Examining the Call of Women to Christian Leadership

August 24, 2015 By K. Mulhern

If we accept N.T. Wright’s description of the gospel in Simply Good News—as good news about something that has happened and something that’s going to happen which changes the in-between time we’re living in—then we have to accept a break in the continuum of ways things have always been done. Something has interrupted the “natural” course of events in such a dramatic manner that the systems—functional or dysfunctional—that we have relied on no longer reign supreme. Paul’s description of this... Read more

To Be Patient Is to Be Free

August 17, 2015 By K. Mulhern

For many who have come from a middle-class American Evangelical background with solid, godly roots, there is a certain rightness to life that cannot be denied. This rightness includes a mélange of middle-class American values and Evangelical values, and it’s pretty hard to slice them down the middle. They coinhere. Many of us are kind of stuck in puritan mode—the small-p, pinched-face sort, not the good kind. These values are fairly tidy and can lead to a fairly tidy life—if,... Read more

As the 2016 Election Cycle Begins, an Anti-Sneering Pledge

August 10, 2015 By K. Mulhern

As the 2016 election season launches in earnest, I’m still quivering a bit from the vitriol and animus of the 2012 Obama-Romney run. I’m still remembering that video of the little four-year-old sobbing because she was so very tired of Womney and Bronco Bamma. I’m dreading the television ads, the robocalls, and the endless mailings that get increasingly ridiculous through the season. At least in 2012 I had a bird, and those mailings made very nice, and appropriate, cage liners.... Read more

Jesus Loves Us Down to Our Toes: A Maundy Thursday Reflection

March 18, 2015 By K. Mulhern

In the Gospel of John, the focus on the Passover meal as described in the other gospels—including the dipping of bread and sharing of the cup—is replaced with a tender, yet stunningly disturbing, moment. Jesus stoops to a most humiliating task: washing the disciples’ feet (John 13.1-15). Now we have a foot-washing service at our church, but I can guarantee you that we all come having washed our feet. We stand barefoot in the aisle as we come forward to... Read more

How to Be a (Better) Protestant in Five Easy Steps

October 31, 2014 By K. Mulhern

Reformation Day doesn’t make me giddy, but it does afford me the opportunity to think again about this business of being Protestant. “I yam what I yam,” Popeye said. And so it is with me. By the grace of God. Most non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians really don’t identify as Protestants. They’re Baptists and Presbyterians, Reformed and Anglican and Methodist and Vineyard and Pentecostal. And if they’re not any of those, they’re non-denominational. Or they’re nothing because they don’t bother with church.... Read more

The Lovely, Lovely Thing (Friends of God 6)

September 15, 2014 By K. Mulhern

Some of our Friends of God shine like the sun, and their names are known even to an unbelieving world: Meister Eckhart, Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler, Jan Ruysbroeck. Some lie in forgotten corners of history like so many fallen autumn leaves blown into the shadows. Often, but not always, it’s the women who drift into anonymity. I’m happy to say, though, that that seems to be our problem more than it is one of the Friends of God, because... Read more

The Green Isle Community (Friends of God 5)

August 18, 2014 By K. Mulhern

The Friends of God were committed to community. While their associations with each other were indeed informal and unregulated, they recognized the value of mutual support and encouragement in their God-friendships. The Green Isle Community is one example of this. Today, Strasbourg in eastern France is known as the headquarters of the European Parliament, but it has centuries of fame behind it. Some of that fame is glorious—it was Johannes Gutenberg’s home when he created the single most influential piece... Read more

Honesty or Heroism? (Friends of God 4)

August 15, 2014 By K. Mulhern

When we think of the Middle Ages, and we try to imagine the ordeals people faced, it’s our modern tendency to look for heroes. We love heroes. Who in the 14th century was doing something about all that mess? That deep-seated desire to set things right—by the sword, mainly—must, in part, be behind movies like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Morgan Freeman was a hero! Or Braveheart – that world back then needed a good army full of William Wallaces.... Read more

The Atmosphere of God (Friends of God 3)

August 10, 2014 By K. Mulhern

Imagine running a large organization—a multinational organization—with thousands of employees, complicated networks of incomes and expenses, vast assets requiring ongoing upkeep and capital improvements, and a clientele that consists of nearly every single person in every country within your organization’s sphere. And imagine doing this without internet, fax, smartphone, or computer; without any travel conveniences whatsoever, unless you think a horse is handy. Throw in a handful of malevolent state officials who work hard at hobbling your power, draining your... Read more

Golgotha as Tabor (Friends of God 2)

April 18, 2014 By K. Mulhern

In light of today’s solemnities, and the desire to keep our eyes on the Christ, I’ll refrain from talking too much history and delving into the characteristics of the Friends of God. Instead, I cite one of them for you (in my own paraphrase). Here this Flemish mystic from the 14th century writes about the Transfiguration of Christ. He makes no overt connections to Good Friday or the Crucifixion. That is my doing. Mount Tabor and the Mount of the... Read more