The nature of lament is profoundly spiritual and political. Lament ensures that questions of justice are asked and makes clear that things are not OK. But it doesn’t stop there. Lament suggests that what is wrong can be changed.
The root of our inability to end gun violence is spiritual, but not in the way many think
Christians in America are unable to #ActTo EndGunViolence because we have intertwined the American story with the Myth of Redemptive Violence. We must be converted away from this pervasive myth by the nonviolent, suffering resistance to evil that is the Story of Jesus.
Nonviolence and a different future with God
“Deliver us from evil.” Most Sundays we pray these words, but rarely do they sound the resonance we hear in these anarchic days. Evil seems unrelenting, incapable of exhausting its ravenous power. Who can withstand its voracious appetite for destruction?
The myth of redemptive violence and ‘The Hateful Eight’
By Michael Parnell I step onto some shaky ground here, but I will admit it: I love Quentin Tarantino. Yes, I know his movies are filled with violence and terrible language. But there are few directors working today that fill…
Theology: A focus for thinking
This is the seventh article of a nine-part series on empowering a faith community to impact the world. Already hospitality, evangelism, missions, ethics, Bible, and spirituality have been explored. In his book Becoming a Thinking Christian, John Cobb promotes the…
Bible: The Pope and Jeb Bush
[This is the fifth of a nine-part series on empowering a faith community to impact the world. Already hospitality, evangelism, missions, and ethics have been explored.] Did you hear Pope Francis? “Jeb!” was all over it. Immediately following the released…
Good power/bad power (The nonviolent Jesus versus the apocalyptic Christ)
It is vital to our spiritual health to understand the difference between dominant power and spiritual power. Dominant power is the power to externally influence behavior by the use of force, coercion, threat or promise, reward or punishment. Spiritual power,…