People of faith, whatever the specific tradition, now confront a 21st-century global reality: Worship can get you killed, anywhere in the world.
Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman may thrill, but real life Wonder Woman inspires the fight for justice
The real life Wonder Woman, Israeli actress Gal Gadot, has stood against intolerance and nativism as an advocate peace, equality and tolerance. We should embrace the heroes and sheroes who challenge us to fight battles we did not think we could fight, much less win.
‘To love is to suffer.’ Saints like Julian and Hildegard point us to Jesus’ way of suffering love
To love and to care for others – indeed, to be fully alive – entails suffering in all its forms. Lent is an opportunity to enter afresh into the paschal mystery.
10 years as a church planter made me a church planting skeptic; here’s why
By themselves, entrepreneurial values in church planting are not bad, but there is a fine line between tailoring church to people’s needs and making church a commodity. In church planting this line often gets blurred.
A Lenten reflection about repentance, reparations and resistance
An appeal to my white Baptist sisters and brothers: when it comes to talk about the issue of reparations, I hope you will embrace and maintain a penitent silence during the remaining days of Lent.
Not that kind of Methodist: my sojourn as a Baptist minister in a Methodist church
As a Baptist minister, I owe much to an inclusive, gracious and open-minded Methodist church in Texas that invited me as a new Baptist seminary graduate to be their associate pastor. That gives me hope, despite the General Conference’s recent vote.
Lent is a good time to unlearn some things we think we know from scripture – and to listen anew
This season of quiet reflection, introspection and contrition may be the best time to consider our misunderstandings and to seek repentance, receive forgiveness and start anew. And to hear again the words of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, but I say to you…”
A case for making the sign of the cross — even for us Baptists (and other Protestants)
What would it look like for Baptists and other Protestants to recover and reclaim the ancient tradition of making the sign of the cross? Lent might be an opportune time to find out.
Compassion is the work of seeing, of making invisible people visible
Lent is the season for paying attention. Compassion is the work of seeing, of making invisible people visible.
Hunting for the divine spark in ourselves and others
On the night of Ash Wednesday, somebody sitting at the bar yelled out, “Hey! You got something black on your face!” Without thinking, I yelled back, “Hey! It’s my skin!”
5 reasons why reparations talk makes white people crazy
We want our children to come of age hearing the same message of civil religion in church, at their “Christian school” and on Fox News. For those who live in this kind of environment, reparations talk sounds like heresy.
Lent has come amid a moment of moral reckoning for American culture and the Church
The Bible says that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, but moments of moral reckoning, such as the one we are enduring now, remind us just how fragile earthen vessels really are.