My experience of being ousted changed me, as I’m sure this experience is changing you. Being cast out can help us see more clearly the wounded people of this world who know daily abuse and ostracism. We can see vividly that any religious, political or social power that oppresses, denigrates or enslaves people is not of God.
What the church could learn from ABC
It is possible — even essential — to take a stand against things that are morally wrong without taking sides between Republicans and Democrats. We are currently hamstrung by the myth that to work against things like racism and sexism and mistreatment of refugees is to take sides on politics. There are some things to which there are not two sides.
Tracking our happiness
Happiness is more in our heads than our circumstances. We know people who have what we want who are unhappy. We know people who have been through the worst that life can give who are happy.
The peril of selective inerrancy
Demanding that women keep silent about abuse and submit to male headship is all about patriarchy and nothing about biblical values.
A Memorial Day reminder for the 81 percent
“Kyrios Christos!” (literally, “Lord Christ” or Christ is Lord!) The 81 percent of Evangelical Christians in America who voted for and still support Donald Trump are desperately in need of a reminder that “Kyrios Christos” is Christianity 101. It is the first central…
6 questions for trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Many SBC people have encouraged Patterson to retire for the sake of the SBC, which is incredibly tone deaf. He shouldn’t retire. He shouldn’t be moved to president emeritus, be given an indefinite teaching position and salary, housing for life, and be enshrined in an idolatrous stained-glass window. He should be forcefully terminated with cause, without severance pay, and be banned from campus for life for the sake of justice for those abused women he hurt with his misogyny, victim shaming, and silencing.
Dear Al Mohler, you humiliate yourself. Repent.
The hubris of Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, and the leaders of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention has led to their own humiliation. The unfortunate fact is that their humiliation is a fraction of the humiliation that women, wives, sisters, daughters, aunts, and grandmothers have experienced at the hands of complementarian men.
Paige Patterson, women’s voices and the gaping hole in education
That a Southern Baptist pastor made such disparaging remarks about women in not surprising given the Southern Baptist Convention’s theological treatment of women. What is surprising is how many Southern Baptists pushed back. Logic would suggest that if women don’t have to accept husbands who beat them, they do not have to accept a theology that beats them down, either.
The Spirit and the gifts, for the moment and for the long haul
It’s the Spirit that turns skills into gifts. Spiritual gifts can be perpetual or fluid, required at the moment or for the long haul. Gifts come and go. It’s the Spirit that remains.
Discovering God in a skeptic
What do you do with a skeptic who’s not so sure of the concept of God but believes the Way of Jesus should change the world? You make a deacon of him, of course! And when he dies, what do you say? How honest can you be?
From #MeToo to #ChurchToo to #NeverAtChurch
Dealing with sexual harassment and abuse in the church is hard, and I remember almost every day that I don’t have all the answers. But I do know that we have to do better than we have done. And that starts by being willing to talk openly and honestly, and to act with courage to make sure the church is a place of safety and flourishing for everyone.
The kids aren’t alright (but they could be)
When you want to study the overall health of a society, you don’t estimate the quality of life of people 50 and over; you ask if the kids are alright. And, historically speaking, America has never had more kids in poverty, more kids without access to healthcare, more kids chronically medicated, more kids with diagnosed mental health issues, more kids on semi-pro traveling soccer teams, more kids with student debt, more kids unemployed, more kids working unpaid internships, and more kids homeless, childless, and savings-less.