. Stephen Presbyterian Church

Fort Worth, TX

 “And the disciples all deserted him,” Mark tells us. First, Jesus told them to watch and pray with him, but they didn’t know how, so they fell asleep. Then the soldiers came and Jesus told them they couldn’t defend him with swords, and they didn’t know what to do, so they ran. The other gospels bear out that the disciples were so frightened that they were hidden away in a locked room. They left their Lord to die on a cross, alone.Read More »Easter Sunday: Go and Tell

Where the Waves Are–Dr. Warner Bailey, Preacher

WHERE THE WAVES ARE

Genesis 37.1-4, 12-28   Psalm 105.1-6, 16-22, 45b   Romans 10.5-15   Matthew 14.22-33

Seeing is not always believing, especially when you look out into the teeth of a storm.  Seeing is not always believing, especially when our heart is full of bitterness, anger, rage, and that sinking feeling of absolute helplessness.  The disciples of Jesus had been with him many months, perhaps a couple of years, and they had witnessed his mighty power many, many times. They knew his face like the back of their hands, and yet when they saw him coming to them over the boiling waves, their last ounce of courage evaporated in the face of the storm. The whole boatload of them convulsed into the despair of overwhelming horror.  They thought he was a ghost, the grim reaper, come to take them to their watery graves.Read More »Where the Waves Are–Dr. Warner Bailey, Preacher