questions
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Beliefs and Behaviors
The Jesus of the texts doesn't encourage harm for others—and the opponents of health protocols aren't demonstrating the person of the texts.
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Making the Past the Past
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” ~ Wm. Faulkner It is a difficult thing to think that one’s own faith might itself be in need of redemption. While I got “saved” into the Christian faith during the Jesus Movement, I still found the Billy Graham Crusades to be helpful. Yet it felt funny to see BG side with Republicans. It was discomforting to see how little BG dealt with the racism of the church—even when I wasn’t aware of what was going on, really, I remember thinking it odd that BG would be so, so careful on how he handled MLK, Jr. and his memory. I found…
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Sliding Away from Relevancy
If you haven’t been tracking the news, there’s been a dust-up in the American Evangelical world. An influential publishing outfit that produces RELEVANT magazine has been having some of its more dysfunctional efforts and people come to light. You can go read the initial posts by Mr. Andre Henry (a former Managing Editor) here, or related posts from Ms. Rebecca Marie Jo here. You can then read RELEVANT’s official response and the response from Mr. Cameron Strang, as well as a fine commentary by Ms. Ally Henny here. And you can read Mr. Henry’s reply to RELEVANT here. It’s kind of a mess, and the temptation is just to say…
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Prayer to Persephone
Today’s post is just poetry, this time from the sublime Edna St. Vincent Millay: Prayer to Persephone by Edna St. Vincent Millay Be to her, Persephone, All the things I might not be; Take her head upon your knee. She that was so proud and wild, Flippant, arrogant and free, She that had no need of me, Is a little lonely child Lost in Hell,—Persephone, Take her head upon your knee; Say to her, “My dear, my dear, It is not so dreadful here.”
- American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, family, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, questions, racism
What Would You Do If You Could Bring Conciliation?
This is a review of the book “The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism” The key issue that continues to break America’s soul is racism. Full stop. One hundred fifty years before Yorktown there was Jamestown. 1619 was the arrival of captive slaves of African descent, sold to English settlers and colonists looking for cheap labor that could be used for profit and personal success. By 1667 Virginia had passed a law perpetuating the eternal status of chattel slaves; in the last half of the 18th century the same people who held self-evident truths of liberty also held black humans as property to be…
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Are White People Still Racist?
Recently an apparently sincere white guy in the PNW made the statement along the lines of “white people aren’t that racist anymore,” and used as an example how we in the PNW are much nicer to “those people.” I’ve changed his name to “Sam” in my response here because I don’t think his post in a private group is something to bring public, but I will bring my response out in the open. Sam, I’m afraid my eyeballs have rolled so far back up my head I had to walk six miles just to go get them. “Racism” is not something bad people do, Sam. Racism is not white people…
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To Be Enough: Rest and Restoration
As allies of our brothers and sisters, we might not always be on the front lines. It is not a struggle where we as allies should be at the front and in charge. It is a struggle where we amplify and encourage and validate, where we listen and where we stand alongside. It is not the main struggle–we are the supply wagons and support staff and the community of brothers and sisters. We can do what we can, without taking charge. It is not about us, but the work does require us to be about the work. And we must not go farther than we can go. We must take…
- challenges, essays, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, musings, questions, racism, writing
A Jury of One’s Peers
You may (or may have not) seen video circulating recently showing the last moments of black American men shot by American cops. Some of my friends think we should see them. Some of my friends think we should not. I respect them all so much, and those who are against seeing them have my full support, as those who encourage us to show these deaths. Rather than come down one way another, here’s what I think, if my opinion is worth anything at all: I think we need to do what we think we need to do. I won’t demand people watch the videos (and I don’t share them, myself,…
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Memorial Day 2016
Memorial Day is the official start of summer. Typically there’s a family and friends get-together, a barbecue, a game on the TV, and adult beverages. We have this freedom to celebrate this way because of the sacrifice of soldiers to the vision that is America. And so we do honor the fallen with our gratefulness Our memorial is our memories. This isn’t to scold us for not doing more, although, yes, it would be great if we honored the living veterans with decent health care, housing, educational opportunities, and even employment. Decent men and women gave up their freedom and risked their lives to serve our country. It’s up to…
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Forgiveness—What Is Possible? What Is Demanded?
I heard a story on NPR the other day. Seems that in Maryland there’s a push to review the sentences of those who were convicted of murder in the last 40 years based upon the Unger decision. Several people who were affected by these murders—being the family and friends and co-workers—were asked for their thoughts. Did they forgive these people? One lady—and I am not picking on her—said essentially that she forgave the man who killed her family member some 40 years ago, but she could not forget and that, as a murderer, she thought he deserved to stay in jail—that his release, even though mandated by mistakes in prosecution,…
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He Was Twelve
When I was twelve I discovered in an old box of books a novel by Booth Tarkington. “Penrod” was the story (or rather, a collection of stories) about Penrod Schofield, an eleven-going-on-twelve-year-old boy in the Midwest. Indiana, I think. I was twelve, Penrod was twelve; we were both noted for getting into trouble which, at the time, seemed perfectly reasonable. Dressing up in the janitor’s clothes for a Christmas play? Making a concoction of various household discarded foods and giving it to a neighbor boy who accepts abuse as the price of friendship? Eating far too many things at the fair & as a result having a ginormous stomach-ache? Penrod’s…
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What Must We Then Do?
I’m a Christian, and I also believe in the power of reason. I don’t think anyone is convinced to switch sides on any of the culture-war issues based on emotional arguments that simply escalate into a battle of “who has the loudest voice.” I believe that the American Christian church of today has been bamboozled into thinking that it is enough to be against abortion, and that as long as we stop that from happening, the rest of our lives can remain indistinguishable from someone who has no power and no life of their own. An American Christian has a different vocabulary and a different habit for 11:00 on Sunday…
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How Do I Fight White Racism Myself?
I have friends who ask me “But what can I do as a white person to fight racism?” I will answer with a story and then a question. First, the story. I’m raised and discipled as a Christian, so my stories come from the life of Jesus. Seems there was this time that a rich young ruler came to Jesus to ask him how he (the rich guy) could be saved. Jesus asked him if he knew the laws and kept them, and of course the guy said “I’ve kept them from my youth.” You know, a righteous guy, and a really good candidate for conversion, and a definite plus…
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We Are Waiting for Your Leadership, Church Leaders
I go to a great church and have a great pastor (Hi, Monty in Uganda leading a mission!), but I have to say this about the many shepherds over us Christians: why are you not leading us out from our endemic racism? Why is the white church still near-purely white? Why after 400 years of American diversity do we still have such division and separation, such lack of understanding and compassion? It’s something that has been with us, and it haunts us and stains us; it limits us and destroys us. I’m just an ordinary Christian who tries to do the right thing and say the right things. I’m no…
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Christians, We’re Doing It Wrong (Again)
I read in the news today where a family in Oklahoma is being threatened with death for the crime of . . . protesting the distribution of religious materials in secular, state-run primary schools. Now, I’m a Christian. I’d like people to know that, and to know my Savior, and to know the God of the Universe. I will be more than happy to talk to you about that. But I am also a citizen of the secular United States, with its secular institutions, and its secular schools. No one religion can be permitted to represent the faith of all United States citizens. No one religion can speak for all…
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When Black Lives Matter
Some people are telling me that if black people just obeyed the police they wouldn’t be harrassed, beaten, and arrested so much. Here are the stories police officers tell—of being harrassed, beaten, and arrested by their fellow officers—because they are black. The stories you are hearing, the protests you are seeing, are coming from somewhere: they are coming from the very real lives of people in America who are treated as suspects, as thugs, as criminals simply because they are black. When we say “#BlackLivesMatter” it is because it is a hope, not yet a reality. The way to fix the problem isn’t to tell the protesters to stop protesting.…
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Avoiding the Obvious
As Christians, we are to emulate the Lord. We are directly commanded by the Lord to assist the poor, the widow, the orphan, and those in prison. We are not told to interfere with people’s private lives (we’re directly told not to be busybodies). Millions of kids in the United States go to bed hungry every night. Millions of kids do not have a secure home to live in. We are a nation with the wealthiest Christians in history. These two things just are so jarring when positioned next to each other. Many American Christians spend their time making sure that women can’t control their bodies and gays can’t marry,…
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Cliven Bundy, Donald Sterling, and You
Talk to me like I’m stupid: So recently some very ignorant people have made some very ignorant, small-minded, and unkind statements about people they apparently know nothing about. For Cliven Bundy, it’s his remarks about “the Negro” who was happier picking cotton. For Donald Sterling, it’s his remarks about not wanting Black customers/fans. Now, I get it that people say these things all the time, and it’s not strictly unusual for these things to be said. What gets me—and this is where you need to help me—why is it that conservatives are sticking up for these people and defending these truly, astonishingly ignorant and hurtful things? I see people posting…
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The Closing of the American Heart
Recently there has been a move in America for Christians to demand the right to avoid serving people with whom they disagree theologically. The claim is made that by baking a cake, arranging flowers, or being a photographer at a wedding for a couple who is marrying outside the Christian tradition, the Christian is breaking his religion. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at such an attitude. First—the Christian is providing a service. A Christian electrical company cannot withhold providing electricity to those with whom they disagree theologically. Likewise a Christian police officer cannot refuse to help someone with whom they disagree. A Christian doctor, teacher, entrepreneur, shoe-shiner,…
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Christians, Gays, and Jesus
I wrote this in response to a great essay by a pastor I respect. He went through a hard time figuring out what he thought about gays and Christianity; as I thought about what he wrote (see here) [Ed: the post along with the site have since been erased] I responded with these words: The only sin I read about in Scriptures that is unforgivable is one: the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit of God, and I think it applies to the idea that the work of God cannot effect salvation. The only person in Scripture that I read about who could not be saved was one: a rich…
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Cookie Cutter
We step into a river, we believers, when we first decide to follow Jesus. The river is the great flow of believers from all nations and all times, a river that started thousands of years ago and that continues today, with a vast congregation of people called by God and living in his name. We step into the river and there are so many who already are swimming, confident, powerful, assured of their journey, and it can be intimidating. So what we do is we copy what they’re doing. “Fake it ’til you make it” is a good motto, and it works. Along the way, though, sometimes we forget the…
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Awash in a Sea of Tears
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthian Believers, Chapter 10, lines 3-6 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (ESV) “The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human…
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A Poem for Advent
America 2012 Twenty children were shot Charlotte Bacon, 6and six adults in one of Daniel Barden, 7the greatest tragedies Olivia Engel, 6in American history. Josephine Gay, 7Unfortunately, it was Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6not the greatest tragedy, Dylan Hockley, 6for we have had mass Madeleine F. Hsu, 6shootings in Columbine Catherine V. Hubbard, 6and Virginia Tech and Chase Kowalski, 7Aurora and Portland and… Jesse Lewis, 6The list goes on and on, James Mattioli, 6and while we are sometimes Grace McDonnell, 7speechless and sometimes Emilie Parker, 6saddened, it is never enough Jack Pinto, 6to move us to take action. Noah Pozner, 6We think we are powerless Caroline Previdi, 6against guns,…
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Words and Actions
Indeed I tremble for my country when i reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep for ever
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Losing My Religion Pt 1
People lie. Societies crumble. Businesses fail. Political parties speak one thing but pursue an opposite agenda. These are our gods, and they are proved not to be so much lies as they are simply untrustworthy—literally not worthy of our trust. Not worthy of us.
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The Communion of the Saints
What kind of people participate in the communion of the saints?
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Beauty and Ashes
I do not know if you can admit you’ve lived through that time, where beauty has changed to ashes. Often there is no safe place to have that discussion because life demands that you act as if life holds only beauty. There are chores and tasks to take care of. There are family members to support. Life goes on like a train, and there is never a cord to pull to say “Stop!” Whether you speak out or not—life goes on.
