Those who know me well know I loathe most contemporary Christian music. It’s often inward focused and driven by first-person language. It’s commonly all about one’s personal relationship with God or what God has done for individuals, ignoring the Bible’s…
Yes, Baptist polity makes room for queer Christians
On May 6, my husband and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Something we both like to do is give one another a gift and then go out to eat. For a while I have been thinking about what to…
Stronger than yesterday
From my post at the front desk of our local YMCA, I notice a lot of interesting slogans on T-shirts as members scan in to work out. Recently a man came through wearing a T-shirt, the arms of which were…
Don’t be a Stormtrooper: Moral clarity in story and in life
As someone who has fond memories of watching the original Star Wars in the theater, I will confess I am drawn to the meme of Star Wars stormtroopers in their off hours — hanging in the break room, eating lunch,…
The rotten fruit of Paige Patterson’s loins
Progeny is a gift. In the Hebrew Bible, more than 20 distinct words describe children in various senses, such as “lad,” “boy,” “youngling,” “child,” “offspring” and more. They appear in some form or another more than 1,500 times throughout the…
Trump vs. Harvard, round 2: The Constitution fights back
In a nation that reveres liberty, intellect and rule of law, the latest clash between Donald J. Trump and Harvard University is not just a headline, it’s a high-stakes constitutional confrontation. And in this second round, the gloves are off….
Evangelical Trump Hypocrisy Syndrome strikes again
Imagine former President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, posting a social media meme riffing off The Blues Brothers movie and declaring he’s “on a mission from God.” Conservatives would have lost their ever-loving minds. This would have been further evidence…
A vessel for whom? How I learned self-hatred and neglect at church
Conservative legislator Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act that, in part, would ban pornography in the United States. As conservatives push more restrictions, we have to question: Who actually benefits from a culture that…
The lies my country taught me
When I was 12 years old, growing up in the 1950s, I gathered every Saturday with hundreds of kids my age at the downtown theater in my West Texas town where the silver screen fed us lies that passed for…
Children in the marketplace
Jesus said it: But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not…
The Episcopal Church refuses to help Trump Make Apartheid Great Again
On Wednesday, May 21, President Donald Trump once again sullied the presidency and our nation’s reputation by ambushing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with a made-for-social-media propaganda stunt that was peppered with lies and misleading video about an alleged white…
Love led me out of the closet
There are thousands of young LGBTQ Christians across the country sitting in church pews, overwhelmed by anxiety and shame. Each week, they hear sermons suggesting their identity —something they did not choose and cannot change — is a barrier to…