All cannot be fully well for any of us until all is finally well for all of us. That is my less artful version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s more lyrical declaration, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere….
Bread of the World — really, the WORLD!
Most liturgical churches have been living into the bread imagery of the Gospel of John for the past several weeks. One of the worship planning resources I use has nicknamed this portion of the Lectionary “high-carb season,” which I thought…
Congressman John Lewis is my choice in this election
John Lewis has been called the moral conscience of the United States Congress. His death in July 2020 was a great loss to all of us. I mourn his death, but I call on his dream, his spirit, for our…
God of the specific
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Already broken them? Join the club. Odds are you’re vowing to lose weight, get more exercise, get a handle on your finances, etc. If those haven’t worked in the past, here’s a better resolution,…
I imagine Jesus saying to Trump: ‘Not everyone posting a sketch of me with them will enter the kingdom of heaven’
An anonymous fan of ex-president Donald Trump produced a sketch of Jesus sitting in court with Trump, which Trump then posted on his Truth Social platform. The closest I can come to understanding this travesty is to admit the desire…
The real religious crisis in America
In a recent NPR interview, Russell Moore, author of Losing Our Religion, told a story about a pastor who preached a message from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. During his message, the pastor quoted Jesus saying things like “Turn the…
Embracing the slippery slope
I was that kid. You know. The one who asked questions. Questions the teacher really didn’t want to answer. Questions like, “Did God really create the world in six calendar days? Don’t you know science tells us that it took…
‘Woke’: I don’t think that word means what you say it does
I have been bumping into this strange word, “woke,” a lot lately. I wondered what it meant. Digging around, I found “woke” means to be alert to racial and social discrimination and injustice. Why is this considered such a bad…
If Jesus wants us to forgive everybody, why is he always talking about hell?
I recently highlighted the Jesus-Joshua problem: Jesus wants us to love our enemies. Joshua wants us to slaughter them. Both can’t be right. But what about the demand for justice that reverberates throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation? If we…