It was a perfect Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side. A 15-minute wait at the Popover Café was well worth it for the strawberry butter alone. But patience and luck afforded me the coveted corner booth with ample room…
Standing as loving accomplices on a front porch surrounded by police
It is a Friday night not long after I have moved to Enderly Park, which is located on Jesus’ side of the tracks. Our living room is filled with teens. We are playing cards, not because we like cards that…
A new framework for thinking about church budgets
This is, hands down, the least favorite time of year for pastors everywhere: church budget planning season. Nobody likes budget planning, from the tedious work it entails to the way in which money necessarily informs the work of the church,…
What if church doesn’t matter?
Americans are a remarkably faithful people when it comes to spirituality, yet they are simultaneously, remarkably faithless when it comes to institutional religion. Why? This perplexity borders on cliché since it has been true for a number of years, but…
How will you use your privilege?
There’s a lot of talk today about those of us who have “privilege.” There’s white privilege, male privilege, education privilege, urban privilege, Christian privilege, economic privilege, neighborhood privilege and on and on. I’m not denying any of these are real;…
Kaepernick and Jefferson: Standing for the right to kneel
Jefferson said more than he meant. When he wrote those inspired words that rise boldly from our Declaration of Independence — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” — he spoke words that have…
An apocalypse of our own
I’ve been reading the Book of Revelation a lot lately. The Apocalypse of John has never done much for me, truthfully. But these days, I’m wondering if we’re in need of an apocalypse of our own. You may have to…
How do we define the circle of we?
I took a rather forgettable class my junior year in college. The course was titled “American Intellectual History II,” although I do not ever recall seeing “American Intellectual History I” or “American Intellectual History III” ever offered in the course…
Fording the stream, mid-career
Over the next nine months, we will take a big-picture look at the trajectories that shape and reflect our North American lives. We will consider “the future” of things as ordinary as the relationship we have with animals and consumer…
Holding my nose and voting against my beliefs
On January 20, 2017, either Donald J. Trump or Hillary R. Clinton will take the oath and become the 45th president of the United States. Although I can provide thousands of reason why Trump is dangerous to the Latinx community, as…
What I learned when Missouri prosecuted Baptist clergy
I don’t know what you were doing the week of Aug. 15, but I had a ring-side seat, watching a bit of local history right before my eyes. The Medicaid 23 trial took place just a block from my church…
Can a Baptist be a Catholic?
A cadre of Baptist scholars has been writing about emerging catholicity, the holy desire for unity among all ecclesial communions. Taking tradition more seriously as a source for theological construction, these Baptists urge usage of the ancient creeds of the…