Welcome to my website! I've posted here a number of my articles, speeches and sermons. The site is a work in progress, and I'd welcome suggestions. Feel free to quote any of the material or use it in any other way as long as you include a citation to this site.

I’ve tried to label articles, speeches, and sermons. Especially in the speeches (and a little less so in the sermons) you should expect to find some repetitious material.

AVAILABLE TO LECTURE OR TEACH

I am available to travel to lecture, teach, or lead discussions about most of the topics I write about. Contact me here.

COMMENTS

Many of these essays now contain the opportunity for you to comment publicly at the end. If an essay does not yet have a comment section, or you'd like to comment upon the website as a whole, click here.

RECENT WRITINGS

The Gulf oil spill is symptomatic of larger issues than greedy oil companies or incompetent government regulatory agencies. The spill provides an opportunity for us to examine the connections between our affluent lifestyle and the future inevitability of such catastrophies.

When we consider the state of the Earth--its environment, its injustice, its economics, and governance--its difficult to retain hope. But there are many hundreds of thousands of nonprofits around the world actively working to change those conditions, to raise our consciousness and rouse our attention. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Earth's Immunity gives us reason to hope.

Straight Thinking about Capitalism is a look at the assumptions behind capitalism and their corresondence (or, in this case, non-correspondence) with the values that most of us hold. Despite this, those assumptions have become the underlying rules for our society. Until we begin to think differently, we won't act differently.

The Church's Call to the Coming Crises is sermon I offered at our Eighth Day Faith Community on Sep 6, 2009. It seems to me that the coming ecological, economic, political and social crises that so threaten humanity call the church to respond deeply.

Hope for the Future is a review of James Gustave Speth's 2008 book The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Corssing from Crisis to Sustainability, which has been revolutionary for my thinking about the convergence of poverty & inequality, economic oppression, ecological devastation, and the loss of American democracy. Speth suggests that the old incremental, one-problem-at-a-time approach will not work and that we must work for a revolutionary change in human consciousness. Fortunately, those changes are well underway.

As we begin to think together about how best to restructure our economy, Capitalism's Evolution is a background piece to help us understand that capitalism is not monolithic, that the extreme, free-market capitalism of the last generation is a deviation from capitalism's historic evolution, and that there are concrete, practical, and (most importantly) just alternatives to our current economic system.

I preached this sermon, Resurrection, on the first Sunday after Easter at Eighth Day Church (so there are a bunch of local references). It's my attempt to articulate what the resurrection of Jesus means for a person who doesn't believe in the physical resuscitation of the body of Jesus.

Welcome Home, Atheists is a brief essay to participate in the dialog with the secularism of our age.

We can't really understand the current economic crisis if we limit ourselves to the lens of pure economic science; there is also a moral dimension that must be considered. Did Moral Lapses Cause the Economic Crisis? is a beginning attempt to ask how traditional categories of moral understanding might help us understand what is happening, respond to it, and prevent something similar in the future.

Now I Understand Why They Hate Us is an essay on my coming to understand the depth of US militarism. It has taken me a lifetime to understand that we are a deeply militaristic society, and our self perception as a beneficent, peace-loving country hides an uglier reality.

Health Care for Everyone: The Single-Payer Health Plan is an essay about national health insurance that I hope will encourage others to encourage President Obama to consider this form of health insurance for everyone.

Crises of Empire is a lecture that I offered at the Servant Leadership School/Festival Center in July of 2008 at a conference on Jubilee economics. I exlore briefly three previous Western empires and look for lessons for us in the waning years of the American empire.

When Things Fall Apart is a talk from the 18th anniversary of Joseph's House (our home & hospice for homeless men and women), trying to assess the economic, social and political future of our society, the likelihood of significant disruption, and what role compassion and justice might have in preparing for this difficult time and living through it.

The Coming Simplicity is an attempt to look honestly at one of the the moral problems of our consumerism -- namely global warming-- and our spiritual responsibility to respond as individuals but more importantly as a community. I gave this as a teaching (sermon) at our Eighth Day Faith Community on April 20, 2008.

In March of 2008, presidential hopeful Barack Obama ran into a firestorm of criticism when video clips of sermons preached by Obama's pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright, hit the Internet. From my point of view, the criticisms of Obama were fueled by the persistent racism and white misunderstandings of American racial history that have permeated our national history.

Economic inequality in the United States is greater than in any other developed country, and it's growing. The impact of this inequality on our country is significant, yet policy makers don't seem to consider it significant. What's causing it? What can we do about it? Check out The High Price of American Inequality

Here are a more concise review and a longer summary of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which I consider to be the most important book I've read in a number of years.

Compassion and Justice is a talk I gave in June 2007 at the 17th anniversary of the founding of Joseph's House where we presented the first annual comassion and justice awards.

Click here to order

Urban Injustice:
How Ghettos Happen

or either of my other books,

Healing the Wounds:
A Doctor Looks at His Work

or

Not All of Us Are Saints:
A Doctor's Journey with the Poor