There’s something wonderful about demystifying some of the “verities” alongside thoughtful students of the Bible who are eager learners about how what we believe shapes our lives.
Leaving a church: Sometimes it’s a matter of conscience
Leaving a church is a hard thing to do. We leave a community of relationships and end a shared history. It’s even harder when we leave over matters of conscience.
The most dangerous subject in a seminary’s curriculum
Church history challenges the arrogance of believing that our theological constructions are the product of own reading of scripture and not built upon millennia of political, social and economic history. It challenges the idea that we are self-made Christians.
Curtis Flowers was tried 6 times for the same crime. His story reveals 3 kinds of Christians
My work on the case of Curtis Flowers over more than a decade exposed me to three kinds of Christians: Kingdom Christians, Culture Christians and Conflicted Christians. I have learned that Kingdom Christians are almost always driven to the margins by the clarity of their convictions.
A queer reconciliation: my journey from outcast to ordinand
Six years after performing my same-sex wedding, my dad was defrocked by the United Methodist Church. Testifying at the ecclesiastical trial was excruciating for me. Yet that experience – and the support our family received – also reignited my call to Christian ministry.
Baptist Christians are working for peace in some of the world’s hardest places
Baptist Christians from all over the world are finding ways to bring about changes for peace and justice in their local and national contexts. Their stories are amazing – and humbling.
Clergy sex abuse: the damage done when faith is weaponized
When Bible verses, prayer, hymns, faith, God-talk and church rituals are perverted into weapons for sexual assault and then hammered into shields for church cover-ups, they become neurologically networked with trauma, and this renders them polluted and often toxic for the survivors.
I’m embarrassed by American Christianity. I’m just not ready to give up on Jesus
I believe in the power of the Gospel. I believe Jesus changes hearts, and that his calling is a daring summons to a truly social justice – to a salvation that changes our minds as well as our souls. But much of the preaching I hear these days makes me cringe.
The president is racist. He’s also ‘biblical’
The president is a racist who readily uses xenophobic and white nationalist rhetoric of biblical proportions. It is past time for the American church, Republican and Democrats alike, to speak out with a singular voice and tell the truth.
I’m in love with Christianity. I don’t need the government to be
No matter the misappropriated moral algebra that the Supreme Court used to come to its higgledy-piggledy majority opinion, the fact remains that the Christian cross is not fundamentally a secular monument any more than the American flag is a religious symbol.
In a world of words, who or what is the Word of God?
In examining how we discern the Word of God, I discovered Julia Foote, a 19th-century African American preacher and evangelist. She demonstrates that everything in our public life is touched by God’s Word(s).
Is it racist? Applying reason as well as biblical truth
How do we assess claims of “I am not a racist” widely used by those who engage in racist comments and behavior or defend others who do so? Applying different forms of reasoning can help.