Work is good and essential in both a civilized society and a spiritual community. Maya Angelou aptly observed, “Nothing will work unless you do.” Work is not the essence of life, nor is the avoidance of work the key to…
If you think the Jackson water crisis is just about Mississippi, you’re all dried up
Mississippi is “the Magnolia State” where Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was abducted, tortured and lynched in August 1955. Mississippi is where Medgar Evers was murdered June 12, 1963. Mississippi is where three civil rights activists — James Chaney, Andrew…
There’s a spiritual side to food
“When I tried it with butter, everything changed!” — How Food Brings Us Together Recently on Tik Tok, this interview of a kid named Tariq talking about how much he loves corn has gone viral. He’s even gotten his own…
Frederick Buechner, Maya Angelou and Helen Lewis: Telling the truth
But to preach the gospel is not just to tell the truth but to tell the truth in love and to tell the truth in love means to tell it with concern not only for the truth that is being…
Just what we needed: Another pompous declaration from the conservative Calvinist evangelicals
The Christians who keep abusing their privilege to demand everyone else conform to their narrow views of culture and politics have released a new “declaration” against the abuse of power. As if the world needed one more declaration from the…
Jesus would turn over tables in this Crisis Pregnancy Center
During my first stint in seminary, I visited a Crisis Pregnancy Center to write a paper for a class on health and spirituality. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. When I arrived, the director and I met for a…
In Jackson, Miss., the lack of water flows into conversation about God, politics and public trust
Last Sunday, Aug. 28, I was privileged to be in attendance at Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., as Pastor Chuck Poole gave his last sermon after 25 years of ministry and his final splash in the baptismal pool. The…
How will you observe International Overdose Awareness Day?
On a summer afternoon, we gathered in the chapel of the addiction treatment center to grieve and remember lives lost to overdoses. Every client knew someone who had died from an overdose; most had lost several friends or family members….
Finding beauty in the superstore parking lot
On a sultry August morning, I backed out the convertible and headed to the grocery store to pick up some needed bakery items and a platter of watermelon slices. It seemed somehow appropriate, now that the “hottest month of the…
Roger Williams and the courage to speak clearly
Roger Williams agreed with the Puritan overlords of Massachusetts Bay on most points of doctrine, but when his thinking diverged from accepted orthodoxy, he said so. Plainly and without apology. In The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, Peace and Truth are…
Desiring God is denying reality
Last week, it was the almost humorous riff on beards as signs of God’s favor on manly men. This week, it’s a not-at-all funny critique of Critical Race Theory and intersectionality — by a white man who is the father…
Concern for our nation at Bubba-Doo’s
“Pastor, I just don’t understand how we got here.” Now if you feel like you just dropped in on a conversation that had already started, that’s understandable. Let me catch you up on a fascinating chat I participated in the…