Today, months of organizing comes to a climax as balloting ends in the quest to unionize some 6,000 workers at the Amazon fulfillment plant in Bessemer, Ala. The campaign — in this deep-red, right-to-work state — has enormous implications for…
Pope Francis practices Orwellian doublethink
Despite having declared in 2013, “Who am I to judge gay people?” (to the dismay of conservative Christians and the hope of much of the Western world) Pope Francis did just that in supporting a recent ruling by the Vatican’s…
‘Give us this day our daily bread’: Lessons from the sourdough starter
By its sacred nature, bread is rich in symbolism. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. Made from the earth’s ingredients, this food represents bodily nourishment, hospitality and a spiritual relationship. “Breaking bread” originated when Jesus would break loaves…
The power of an encouraging word
One doesn’t typically reach my age without the onset of one or more health issues that must be confronted. So, in this 75th year of my life, I have had lower back surgery to help ease the pain in my hips…
Reflections on March 16
As I struggled with understanding the terrible events happening within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community over the last year, I found myself writing down my thoughts, an outlet I frequent a lot. The more I wrote down my…
Mourning the end of an era at Logsdon, rummaging through my father’s books
As we rummaged through rooms of old books, I couldn’t help but mourn a bit. My dad, giving away his library. It felt like the end of an era. My dad always seems at home when surrounded by books. I…
Here’s the link between COVID vaccine denial and opposition to sensible gun control
If you want to understand why we can’t get even the simplest of gun safety laws passed in this country, look to the stats on COVID-19 vaccinations. New polling out this week — released between the horrific shootings in Atlanta…
In Atlanta, more denial of persistent racism
It has become increasingly evident that too many conservative evangelical Christians are actively engaged in a calamitous campaign of denial about the persistent nature of racism in our society. The recent mass murder of Asian women in the Atlanta area…
From COVID to post-COVID: A ritual to mark the transition
Serving as pastor of a church in the Tampa Bay area, it seemed appropriate to have a life-sized cardboard cutout of Tom Brady at church the morning before Brady would lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win the Super Bowl….
It was a bad week for women, but it wasn’t unusual
In case you didn’t notice, women had a very bad week. In Georgia, a Southern Baptist man shot and killed eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent, because he wanted to eliminate temptation because of his sex…
My journey toward LGBTQ inclusion: God still speaks
As a cisgendered heterosexual male, my own sexuality was not a problem in the Southern Baptist faith of my youth and young adulthood. Having come of age with the Moral Majority, though, I cannot remember a time when the question…
Finding our way out of the rubble
Lent isn’t over just yet, and we could do with a bit more reflection and repentance as a church and a nation. But spring is arriving. I can see it dawning over the horizon, pinkish yellow as it seeps into…