Lauren Winner Is in Prison

January 22, 2013 By 1 Comment

I’m guessing those cat eye glasses set off the metal detectors.

Lauren Winner has the semester off of teaching at Duke, but she’s teaching a seminary-level class in a women’s prison (so much for a sabbatical). Her experience in prison is changing the way that she read the Bible, as she writes in this week’s lectionary post at The Hardest Question:

Gospel Reading: Luke 4:14-21

For Sunday, January 27, 2013: Year C—Epiphany 3

I am writing this from the classroom of a women’s prison in central North Carolina. The classroom is in a trailer, kind of like the trailer in which you might have had overflow classes at your middle school.

I come here each week to teach a course on prayer. I never ask the students why they are in prison, but by now I know: some of them are here for killing abusive husbands or partners. Some are here for drug crime. Some are here for failing to intervene in a husband’s sexual abuse of their children. Some are only here for a year or two; others have been in the prison system for decades.

And here comes Jesus, quoting Isaiah, coming to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.

Read the rest: Visiting Prisons.

Filed Under: bible Tagged With: , 1 Comment

Why I Haven’t Given Up on the Bible

October 11, 2012 By 37 Comments

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel, by Rembrandt

When conversation on this blog turn to issues of sexuality, as it did this week with Brian McLaren’s View on Homosexuality, there are always some commenters who admit that their Christian faith has broken free of the Bible. For example, R. Jay comments,

I’m a Christian for whom the Bible is not my foundation, not my law code, not my ladder, not my pedestal. I love it dearly, but I don’t need it to know God, and I don’t need it to understand how to love my neighbor fully.

In the absence of the Bible, there is still God. And to know God does not require the Bible. Devotion to it has become the most insidious of all barriers.

Honestly, I understand how some people come to this conclusion. The Bible is a primitive book, coming out of a primitive time. Even the most staunch conservatives should be able to admit that. It is reflective of a different world than the world in which we live. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not applicable to our lives and our time, but that much hermeneutical work needs to be done to understand what it means for us today.

In Brian’s own evolution of how he understand human sexuality, he has not abandoned the Bible,

[Read more...]

Filed Under: bible Tagged With: , , , 37 Comments

Thinking About God’s Creation

May 16, 2012 By 29 Comments

Autumn Evening on Eagle Lake, by Courtney Perry

I’m thinking and reading a lot about creation right now, in preparation for year two of the Christian Spirituality Cohort that I have the great joy of leading for Fuller Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry Program. (Another time I’ll write about what a joy it is to be in community with these 10 students.) In year one, Lauren Winner and I led the class through the history and theology of Christian spirituality; next year, Craig Detweiler and I will be teaching about spirituality, film, and fiction.

This year, my co-teacher is Brian McLaren, and we’re taking the cohort into the far north woods of Minnesota, to canoe in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, outfitted by Boundary Waters Experience. Our subject matter will be Christian Spirituality and the Doctrine of Creation.

One of the things I like most about Fuller’s DMin program is the aggressive amount of reading required of the students: 4,500 pages per year. That’s a ton of reading, especially for people who are working full-time jobs in ministry. It takes an enormous amount of discipline, but I have yet to field a single complaint about the amount from a student.

Just to make you jealous, the required reading list is below. I’ve broken the books into three categories, with Moltmann’s creation theology serving as our ur-text. Every one of these books is worth your time.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Prayer, spirituality, theology Tagged With: , , , 29 Comments

Forty Days with STILL

February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

HarperOne has released a Lenten guide for reading Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, about which I blogged last week.

READING AND DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR STILL

In Still, you will find fifty-four meditations on what it looks like to arrive at a middle place in a spiritual journey and how to respond to a feeling of God’s absence. Forty Days with Still can be used in a general way, allowing you to press in closer with the readings, or it can be used specifically as a Lenten guide. If you choose the latter, over each of the forty days of Lent you will be guided to read one to three meditations and then reflect on the question(s) that correspond with that day’s reading. Let this guide deepen your understanding of who God is and how we communicate with God even in the moments when we can’t always feel God near.

FIND IT HERE: Still Reading and Discussion Guide | HarperOne’s Small Group Guides.

Filed Under: books Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment

Taking Ash Wednesday to the Streets

February 22, 2012 By 4 Comments

Today Lauren's thumb will be black with ash

Today is Lauren Winner’s first Ash Wednesday as an Episcopal priest, and she’ll be standing on a public street corner, imposing ashes on willing passersby. More interesting, however, than the fact that she’s doing this, is why she’s doing it.

This year, I will be joining many Episcopal priests in taking the public witness of Ash Wednesday one step further. On Wednesday, my colleague Catherine Caimano and I will put on cassocks and surplices, and go to a corner near Duke University Hospital with small containers of ashes and copies of a litany of repentance from the Book of Common Prayer. We will offer “the imposition of ashes” to people in the street.

READ THE REST: Religion News Service | Why Ash Wednesday belongs out of the church and out on the streets.

Filed Under: christianity in america Tagged With: , , 4 Comments

Lauren Winner on Doubt, Prayer, and the Eucharist [VIDEO]

February 14, 2012 By 18 Comments

In part two of my interview with Lauren Winner about her book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis,, we talk about faith, agnosticism, prayer, and why Lauren pursued became an Episcopal priest.

Filed Under: books, spirituality Tagged With: , , 18 Comments

Lauren Winner on Writing and Regrets [VIDEO]

February 13, 2012 By 1 Comment

In part one of my interview with Lauren Winner about her book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, we talk about writing, regrets, divorce, and what a memoir really is.

Part two coming tomorrow.

Filed Under: books, spirituality, writing Tagged With: , , 1 Comment

Lauren Winner’s Faith

February 10, 2012 By 8 Comments


All week, I’ll be posting about Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. I’m doing so because I think it’s an important book, and I hope that you all read it.

Maybe you guessed this is how my series would end. That even through divorce, loneliness, depression, and the occasional bourbon, Lauren has stayed faithful.

Well, that’s not exactly right. It’s not faith, exactly, that has grounded her during her mid-life tumult. It’s religion. She writes, [Read more...]

Filed Under: books Tagged With: 8 Comments

Lauren Winner’s Bourbon

February 9, 2012 By 11 Comments


All week, I’ll be posting about Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. I’m doing so because I think it’s an important book, and I hope that you all read it.

In spite of what I’ve already mentioned — divorce, loneliness, and antidepressants — there will be nothing more arresting to some readers than the way in which Lauren speaks of her use of alcohol.

It goes without saying that this is not a Zondervan-Thomas Nelson-Baker book. I’ve had friends told to excise their manuscripts of all mention of alcohol by each of those publishers, showing that consumption of alcohol is still a stigma in evangelical circles. However, this book would not have been published by one of those houses for any number of reasons.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: christianity in america Tagged With: 11 Comments

Lauren Winner’s Anxiety

February 8, 2012 By 1 Comment


All week, I’ll be posting about Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. I’m doing so because I think it’s an important book, and I hope that you all read it.

In the final months of my marriage, I went to my physician and told him that I was feeling foggy, that I couldn’t concentrate, and that I worried constantly. He prescribed me Wellbutrin for depression, and I took that medication for just shy of two years.

Lauren suffers from anxiety, about which she writes about hilariously. Really, her anxiety is horrible for her, but it’s a treat for her readers because of how she approaches it.

During her divorce, however, it was getting the better of her, so she went to see her doctor:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: books Tagged With: 1 Comment