Christianity seems to be incurably cantankerous. This begins with the Bible. “Bible” comes from the Latin bibliotheca, meaning “library.” It’s not a book—it’s books. The Scripture’s final collection was not settled until 300 years after Christ. In contrast, the Qur’an was written by one man and its form settled within 20 years of his death.

At the recent Steinbach Bible College Leadership Conference on baptism we found out the real controversy in our churches is over baptism and membership. Many churches are now questioning whether baptism should automatically make one a member of the church.

Do you believe in human freewill? Two basic approaches have been debated for thousands of years. First, some Christians believe in libertarian freedom. Here, freewill means people really could choose to act differently than they do. Sally chose to follow God, but she could have chosen to follow Baal instead.

Imagine a pianist who could say “I love you” to his lover by playing a song at the piano. The better the pianist and the better he knew his lover, the more compelling this love song would be. In some ways it might be even better than talking or writing a letter.

Have you heard this preacher tic? “I know we’ve all heard this story many times before but let me tell you about David and Goliath....” Why do we preachers say this so often?

I am rarely guided by God in decisions the way others report being directed. God never told me to become a pastor, marry my spouse, or go to school. God certainly never told me to live in Winnipeg. God is rarely my spiritual GPS.

♪I’ve visited Baptist, Alliance, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Mennonite worship services for various one-time events. I’ve then asked myself, am I at the best church?

♪An infinitely happy God is good news to a world in pain. God has no baggage. Nothing triggers him. He is always in the best imaginable space to hear our prayers and enter our pain.

♪Have you ever heard a so-called “truth” once too often? Here’s one I heard recently: “being on mission is not just about going overseas as a missionary; it’s also staying home to serve God wherever you are.” Who could argue? But suddenly I had heard this one too many times. Instead of a timely truth I now saw a donkey my generation loved to flog.

♪We often hear about how angry and cruel public discussion has become today. But we often hear excuses for our bad manners. One excuse is to claim that, far from being rude, we are only showing “tough love.” Much cruelty is justified by those two words.

♪ Do I have to believe in the Trinity to be saved, really? Listen to the thunder of the Athanasian Creed from the early church: “Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic [historic Christian] faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.

I state the obvious: As a male pastor, I should be a pastor to women. It should not be said of my ministry that the men got good teaching, mentoring, and compassionate attention, but not so much the women. Female pastors may have these challenges too, but here I am focusing on men.