by Aaron Maurice Saari On the day that my first piece for Patheos, Coming Out as Bi (polar), was published, I entered my first 24-hour period without a filled antipsychotic prescription. By the time it reached 72 hours, I was unable to take care of myself. Owed to miscommunication with the psychiatrist’s office, insurance snafus (that still plague me) and my local pharmacy not having the medication on hand, my levels dropped to a dangerous point. I found it difficult to walk. I... Read more
[Editor’s Note: This is the first is a series of posts we’ll be featuring by the Rev. Deborah Dean-Ware, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in May. She is blogging about her journey and has graciously agreed to share some posts with us at Patheos. This is the first post she wrote back in June.] It has been less than three weeks since I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and every once in a while I have to say those words out loud:... Read more
“Because that’s my job.” That was my father’s answer when I asked him why he served our family so excellently. Each week my father worked a different shift: 6am to 2pm; 10pm to 6am; 2pm to 10pm. He worked this soul-destroying schedule for more than thirty years. He gained employment in factories and the unskilled labor sector. Whatever shift he was scheduled to work, my father would interrupt his sleep and prepare a hot meal for our family using good... Read more
By Mark E. Gammon With the astounding pace of news over the last couple of weeks, it was easy to miss one small item. The United Church of Christ became the latest liberal Protestant denomination to endorse “boycotts and divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.” As David Palumbo-Liu recently reported at Salon.com, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made substantive inroads in the mainline American Protestant denominations, with resolutions either passed or under discussion by the... Read more
Millennials are more optimistic than they have any right to be. Does this signal hope for the dying church? Millennials are the “in” generation. Love us or hate us, every day stories scroll across my newsfeed filled with statistics and anecdotes aimed at dissecting our behavior and assigning it meaning. We are the generation leaving the institutional church at higher rates than any other. We are also, by all accounts, a generation that is economically screwed (to use the technical... Read more
This morning the rebel flag was removed from the Capitol grounds of South Carolina. The South Carolina House and Senate, by overwhelming majorities in both houses, voted to take it down this week, and Governor Haley signed the bill yesterday. I’m a Southerner. My father’s father’s father’s father was one Thomas Jefferson Talley LaMotte, who walked home to Columbia, South Carolina after fighting for the Confederacy in Virginia and North Carolina. Except for time overseas, I’ve lived in the South my whole... Read more
The Rev. Aaron Maurice Saari At my ordination service, a friend who is a biblical storyteller performed the story of the Gerasenes Demoniac as reported in Mark 5:1-20. To some it might have seemed an odd selection for an ordination, but my small claim to fame in academic circles is being an expert on both the historical Judas and biblical attitudes toward suicide. My book, The Many Deaths of Judas Iscariot: A Meditation on Suicide, records my experience of growing... Read more
By Rev. J. Dana Trent, MDiv While Christianity is American’s most popular religion (70% of people in the U.S. identify as such), pastors and scholars all let out a collective gasp at the latest findings from the Pew Forum Religious Landscape Study. According to Pew, 2015 might be the year of the religious “nones,” as those who do not identify or affiliate with any faith tradition are on the rise, while the number those who call themselves “Christian” is declining.... Read more
Summer is that time of year where some ministry begins to slow down (unless you are in youth ministry, then you laugh at the notion of “slow summers”) as we as the Church take our collective breath and prepare to gear up for the coming Fall season. This is also the time of year when evaluations of all different varieties seem to occur. During these “down” months, ministers are having their job performances critiqued by their current congregations, ministers who... Read more
By Dwight Lee Wolter. Recent events, including the massacre of nine people in a church Bible study, have inspired churches and other houses of faith to take a closer look at security issues. The Suffolk County (NY) police department, for example, provided a hastily convened “Security Training Workshop for Houses of Worship” with tips on “Protecting Your Religious and Communal Institutions” through “Security Best Practices.” Mosque, synagogue and church clergy and lay leaders were educated in “Operation Safeguard” sponsored... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In