By Shane Claiborne. I own a Confederate flag. I grew up in East Tennessee, and the Confederate flag branded everything we looked at in our high school – even the cheerleaders had “butt-flags” that flapped over the back of their mini-skirts at football games. We were the Maryville High School “Rebels”. Growing up, the flag meant little more to me than school spirit, pep rallies, and Southern pride… until I left East Tennessee. I’ll never forget the moment things... Read more
By Danny Hall Last month, I joined some 130 Buddhist leaders, teachers and scholars representing over 60 major Buddhist schools and ethnicities in Washington D.C. for the first White House U.S. Buddhist Leaders Conference. Of particular interest to conference participants was the subject of climate change. The issue triggered questions for me about what a pan-Buddhist approach to climate change might look like and how the varying degrees of inner-orientation found within the diversity of Buddhist schools might mesh with the... Read more
By the Rev. Dwight Wolter There is a lot of angry blow-back against people who are responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.” It is unfortunate that “sides” seem to have been taken. My social media contacts, political inclination and religious affiliation predispose me to the “Black Lives Matter” voices; but I would respectfully like to offer a couple of insights to the “All Lives Matter” folk. I presided over the funeral of an Ecuadorian immigrant hate crime murder... Read more
One of my favorite and in my opinion vastly underrated movies of all time is the 2011 film, Priest. Not only is it a fun movie that involves motorcycles, explosions, and incredibly cheesy dialogue the movie also depicts a somewhat imaginable (minus the vampires) reality. It depicts a militarized city ruled by the Church where the goal above all else is to be protected from outside threats. As a pastor, there are plenty of images and lines from that film that... Read more
Rev. Clementa Pinckney and his parishioners attended a Wednesday night Bible study in a church, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white man could walk through the doors of their spiritual home and be welcomed with open arms. They did not turn this stranger away. They did not treat him with the same indignity so many black people in America have endured. The gunman, now suspected to be Dylann Storm Roof, sat next to... Read more
The evening began like any other Wednesday Bible study. Beloved parishioners and their pastor gathered to read scripture and pray together in church. Now they are dead. Nine black people, nine precious creations of God, nine cherished souls who were “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by their Creator — six black women and three black men — are dead. Nothing and no one can bring them back. These beloved ones attended Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston,... Read more
“When do we ever find such deep permission, to stop, to see that it is good, this world, this life, this day? Just as it is, without our effort or interference? When do we hear the call, when do we allow ourselves to surrender so completely to non-productive time, to be allowed to be stopped, to rest, to allow things to be as they are, and to marvel at the unattended miracle of it all? — Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath... Read more
By Ashleigh Joyner One woman couldn’t believe that a group of people who didn’t even know her would teach her English. They did and now her life has changed in so many ways. What happens when open hearts celebrate diversity and the value of all people? Rocio Martinez can tell you. Living in Nashville, Tennessee, she had no immigration status and was about to have her first child. She visited a church that offered a summer English as a second-language... Read more
“Call my Mama! Call my Mama at home. God!” — Dajerria Becton Dajerria Becton, a beautiful black girl with braids running down her back cried out for her Mama and God because she was helpless. An officer, Eric Casebolt, spoke at her and not to her. He grabbed Dajerria, threw her onto the concrete sidewalk before wrestling her to a nearby grass area. He shouted “On your face!” When her body lay flat on the turf, he placed his knee firmly... Read more
By Sophia Agtarap When church was just a habit without meaning, Matt Hooper walked away. Which meant he would have to fall in love all over again. Church means different things to different people. For some, it’s a community of people who gather on a Sunday morning. For others, it’s an irrelevant place. For Matt Hooper, it’s been a little of both. Matt is one of those guys who was raised in The United Methodist Church. The son of a... Read more
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