In his 1955 best-seller, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, sociologist Will Herberg wrote that “it is the American Way of Life that supplies American society with an ‘overarching sense of unity’ amid conflict.” Sixty-one years later, amid divisive ideologies of presidential politics,…
That’s not your seat: Regulating the seating arrangements at God’s dinner party
“That’s not your seat” is a phrase used by Morgan DePerno, a student in my church history class, as the title for her recent review of Martin Luther King Jr’s Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. For Morgan, “that’s not…
The religion of the New Lost Cause
At Maundy Thursday worship in Wake Forest University’s Davis Chapel, the day after Gov. Pat McCrory signed NC House Bill 2, a transgender divinity school student washed the feet of an African Pentecostal student as the Gospel text from John…
A church that protects sexual predators isn’t much church at all
“This was like God showing up.” That’s how one victim of clergy sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese described his family’s response when a priest came to visit. He added fatefully, “When a priest paid attention to you it was…
The evangelicals?
“I love the evangelicals,” presidential candidate Donald Trump declares in rallies across the country, “and the evangelicals love me.” So the billionaire builder lauds his self-identified “evangelical” supporters, as he cusses his way to the Oval Office, scorning Muslims and…
A recently revealed truth
Recently, Candyce Leonard brought to my attention a passage from John Cheever’s novel, Falconer, in which the narrator says of Farragut, the main character: “Food was a recently revealed truth in his life. He had reasoned that the Holy Eucharist…
Let the tares alone
Are we courageous enough to stand on conscience, while taking seriously those whose consciences may not now, or ever, be compatible with our own? In 1644, Roger Williams, in London to secure a charter for the new colony of Rhode…
Them and us?
By Bill Leonard Sometimes I think I’d love a good mystical vision, when God told me exactly what is right and wrong; how to believe and behave. Surely then I could sort out all the theological and ethical dilemmas of…
Among the not-yet-housed
By Bill Leonard Each January for several years, I’ve joined a group of theology students for a Wednesday visit to the Haywood Street Congregation in Asheville, N.C. I can’t help but write about it, since the experience is always “transforming,”…