It may now seem surprising to many United Methodists, and even more Baptists, that for most of our histories in the United States, all Methodists and Baptists were regularly designated as evangelical denominations. The most important reason is that both...
On Sunday afternoon, I put together a small surprise for my niece. Her mom was taking her to Disney, and I wanted the moment to feel real before the magic officially began. I bought shirts, pressed them myself, wrapped everything…
Advent teaches us how to live inside a promise that hasn’t yet finished unfolding. The light is thinner. The nights arrive early. We find ourselves listening more carefully, because certainty has loosened its grip. Scripture doesn’t rush to resolve this…
The photo below is not an award-winner, like those of so many highly publicized contests. But it will from this day forward shape my Advent imagination. This photo features Wanda Hernández Murga, coordinator of the Kairos Center, a ministry of…
“Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world,” Fleming Rutledge says in Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. In these final days of Advent, we…
Many mornings I go on a long, slow sunrise prayer walk — what the mystics call “goal-less walking” or “life lived at three miles an hour.” These days, in the neighborhood where I walk, there are a number of delightful…
The calendar flips to December and the old, familiar talking points begin. The White House tweeted, “We’re saying MERRY CHRISTMAS again!” along with a photo of President Donald Trump standing stiffly next to a Christmas tree. Laura Ingraham has warned…
Things were not merry and bright for Edison Cantwell and his five children during the 1932 Christmas season. Christmas was not a welcome time for the Cantwells. Even so, the Christmas of 1932 was going to be a memorable one….
I am one of the clergy members who has been holding vigil outside the Dallas ICE field office since May. After a gunman opened fire at the back of the facility in September, our weekly prayer vigil transformed into a…
The University of Oklahoma is the latest school to debase itself in deference to Donald Trump and evangelical Christians’ false claims of religious persecution. Trump and white evangelicals have this in common: Both claim persecution when they are instead the…
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou Dear Mary, This is my final letter to you this season of Advent. Lest we journey too…
Vienna Baptist Church has moved in with a nearby United Church of Christ congregation after selling its Northern Virginia property to a Chinese Presbyterian fellowship earlier this month. Affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, American Baptist Churches in the USA…
An unconventional Christmas tree sits in our living room this year. Sparkly pink trimming wraps around its breadth. Green and white striped candy canes hang from the branches, and twinkling jade lights glow in their midst. A thin gold ribbon…
