Social distancing has disrupted our habits of work and worship. We can adapt, whether adeptly or awkwardly. We do not, however, have to let social distancing disrupt or destroy “the tie that binds” and “the fellowship of kindred minds.”
Earth Day: the amazing dung beetle and lessons on loving all God’s creation
Without dung beetles, greenhouse gases (from methane produced by animals) would be orders of magnitude greater than at present, more than all the vehicle exhaust on earth.
Earth Day’s 50th anniversary: eerie similarities between an environmental crisis and a global pandemic
We must begin NOW to create a “new normal,” refusing to go back to the world before COVID-19. Our experience of resurrection and death transformed into new life – even one with the scars of our woundedness – can guide and motivate us.
COVID-19: Now I understand King’s truth of the ‘inescapable web of mutuality’
Prophets have been saying this for millennia: Justice will not be guaranteed to me until we have built a culture ensuring justice for everyone. My own welfare can only be found in the welfare of my most vulnerable neighbor.
The moral hypocrisy of Albert Mohler (and evangelicals of his ilk)
Evangelicals such as Mohler claim to be pro-life and shape their politics to support candidates who likewise claim to be pro-life and who will help stack the federal judiciary with pro-life judges. Their position is hypocritical, because they are not pro-life. They are pro-birth.
Our national curse: the cruel convergence of Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic
Trump’s cruel suspension of U.S. support to the World Health Organization is not only fraudulent; it is a crime against humanity.
Scrounging for ‘what elements you have around you’ to share virtual Communion
We joined others at the Lord’s Table(s), a community scattered by a deadly pandemic but gathered, alone together, in homes across the city, sacralizing the common things of life by making holy the elements we had around us.
A decade after his death, remembering Cecil Sherman’s ‘life wish’ for the church and CBF
The life and faith of Cecil Sherman offer inspiration for meeting the challenges before us as churches and as the Fellowship he led.
We’re prepared: a word of encouragement to my clergy colleagues and to those who love them
My clergy friends and other siblings in ministry, it is time for us to stop saying that we are not prepared for this moment of chaos and crisis. Hear me say: yes, we are.
Comparative vocabularies of pandemic and faith in a time of chaos
These comparative lists kept running through my mind – one describing our reaction to a spreading virus, the other reminding me of faith and joy, regardless of circumstances.
Zoom church is helpful for now. But we cannot become satisfied with technology’s quasi-ability to facilitate communion
Thrust into the wilderness of this global pandemic, we must not succumb to the temptation to turn stones into bread. We should not allow virtual church to become more desirable – more permanent – than the miracle of a physically gathered community.
‘Will it come like this, the moment of my death?’ Living and dying in a COVID-19 world
This global pandemic requires us to confront the possibility of death – not fearfully or obsessively, but with intentionality born of the reality of the present moment, longing for Easter as Gethsemane and Golgotha linger.