I work in public education, but I’m not a teacher, administrator, custodian, social worker or a member of the cafeteria staff. I’m something far stranger, or, according to at least one student I met during the course of my work…
The revolution will be standardized
“It’s like I’m expected to have this internal PR department quickly craft ‘a statement’ every time something like this happens. I can’t tell you how long I spent staring at a blank box at the top of the news feed…
Self-care as political resistance – or how (not) to sacrifice humans to ‘save’ the economy
In the face of economic collapse, Americans are being invited to become sacrificially collectivist in their willingness to strap life, limb and vulnerable loved ones to the altar of our hyperventilating economy for the good of “everyone.”
Leaving the corners of our fields unharvested for the sake of the most vulnerable | #intimeslikethese
What if this, our most recent apocalypse, was met by a Church willing to do more than hastily broadcast its services online – a Church willing to love, serve and give up itself, and even its budget, for the sake of the world?
Why progressive Christians need to talk more about sin
Reclaiming ways of talking collectively about the great harm our culture demands we do to one another in order to survive – without turning ourselves and other people into the problem (into sinners) – is the whole purpose of atonement: to scapegoat the scapegoat and not one another.
Christianity doesn’t need saving; people do
I have come to realize that Christianity hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t ever need saving. At its best, Christianity is a faith that dies again and again and again for the sake of other people.
Believing in God as prophetic resistance: LGBTQ Christians and the salvation of everybody, anyway.
This question – whether or not anyone can believe in God without reward – drives the work and witness of so many of my LGBTQ faith heroes who practice Christianity despite being rejected by and cut off from “the true Church.”
Churches, like public schools, face a ‘shortage’ crisis. Could this be an opportunity for both?
The American Church’s anxiety and desperation to survive – much like that of our nation’s reeling education system – frequently occludes its view of how to be helpful both to the world and to itself.
Jarrid Wilson’s suicide – and the urgency of pastors being free to be themselves
Who better than a pastor – called to live in a peculiar way on behalf of a group of people unable to live this way most days – to practice the art of prophetically being one’s authentic self, rather than attempting to be one’s best, most marketable self?
The President is right: Mental illness is killing all of us
Trump isn’t altogether wrong – gun deaths in America are driven by a mental health crisis. However, instead of that un-wellness resting upon a lone shooter or evil terrorist, it is visited upon all of us who still believe that the same circular conversation will actually result in something different.
Entitled Millennials aren’t killing the American Church; entitled churches are
When there are four year olds in jail at the border and the Arctic Circle hits 80 degrees, it’s time to find out why exactly the world needs the unending existence of our aging fellowship hall and sparsely-populated sanctuary. If we don’t know the answer, I’m not so sure Millennial church members are going to pull us out of that tailspin.
Finding an alternative to the anxious pursuit of happiness parading as American Christianity
Of the 25 to 30 students, adults, married couples and whole families I see each week in my practice as a psychotherapist, almost nothing is more difficult to overcome than our collective commitment to the anxious pursuit of happiness at all costs.