Let us live by walking with Jesus, so that our Neo-Pagan neighbors, the witch, and frankly a lot of us Christians, can put down our crystals, our superstitions, our vision boards, and our bound sage in order to live out a liturgy of life, with rituals, practices, and behaviors that reflect who we are as followers of Christ.
As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.
God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.

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Through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, Christ meets you with his radical forgiveness which changes everything, even the self!
Humanity, despite our best efforts, cannot answer the question as to why God allows evil to occur.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.
Just like Peter, you don’t need to do anything to earn God’s forgiveness for your soul wounds.
The Antichrist offers another continual presence. It is every whisper that tempts us toward autonomy, that tells us to carry it alone, that insists suffering is meaningless.
Christian spirituality is not a flight from the world, but a deep dive into its brokenness.
To confess Christ crucified and risen as the only hope in a world that has lost its mind to wickedness and rage.
I realized I had long and drastically underestimated the depth and vitality of the Christian intellectual tradition.
For those with faith in Christ, there is always a happy ending.
Oliver was a friend, chaplain, professor, author, and loyal church reformer. This Gnesio-Lutheran giant will be missed.