By Bill Leonard “Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. This executive summary of the [Senate Intelligence] Committee’s report makes clear that acting without conscience isn’t necessary, it isn’t even helpful, in winning this strange and long war we’re…
A failure of imagination on reading Scripture, part 2
In the first part of this post, I made the point that God’s word (and by association, God himself) often gets a bad rap. But, I argued, this is more a function of a failure on the part of his…
Jumping in, feet first
By Amy Butler I’m wondering this week if we’re having enough difficult conversations. Horrible images on the news, protests in the streets, a growing awareness — if we didn’t know it before — that all is certainly not right with…
Why people are NOT leaving your church
The Internet is full of articles about why people are leaving church—or never attending church in the first place. Some are called “nones” and recently many people are using the term “dones” for those who are finished with church—at least…
In latest Exodus film, God’s a petulant boy, while Moses and Ramses play macho head games
Ridley Scott directs great movies. He won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2000 for Gladiator, and his films Alien and Blade Runner are science fiction classics. Scott has a way of offering grand spectacles on the screen and telling…
Images of the Kingdom
By Aileen Lawrimore “I’m going to move over here by Ruby so she can hear me,” Edna said as she stood, stepping over so her voice would project directly into her friend’s ear. “How’s this?” she asked. “Can you hear…
We’ve only just begun to deal with our prejudice
In the United States some people are prejudiced against African-Americans. Some against Anglo-Americans. Some against Hispanic-Americans. Some against Asian-Americans. Some against Native-Americans. Some people are prejudiced against immigrants, whether legal or illegal. They fail to acknowledge that most all of…
Sometimes it’s just a matter of showing up
By Jayne Davis It was really such a simple plan. The group would meet at my house at 4:30 for coffee and dessert and then head off together to the nursing home at 6 to sing Christmas carols for residents…
The Myth of Righteous America: Why white people support Darren Wilson
The shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the choking death of Eric Garner in Staten Island have dominated the news cycle for weeks, making it almost impossible to get any other issue onto the agenda. Immigration, Ebola and…
Peace on Facebook or Ferguson or Long Island or Cleveland
There’s a certain hollow and rather pernicious powerless-ness that wells up within me as I’ve quietly taken in the scenes, voices and verdicts (or, rather, lack thereof) unfolding before us all over the last couple of weeks. So much so,…
Christmas is where I believe again
Last year I realized that Christmas had become the crux of my faith. I was leading worship wondering if all this faith stuff was all it’s cracked up to be, and I found myself in a puddle of tears. I…
Why not a ‘pray-in?’
By Molly T. Marshall Follow Molly on Twitter @cbtskansas On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, members of different faith communities gathered early at an urban church to pray and converse about the strained…