An English version is available here. La semana pasada mi mamá murió inesperadamente. Tenía 86 años y había batallado con Alzheimer/demencia durante los últimos doce años. Esta enfermedad avanza lenta y gradualmente, y poco a poco la familia y amistades…
Marching toward the future for gender equality
Flowing like a pink river, scores of women in their trademark headgear marched all over the world, just as they did a year ago. Carrying signs with urgent messages, the generations took to the streets to bring attention to the…
The day life changed for a legal immigrant — and his church
I’ve never felt so helpless as a pastor as I did on Tuesday, Jan. 9, the day Gilles was unexpectedly detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. I couldn’t do anything to stop the horrifying set of events that was about to happen that was going to change Gilles’ life.
Breaking out: crossing the lines of old denominational structures
When done from an unhealthy place, these new alliances have the ring of old retailers like Sears or Kmart who can no longer compete in the marketplace of ideas. But when done out of conviction about the needs for the unity of the church in responding to an increasingly indifferent post-Christendom society, they strike me as creative, inventive and hopeful.
Looking into the heart of racism and responding with … love
Martin Luther King Jr. knew that the fight for justice and equality must continue, but he also knew that no protest or law or court battle can change a heart. What can is love, but not just any kind of love.
My father, the born-again socialist
In his formative years, my father encountered two religious options. One was forward-looking and optimistic, hoping for better days ahead; the other was nostalgic and pessimistic, resigned to the imminent end of the world. Like most North American Christians, my father was a product of both visions: one influenced his religion, the other his politics.
Out of Africa: White supremacy and the Church’s silence
At this moment in history, how can American Christians, themselves deeply divided over scripture, doctrine, sexuality, abortion, and other culture war accoutrements, foster a common compulsion to speak out against white supremacist fiction before it gains an even stronger implicit or explicit influence?
Looking for clues to thriving faith communities in a post-Christendom church
What characterizes a sort of Western “underground” church doing well within a larger context of the church having been pushed to the margins of society?
If ‘The Post’ was a church, I would join
Churches should see themselves in this movie. The church, like the board of the Post, is tempted to focus on survival. When well-meaning, frightened Christians worry only about the budget, the church ceases to be the church. Institutional Christianity, like a bad newspaper, is organized, conventional and uninteresting.
God lives in a really big house
There is nothing wrong with worshiping and serving God in a particular house, in a particular tradition. But when we start thinking that our house is the only house where God can dwell, then we severely limit our understanding and experience of God.
Mental fitness and humility: You can’t have one without the other
President Trump would not be the only political or religious figure ever to be questioned about fitness for a position. The alchemy of autocratic decision-making with the presumption of self-sufficiency makes for a toxic concoction.
Dear Church, don’t give up on justice yet
Justice is a tool for working out God’s care and showing that God is “with us” as a way of entering into the real, physical circumstances of those who hurt, not just a concept abused by the culture wars.