I’m enough of a dis-establishmentarian to have been perhaps more ready than some for the emerging political climate we find ourselves in. I’m not at all pleased to be living in a nation with such a hawkish military. I tend to think we’ve allowed the plutocrats to divide the demos and order most of government and “the system” towards their benefit, padding the pockets of the rich.   So, as a pastor committed to not only raising a voice in... Read more

“The role of progressive clergy and nuns in creating sanctuaries and in demanding accountability from the new administration cannot be overestimated.” (Lisa Corrigan) I will resist white ethno-nationalist fascism with every thread in my body. And I’ll be damned if I watch Lutherans repeat their past. (Eric Worringer) There’s a lot of noise, and many conflicting voices, in this transition period between the election of a ethno-nationalist presidential candidate and his inauguration into a seat of power. Even if he... Read more

Bonhoeffer would be rolling over in his grave, if that were a thing. Here’s a recent quote by Eric Metaxas, a “biographer” of Bonhoeffer. The anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer also did things most Christians of his day were disgusted by. He most infamously joined a plot to kill the head of his government. He was horrified by it, but he did it nonetheless because he knew that to stay “morally pure” would allow the murder of millions to continue. Doing... Read more

“Secularity is helpfully analyzed in terms of an earlier national spatial scale and media culture that tended toward the homogenization of culture and the captivity of religious traditions in a denominational frame. Our current context inclines toward heterogenization. Far from suppressing particular identities, its disciplining forces elicit them, reducing complex traditions to identity fronts and discouraging complex engagement across difference and in place. The various appearances and mobilizations of religion described under the rubric of the ‘post-secular’ fit well within... Read more

Some books are more present than others. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press prints books, with an emphasis on the print. Belknap has printed Robert Orsi’s new book, History and Presence, in such a way that there is so much “there” there. For example, the endsheets are colored and ridged, offering a tactile experience as soon as the boards of the book are opened. Even prior to handling the book block, which is squared and carries a heft, the book... Read more

Walter Benjamin worked thirteen years on Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project), beginning in Paris in 1927 and still in progress when he fled the German Occupation in 1940. A friend, George Bataille, “hid the manuscript away in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France during the second world war and then retrieved and delivered it to New York at the end of 1947”!!! It is a work literally dug up and recovered from the rubble of war. Benjamin called this project “the... Read more

Everything that is revealed by the light is light. Therefore, it says, Wake up, sleeper! Get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. (Ephesians 5:14) I wonder if we find ourselves in a new moment for worker justice. Community organizing has taken on a new aspect. #Blacklivesmatter matters, and has changed how we think about social movements in America. In the meantime, other social movements wonder how to gather the same kind of energy and voice #blacklivesmatter... Read more

Scripture calls us to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). The news of the world, and even events in our individual lives, re-orient us towards prayer on a regular basis. The daily news has many if not most of us seeking for deeper and more effective ways to pray that bends the arc of the moral universe toward justice (Martin Luther King Jr). The disciples wanted to know how to pray. So they asked Jesus. “Lord, teach us to pray,... Read more

When we pray with others in languages not our own, we join–as it were–the celestial choir. I think this is the appeal for those returning to the Mass in Latin, or the Orthodox who worship in Old Church Slavonic. Sometimes we can hear God better when we listen on a level other than basic comprehension, because beyond rational understanding is the true communion of the saints. Today I spent the morning in prayer and praise with a Lutheran Vietnamese community... Read more

Yesterday Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson came to our church. He met with Canopy NWA, the refugee resettlement agency we have recently formed. His visit was an honor and a surprise. We were surprised he wanted to meet with the organization personally. We were honored that he took the time, and asked such great and open questions. It makes you a bit nervous to host the governor. We got pie (he liked the apple), and made sure all the wall-hangings were... Read more