Earlier this academic year, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s American Religious Biography class studied biographical accounts of seven women and men whose lives spanned the centuries from the colonial era through the 20th century. After digging deeply into the historical accounts of those Christian figures, students reflected on what insight each narrative might have for modern Christians,…
Category: Theological Reflection
Hello, Can You Hear Adele this Advent?
I never thought I’d be the one in the family begging to turn on the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station—in our case, Wish 99.7, Pittsburgh’s official Christmas station—especially not the day before Advent. But this year I was the first to tune in. How else to get Adele turned off? The several previous days of Thanksgiving food…
God Isn’t Fixing This
Three years ago on a Saturday afternoon in Advent I was frantically rewriting the beginning of my sermon for the next morning. The day before a gunman had entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 children and six adults. This Advent pastors are drafting sermons after another massacre. And many will try to address…


