I have a role, just as each of us who gets caught up in the in-breaking of God in the world has a role. But that role only has meaning in the context of a community that struggles together.
‘Doesn’t anyone want to be baptized anymore?’ The ‘tangibilifying’ grace of baptism
Faith and baptism are intricately related. Faith keeps baptism from becoming simply a magic ritual for fulfilling a salvific requirement; while baptism keeps faith from becoming simply an individual experience. It unites us with God’s new community, the Church.
‘The wheel’s still in spin’: Beth Moore reignites a stalled debate
Pastors like SBC President J.D. Greear, academics like Sarah Sumner and Bible teachers like Beth Moore gladly sign off on biblical inerrancy, but they are quietly transposing the scriptures into the key of Jesus. “For the times they are a-changin.’”
It’s past time for the Church to embrace the Rainbow Christ
When it comes to honoring the sacredness of our LGBTQ siblings’ sexualities, we have often been guilty of painting Christ using monochrome colors of exclusivity, narrowness and fear rather than the vibrant colors of inclusivity, expansion and love.
If we truly believed in God, how could we be sad?
Christians with a “winter spirituality” may wonder if they really do believe because the mountaintop is never a part of their faith journeys. Yet, as Martin Marty argues, their faith is just as real and valid as any other, just sung in a different key.
Kyle Lake and Rachel Held Evans: alike in many ways and testimonies to hope
A high school graduation party for the daughter of a beloved friend who died 14 years ago evoked memories, sorrow, laughter and hope. But deep in the throes of sadness for those we lose, like Kyle Lake and Rachel Held Evans, is the reality of God’s stubborn insistence that life always follows death.
Mercy ministries are not enough; we can’t meet justice issues with mercy solutions
There’s nothing wrong with providing mercy ministries to those in our families and communities that need help now. But if Christians don’t also commit ourselves to justice, if we continue to meet justice problems with only mercy solutions, we will just get sucked dry and worn down, which may at times be exactly what the perpetrators of injustice want.
Trinity Sunday: It’s better than ‘daylight savings time begins’
The unpopularity of Trinity Sunday has to do with the incomprehensibility of the Trinity. We sing, confess our faith, and baptize with Trinitarian formulas, but you seldom hear someone in line at Starbucks say, “How ’bout that God in three persons?”
There’s nothing wrong with praying for the president, except when it’s not really about prayer
Praying for our president is needed and appropriate. My criticism of President Trump is aimed at refocusing the narrative not on a pastor praying for the president, but Trump’s never-ending quest to make everything about himself – even in church.
How to live in perilous times: a pope and a priest’s contrasting responses to Hitler’s Final Solution
We, too, live in perilous times that will define us for all time. Will history remember us as protectors of ourselves, our institutions and our borders? Or as protectors of God’s children, as people who truly believe O’Flaherty’s motto: “God has no country.”
Caring for every child of God means challenging our country’s school-to-prison pipeline
In your community and mine, it is easy to find children who are, for myriad reasons, embroiled in the juvenile justice system. Will we stand idle and silent, allowing beloved children of God to be funneled away from academic success and rerouted toward the juvenile justice system?
Lessons for life and faith after a devastating tornado
An AF-3 tornado ripped through our city. Among the lessons in its aftermath: Life’s storms always leave us changed; our faith response will determine whether or not they leave us better.