I vividly remember tattooed punk rocker Joy Whitlock’s1 words. At Highpoint Church in Memphis, Joy gave her testimony before being baptized. She spoke repeatedly of “the new Joy” as opposed to “the old Joy.” Her own father baptized her and told us in a few words how great a change had happened. She and he said God had radically changed her; but I submit that mainstream Christianity fails to truly embrace the basic doctrine of

These are hard times. All we have to do is look around us and we see that our world is in serious trouble. Where can we turn, where can we go? People try to blame guns, abortion laws, or terrorism. But until we see ourselves in Christ as the solution to these problems we will never make any progress. We are not helpless. When it comes to sin, nothing is really new under the sun.

Our life in Christ is a life of freedom and love; and because it is, we must choose this life. Not just once, but continually. This Gospel is so simple and straight forward that it becomes problematic. The Author of life encounters death and the outcome is exactly what we expect. We understand immediately what the Church is trying to teach us. We see a prefiguring of Pascha. We see that death has been overthrown;