Category Archives: Paul Nuechterlein’s Blog

(The following are my opening reflections for my webpage on Ash Wednesday.) In 2019 there is finally serious conversation about addressing the foreboding challenges of Climate Change. The debate has begun over the “Green New Deal.” A dozen years ago … Continue reading →

(This essay began as the Opening Reflections for my webpage on Epiphany 5C.) The call to discipleship is itself grace. In the face of rising authoritarianism in Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s major statement was his book Discipleship (Nachfolge in the … Continue reading →

(The following can also be found as the opening essay for Epiphany 3C, at “Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary.”) Luke launches the mission of Jesus with an inaugural sermon in his hometown Nazareth. Jesus reads the quintessential Jubilee text (Isa. … Continue reading →

Woke is a political term of African American origin that refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African American Vernacular English expression “stay woke,” whose grammatical aspect refers to … Continue reading →

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” — Pogo, in a 1971 cartoon by Walt Kelly I’ve come to see Mark 3:21-27 as one of the most important passages in the Bible. It is Mark’s — and thus … Continue reading →

(The following is the opening essay for my recent lectionary page Proper 11B.) Tribalism. The new darling word for what ails our culture-in-crisis. Yet while our current fascination with tribalism may be new, the reality of tribalism is anything but. … Continue reading →

Creating Two Distinct ‘Sheep and Goat’ Parables In 2017 the title of my sermon for Christ the King Sunday (Nov. 26) is “The Smallest Huge Translation Mistake in the Bible: Creating Two Distinct ‘Sheep and Goat’ Parables,” stemming from the … Continue reading →

[This blog provides the Opening Comments for my lectionary webpage on Proper 20A, prompted by the texts of Jonah 3:10-4:11 and Matthew 20:1-16, the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.] One of the most important books I’ve ever read … Continue reading →

In Part 1, the authoritarian, ‘Strong Man’ assault on reason and truth was posed as a crisis of our age that urges a depth of analysis that anthropology provides. Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land was offered as a … Continue reading →

Today’s events, with the seemingly constant assault on facts and truth, calls into question an account of human beings as rational. In reviewing Arlie Russell Hochschild’s book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, I … Continue reading →