His cremation ashes will not be any different because I gave my dad a shave before the funeral home took his body from the house he’d lived in for 47 years. On the surface, logic says a shave before cremation…
We are manna
I’ve been tired, and I know I’m not alone in that. People are tired. Not inconvenienced. Not stressed but tired, bone tired as the seasoned saints used to say. Wars are waging in the Congo, Iran and Palestine while cable…
What they’ve taught me
I was scrolling Facebook when I saw the post. Someone I had mentored. Someone who had reached out, who had sat in the specific loneliness of being queer and trans and faith-formed and told by that faith they were the…
Letter to my mother, my pastor
Dear Momma, Every March the church pauses to name Baptist Women in Ministry Month. Churches host panels, women write articles, women fill pulpits and deliver sermons about the long road women have walked just to stand behind a pulpit as…
Little platoons and voluntary associations: Burke, Tocqueville and the moral architecture of belonging
There are moments in the history of political thought when two thinkers, separated by time and temperament, nevertheless circle the same human truth. Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville lived in separate centuries — Burke, 18th; Tocqueville, 19th — but…
Are Religious Leaders Really Worried About Marriage And Fertility Trends?
Let’s start with a question: Have you heard leaders in your congregation discuss any of this information in a setting that will reach active members, as opposed to special events that draw the “usual suspects” in the flock (maybe 10-20%…
‘Are you hungry?’
In a day when the president of the United States cancels the commemoration of Dec. 1 as World AIDS Day — while his DOGE canceling of USAID has led to many more AIDS deaths in Africa — and we see…
The gift of a transgender child
Sarah has long been concerned with the scope of my reading, and she is right. For years I have focused my reading on history and current events. Sarah said fiction belonged in my reading diet, too. Fiction, she said, would…
How will your grandchildren view your role in the present struggle?
After the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, there has been a lot of discussion in the nation about whether he was a positive or negative character. I think like most people he was a mixture. He was not the epitome…
A Baptist boy’s journey toward faith, freedom and authenticity
When I was 5 years old, I believed I could be nothing but a Southern Baptist. My friends were Southern Baptists, my family was Southern Baptist, and my Appalachian community likewise was Southern Baptist. We worshiped in a small brick…
James Dobson’s America
Whatever a real American family was supposed to look and act like, I couldn’t have told you. I was raised on 1980s comedy television. Each evening, I watched the whole slate of sitcoms, most of which were about families, and…
The grief of a caregiver
For many years, my journey in the “care of souls” has led me to walk alongside those who are grieving. This path has taken me from a ministry setting to managing a mental health department in a maximum security prison,…