Other Writings

Unpublished book:  Why, God?

The book begins on Sunday, September 16, 2001 with my sermon titled, “In Memoriam,” and continues with a selection of my sermons preached in 2001 and 2002 that bear upon the attacks of September 11, 2001 and our responses to those attacks.  After each, I added a brief essay or two commenting upon the sermon.

On Thanksgiving morning, I spoke in our interfaith community service for which we gathered in Bridgeton, New Jersey’s Old Broad Street Church.  “Interfaith” referred principally to the service’s input from Judaism and Christianity and the participation of Jewish and Christian congregations.  The service was not designed to be generic for all faiths and expressive of none, but it was not doctrinal, either.  My comment essay after the sermon examines the task of “Responding to 9-11 in an Interfaith Context.”  From reflection upon that Thanksgiving service comes also my addendum to the book, “The Label ‘Christ Killer.'”

The book is posted here in three PDFs:
Preface and Contents
Sermons and Comments
Works Cited

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Adult Confirmation Refresher Course

Back in 2002, in the First Presbyterian Church of Bridgeton, New Jersey, I taught an Adult Confirmation Refresher Course which followed the outline of the regular confirmation course designed for 7th and 8th graders but at an adult level.  What follows here is a set of my summaries of the twenty-two classes.  Much is lost, of course, in a mere summary generated from my outline and memory of our conversations during each session, but I hope much of the substance of the course is preserved.

Unit One:  the Human Situation
Session 1: What, Who, Why, and How Do We Know?
Session 2:  Creation, Part One – the World
Session 3:  Creation, Part Two – Humanity in Relationships
Session 4:  The Downfall of Humanity and the Spread of Sin
Session 5:  The Great Flood

Unit Two:  God’s Redemptive Work with Israel
Session 6:  The Ancestors
Session 7:  The Core Events
Session 8:  The Ten Commandments
Session 9:  Israel’s History in the Land
Session 10:  The Prophets

Unit Three:  Jesus
Session 11:  What Jesus Did and Who He Is
Session 12:  Jesus’ Teaching
Session 13:  Jesus’ Passion
Session 14:  Jesus’ Passion, part 2
Session 15:  Jesus’ Resurrection and Ours

Unit Four:  The Spirit and the Church
Session 16:  I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
Session 17:  Go into All the World

Unit Five:  Who We Are As the Church
Session 18:  We Are Protestant – the Reformation
Session 19:  We Are Reformed
Session 20:  We Are Reformed, continued
Session 21:  We Are Presbyterian
Session 22:  We Are Presbyterian, continued