Spring 2007

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31% believe in an "Authoritarian God" who is angry at humanity's sins and engaged in every creature's life and world affairs.

23% believe in a "Benevolent God" who is forgiving and accepting of anyone who repents.

16% believe in a "Critical God" who has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or comfort.

24% believe in a "Distant God" who is more of a cosmic force that launched the world, then left it spinning on its own.

I was having breakfast with my dad and my younger son. As we were finishing our meal, I noticed that the waitress brought our check, then took it away, and then brought it back again. She placed it on the table, smiled, and said: "Somebody in the restaurant paid for your meal. You're all set." And then she walked away.

I had the strangest feeling sitting there. The feeling was helplessness. There was nothing I could do. It had been taken care of. To insist on paying would have been pointless. All I could do was trust that what she said was actually true and then live in that—which meant getting up and leaving the restaurant. My acceptance of what she said gave me a choice: to live like it was true or to create my own reality in which the bill was not paid.

That is our invitation—to trust that we don't owe anything. To trust that something is already true about us, something has already been done. To trust that grace pays the bill.

American students often feel poor, but in truth they have far more than most people in the world. This three-minute documentary contrasts the lifestyle of average Americans with the 50 percent of the world's population that lives on less ...

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