“Daddy.” “Yes, Jackson?” “Is it Sunday yet?” “No, Jackson, it’s not Sunday.” *Slightly agitated* “Yes, Daddy, it’s Sunday. It is Sunday!” “Huh?” *processing* Oh. I guess I made a mistake. It happened only a day before. In an attempt to…
Good power/bad power (The nonviolent Jesus versus the apocalyptic Christ)
It is vital to our spiritual health to understand the difference between dominant power and spiritual power. Dominant power is the power to externally influence behavior by the use of force, coercion, threat or promise, reward or punishment. Spiritual power,…
Prayers for Holy Week
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee For Holy Week I simply offer these prayers from the collection my wife, Jeanie, and I edited in 2012: Yours is the Day, Lord, Yours is the Night (Thomas Nelson). May they speak to…
A Poem: Good Friday with the Methodists
I estimate forty of us— spread like thin gravy over the dim sanctuary. My own Baptist flock honors the noontime crucifixion, so tonight my son and I are free to join these Methodists who have hired four Gregorian chanters from the…
The powers of two
By John Chandler Joshua Wolf Shenk finds in Paul McCartney and John Lennon a master metaphor of how brilliance happens. In his recent book, Power of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, Shenk makes the case that…
Compete or collaborate
The Dilemma for Christian Ministries I have encountered several situations recently where it appeared Christian ministries prefer to compete rather than collaborate. They wanted the success of their own ministry or congregation or denomination rather than the significance of kingdom…
Christ’s body image
By Starlette McNeill For the past three years, I have led a young adult women’s group. It is comprised of 18 to 35 year olds, that mysterious group and magical age range that we know exists but can’t seem to…
Gentrification and its discontents
Chris and I are riding home from church when I bring up local politics. I’m interested in what he thinks about the creeping development that is beginning to put some pressure on the edges of our neighborhood. “Have you noticed…
Seeking Jesus is like hunting for Easter eggs
Whenever I hear someone suggest the gospels are pretty much straight forward, I want to ask her or him whether we are reading the same books. There are so many times when reading the gospels, I stop, wondering if I…
At Lent: Sin, evil and us
By Bill Leonard On Feb. 10, 2015, three Muslim students at UNC-Chapel Hill — a married couple and her sister — were shot by one of the “neighbors” in their apartment complex. The New York Times reported: “The victims’ families…
What Easter means (and why what literally happened on Easter morning is irrelevant)
What matters most is not what historically happened on Easter morning to the body of Jesus but what the Easter story means. The Easter stories in the Gospels are religious/spiritual/theological stories, not historical reports. That is not to say there…
Understanding one’s life as part of God’s work of redemption
By Amy Butler That day as I stood in front of the gathered congregation, I could feel their dismay — an almost desperate exasperation and lack of hope at the state of their community. It was my first congregational meeting…