Today, it is my honor to host the Rev. Dr. Ellin Jimmerson, the first Southern Baptist minister (and perhaps only) to perform a legal same-sex wedding. And in Alabama no less! Having grown up in the Huntsville metro area, I was thrilled to see her standing for justice and equality in my hometown. Unfortunately, the Southern Baptist Convention didn’t quite feel the same way … On February 9, I became the first Southern Baptist in the state of Alabama to... Read more
Dear White Christians, It’s February, and I know you’re probably very busy with your Lenten preparations. Especially if you work at a church like I do. Ash Wednesday is right around the corner. Dry, brittle palms from last year have to be collected and burned, returned to dust. Supplies for the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper must be purchased, to say nothing of the decorations and flyers that need to be put up around the parish hall. Organizing the liturgy, music,... Read more
Look, I get that nostalgia is big right now. We’ve got more 19th century beards, vinyl records, backyard gardens, and banjo music in the United States than at any other time in probably the past 50 years. It’s a throwback to those halcyon days of previous generations. But do you know what I’m not nostalgic for? Measles. Like not in the least. I’d be just fine without a new revival of one of the world’s most infectious diseases. Or any other disease, for that... Read more
Epiphany 5B — Mark 1:29-39 When the people most sought him, Jesus ran away. When the people finally got an inkling, a glimpse of who he was, Jesus disappeared. When people at last realized that there was something different about this teacher and healer, Jesus vanished, eager almost in his need to be absent and alone. Unwilling to be found, to be known, to be contained or owned. This, of course, isn’t the same Jesus we learn of in Sunday School, the Jesus who... Read more
Like many, I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Marcus Borg, a scholar of the New Testament, a brilliant writer, and a gentle, courageous Christian. Like many, I never knew him personally, but his work nevertheless had deep and formational effect on me as a Christian. As I remembered him in my prayers this morning, I decided to draw him as the divine he was. As a scholar of the New Testament, he holds a Bible, and the text... Read more
You might underestimate how large the Christian umbrella is. This simple sentence appeared in red ink in the margins of a reflection essay I had written for an interreligious dialogue course in graduate school. It changed my life. The professor, a kindly and soft-spoken Jesuit, had written it as the gentlest of rebukes to my conclusion in that paper that my growing heterodox beliefs and increasing doubts might mean I no longer fit underneath the sacred canopy of Christianity. At... Read more
It’s true. God doesn’t have anything to do with winning a football game. On Sunday, Russell Wilson, quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, became the latest professional athlete to draw the ire of progressive Christians for expressing gratitude to God for winning a football game. Look, I get that to imply God had something to do with a sporting victory implies that God favors winners, cares about the final score of American football, and many other dicey theological propositions is deeply problematic and naive.... Read more
Back in 2013, a judge blocked a mother’s name for a child on religious grounds. She wouldn’t allow the mother to name her child ‘Messiah,’ because the judge felt it was a name reserved only for Jesus. It was probably the oddest judicial ruling I’d ever heard. It was almost as if the judge believed that names themselves had some sort of special religious or spiritual power. I, for one, am thankful a name is just a name. Otherwise, every time I got angry, I’d turn into a massive green monster... Read more
When the Magi chose to deceive Herod, return home a different a way, and save the child Jesus, they unwittingly doomed countless children to slaughter and countless more parents to lives of eternal grief. Their choice may have saved the One but it killed scores. When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he flew into a fit of rage, and he ordered all children in and around Bethlehem to be slaughtered who were two years old or under, according... Read more
Follow #StayWokeAdvent contributions here and add yours, too! Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence — As when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes the water to boil — Isaiah 64:1-2a Advent 1B The fires of justice have been kindled in the brushwood of oppression and brutality. That fire boils the waters of justice and they roll down like an ever-flowing river into the streets. The streets... Read more
Edges of Faith
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