Texans are ringing in the New Year by wearing their guns in public places, a newly enacted right they have awarded to themselves.  Last I knew, Texas was still Bible Belt country, but Jesus’ urging that we love our enemies and do good to those who spitefully use us seems not to be in vogue these days, and at least in Texas, is not a kind of human respect found in the law. Up north, New Yorker Donald Trump, front... Read more

 John’s Gospel opens with a paean to the unlimited beauty, eternal creativity, and breathtaking presence of Christ in this world. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. – John 1: 1-5 This central... Read more

It was less than two weeks before Christmas.  And in the most powerful country the world has ever known (these are not my words, they are the theme song of a number of presidential candidates), a debate raged on national television for two hours.  What kind of bombs should we drop on Syria?  Atomic, or non?  How many?  In cities or not?  And what about the wall on the southern border?  Who’s the best builder?  And who should pay?  And... Read more

Everywhere, the air is full of outcry: John thunders down words of destruction; the anvils of God are ringing as swords are beaten into plowshares; hills and valleys are being leveled, so prophets say; and even Mary speaks of the mighty being pulled down from their thrones. That has never happened quietly, not anywhere. Advent is a noisy time. Theologian Mary Luti describes Advent as  a ruckus, not a retreat. Among the cacophony of voices are some we need to... Read more

In those ancient days before ancestry.com, before DNA ancestor typing, before US census data, before the massive archiving of the Latter Day Saints, before Town Hall records, before Family Bibles with a Births and Deaths page, genealogical lists were the vital – and the sole – proof of who belonged to whom.  The Bible has a lot of genealogies, telling us where sons belonged to fathers, and to tribes andto the stories of Israel. In the Bible, genealogies were always... Read more

Last week baby news came at warp speed: Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook and a multi-billionaire, had a baby daughter, Max.  In honor of her birth he and his wife established a non-profit fund of 45 billion dollars, to advance human potential and promote equality. Two days later, San Bernardino shooters Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik intentionally orphaned their baby daughter, who is now in child protective custody without a penny to her unpublished name. All this,... Read more

It’s Advent, and the same old lies about Mary are slipping over pulpits and out of parish letters, Christmas cards, public prayers, TV holiday movies, and late night comics’ jokes. The subjugation of Mary, the maligning of her as meek, mild, and mindless, has been harmful to millions of women over many centuries. Hiding within the wonder of Christmas are a thousand years of doctrinal female subjugation, doctrines that, like tinsel, are dripped all over the season of Christmas. In... Read more

Here comes John the Baptist again. He’s as regular as swallows returning to Capistrano, as salmon swimming upstream to spawn. John steps up each Advent in the knick of time, announcing, always announcing, that all hell is breaking loose and God is in no mood to hand out free passes to anyone anymore. John says the axe (and he means God’s axe) is laid at the root of the tree (and he means Israel). He warns us how easily we... Read more

Advent is a borderland season, a Gateway between the warm, diffuse light of autumn harvests and the cold, intense lights that focus our eyes in winter’s dark. In Advent, shrinking days spread night before us like a mise-en-scene. And a few startling people, who embody different borderlands, step out and speak, each an intense light.  Bright as they are, and memorable, none is easy to understand. The world’s geo-political borderlands are spreading darkness before us as Advent enters in.  Upon... Read more

Darkness and deep shadows define the landscape of Advent,  falling over the human spirit. This is the beginning, every year, every year. Our ritual lights candles in the darkness, but we rush to look away from the darkness, losing sight of the element in which light shines. The story of faith is harsher than we enact it.  According to Luke, Jesus warns his friends that . . . People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon... Read more