Learning to welcome new life as it begins to inform the old always involves sleepless nights, tears of frustration, painful self-doubt, and the unwavering conviction that this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
Does Easter mean anything at all?
What if this Easter season, Christians everywhere stopped scapegoating others and we owned our own complicity in the violence of the world? What if instead of blaming a politician or a “them” group of people, we admitted our own guilt in the injustices of humanity, however small?
Are you living on the right side of Easter?
Easter changes everything. Like no other part of the Christian faith, the story of Easter is at the heart of what makes our faith unique and life-changing. Death is overcome by life. Not even the grave is immune to the…
Church: Safe and fun for the whole family?
The No. 1 contemporary Christian radio station in America, which broadcasts in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, built its reputation on a simple slogan years ago: “Safe and fun for the whole family.” And that’s great for a radio station, even…
People I don’t need to listen to
The New York Times has too many pages. I download more podcasts than I can play. I cannot read half of what my friends post on Facebook — particularly one recipe-happy friend. I cannot hear, read, or notice a significant…
Looking at the cross and seeing our own violence
As a minister, I’ve noticed that even the previously dependable Easter attendance bump has become not so dependable. It seems that I used to see more in town visitors or members on the margins who only come on holidays, but…
The scapegoat to end all scapegoating: The saving power of the cross
The scapegoat ritual practiced by ancient Israel functioned, I suppose, as a symbolical representation of the collective cleansing and forgiveness of the covenant people by God. Whether it was a healthy ritual or a toxic ritual for ancient Israel I…
With Jesus in the dark: Embracing the Paschal mystery
The week begins with a parade and ends with “stations” visited. Baptists do not usually speak about “stations of the cross,” for we, like our Anabaptist forebears, are a bit suspicious about anything too Catholic. (On balance, the Anabaptists were…
Criticizing Trump’s ethics is easy. Building a church around the ethics of Jesus? That’s hard.
Last year I spent 250 hours driving around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for my job as a hospice chaplain. As I drive I listen to sermons and lectures from cutting edge biblical scholars, theologians and preachers, and podcasts and YouTube…
‘Lord, if you had been here’: Confronting the absence of God
“Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” That’s what Jesus’ friends Mary and Martha said to him on separate encounters after their brother Lazarus had expired in Bethany where Jesus was nowhere to be found.
When God doesn’t bless in really tangible, monetary ways
I want my son to receive the gift that comes from being a part of a family and a community of people who practice the ancient art of (sometimes foolishly) depending upon a divine force rather than the invisible hand of the stock market for worth, direction, hope and stability.
50 years after ‘Beyond Vietnam’: What’s changed?
Every week as I stand in the pulpit of the Riverside Church where Dr. King called for an end to racism, poverty and militarism in America, I fight the temptation to despair. In 50 years, have we made no progress at all? In this place where the call to justice has gone out again and again it’s abundantly clear that our moral crisis is deeper than ever.