On the other side of getting paid to pray, I’ve found church has typically very little to do with how middle class white people desperately organize themselves in small groups to have stifled and awkward conversation about the Biblical text,…
You are not a pretend church!
Trinity Baptist Church in Lebanon, New Hampshire, had twelve people in worship yesterday. Ten adults and two children. We sang, we prayed, we greeted one another. They listened to my sermon. We all stayed for lunch, then gathered for another…
The U.S. circus of religious nationalism
If Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa were sitting at a table talking U.S. politics, would Donald Trump fit in? Or would he hijack the conversation to persuade them that he is uniquely qualified to “make America great…
7 types of evangelicals — and how they’ll affect 2016
Like many political axioms, though, it papers over a complex reality. But evangelicals rarely vote as a bloc, especially in the primaries. They disagree not only on the candidates but also on more basic principles like how active Christians should…
Realm of earth, rule of Heaven: Bodified faith and environmental activism
The greatest failure in the history of Christian thought is the separation of souls from bodies, spirit from soil, the wrenching of hearts from habitation-all representing the abdication of the realm of earth from the rule of Heaven.
What does it mean to confess that Jesus is Lord?
To say that Jesus is Lord is to echo one the earliest and most basic Christian confessions. Lordship language came right out of the Roman culture: Caesar claimed for himself the titles “son of God” and “Lord.” To claim the…
Beginner’s mind
Tomorrow morning I’m going to slip a clerical robe over my shoulders and drape a green liturgical stole around my neck. I will line up behind the choir, along with the other pastors and liturgists, process up an impossibly long…
Maybe you should stay. Maybe…
Posted by Garwood Anderson on January 18, 2016 A durable modern and first-world “problem” is what to do next. People didn’t always spend a lot of energy wondering what they should do next. “Next” was defined by the passage of…
Mind the chasm: 12 reflections on the clergywomen’s wage gap
A collection of stories from clergywomen reflecting on the wage gap that systematically keeps women from earning as much as men for equal service to the Kingdom. A recent article drew out the wage gap between male clergy and female…