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Chapter VIII: The Cowtown Christ Comes Back!

John 20: 19-29
By the Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

John, Peter, Joanna, and Anna traveled with the hearse to pick up Jesse’s body at Eagle Pass. When they arrived, they had to pass, once again, through reporters and distraught crowds. Jesse’s pale, slightly bluish body was arranged on a metal morgue table, covered by a sheet from the chest down, over which could be seen the “y” incision made by the coroner.Read More »Chapter VIII: The Cowtown Christ Comes Back!

Chapter VII: The Cowtown Christ Is Dead

We Crucify the Cowtown Christ, II: The Cowtown Christ is Dead

John 13:1-18

Jesse the Cowtown Christ had become a political lightning rod. On one side were the far-left wing liberals, calling attention to the fact that Jude, a prominent psychiatrist, had declared Jesse in need of serious mental health treatment. Well, she wasn’t going to get any decent treatment in Texas, they said, noting the shortage of mental health services in the Lone Star State. And anyway, isn’t threatening to lock up or deport Jesse just a way for “The Man” to quiet dissent? Kinky Friedman put together a “Free Jesse” Concert in Zilker Park.Read More »Chapter VII: The Cowtown Christ Is Dead

All Things New

Revelation 21: 1-6

All Saints Sunday

All things new.

That’s what we believe as Christians.

A new heaven. A new earth.  Everyone of our loved ones who has died in the faith, possibly a whole lot of others, maybe even everybody, made completely new. You and me, made completely new.Read More »All Things New

The Gospel of Job, II: Redemption

The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, by William Blake.
The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, by William Blake.

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

October 28, 2012

The Book of Job, Chapter 42

 Job ends on a bizarre, uncomfortable note. God “rewards” Job by giving him NEW wealth, NEW property, most bizarrely, NEW CHILDREN.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even a biblical scholar, to step back and say, “Wait a minute.” This is a reward? New children can be wonderful and beloved, but they can’t possibly make up for children who’ve died. Is this how God thinks?Read More »The Gospel of Job, II: Redemption

A Personal Journey, 8: God’s Kingdom of Forgiveness

A Canterbury Tale

By the end of my sophomore year at Hampden-Sydney College, Inter-Varsity, our official campus fellowship group, was becoming more exclusionary and judgmental. There were standards that brooked no room for questions or disagreement. I was increasingly frustrated for my friends in IV who had questions, or were troubled in their souls, or who didn’t toe the fundamentalist line, or who weren’t quite pretty enough, cool enough, or secure enough in their faith to fit the IV model. Don’t get me wrong, there were many good, faithful people in IV–but the tenor of the group had become increasingly “Us against Them”–us against the “liberal religion professors,” us against the fratty boys, us against the Creeping Religion of Secular Humanism. Us against the world.Read More »A Personal Journey, 8: God’s Kingdom of Forgiveness

Hope

Romans 8: 18-25

Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2012

St. Stephen Presbyterian Church,Fort Worth,Texas

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

 

The other day, I heard a story on NPR’s “This American Life” that particularly resonated with me. It was a story about the violence perpetrated by the government of Guatemala on its own people during the Guatemalan civil war of the 1980s and ‘90s. Sixteen years ago, I joined a Presbyterian mission group that travelled to Guatemala as the war was winding down, and I so I have some familiarity and ongoing interest in their struggle.Read More »Hope

The Sermon I Preached After Last Year’s NEXT Church Conference

The Presbyterian Church “NEXT church” conference is in Dallas at the end of this month. I found last year’s first NEXT con inspiring and educational. This is the sermon I preached on my return. It was Transfiguration Sunday.

The Vision Glorious

1 Peter 1: 16-21

March 7, 2011

St. Stephen Presbyterian Church

Fort Worth, TX

Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, Preacher

This past weekend I attended the “Next Church” conference in Indianapolis. I always feel l have to explain that this isn’t the “Next Church” as in, “What’s the next church I’m going to be pastor of?” I’m not going anywhere. No, it’s “Next Church” as in, “What is the next church we, as a denomination, are becoming?” The conference brought pastors, elders, and seminarians together to discuss the future of the PCUSA. It was exciting but also sobering. I’ll start with why we are asking the question in the first place.

The PCUSA and denominational Christianity in general, appear to be at a crossroads. Our authority is no longer taken for granted. Indeed, the authority of the Christian message seems to be universally questioned. Both the church’s message and the forms we use to convey that message seem quaint and outdated, or worse, oppressive and exclusive. We seem both unwilling and unable to change with the times. Are we a dinosaur? Jurassic Church, hopelessly outdated and unable to survive the speeding, earth-shattering impact of the comet of change that’s transforming the world around us?Read More »The Sermon I Preached After Last Year’s NEXT Church Conference