Yesterday various media outlets broke the story that Josh Duggar, eldest son on the show 19 Kids And Counting, had sexually abused multiple girls. As I read the reports and emerging details, I realized how “typical” this situation was to what I have seen in real life in Christian circles: sexual abuse within a family is often handled as a private “family matter” or occasionally as a “church matter” even though sexual abuse is neither of these things- at least not singularly... Read more
The other day I had a post on Mike Huckabee v. Jesus, demonstrating the breakdown between American political/religious leaders, “in their own words.” Continuing what may need to be a series, here’s Franklin Graham vs. Jesus, “in their own words.” If there is to be any hope for American Christianity to one day reflect the person of Jesus we find in the New Testament, we will need to “test everything” taught by the religious leaders of our time, and only hold... Read more
Did you know that your Facebook behavior might be fueling a new kind of terrorism? For all of our talk of terrorism, we rarely talk about what actually causes terrorism other than canned one-liners that aren’t always accurate. I think most often the root causes are fear, misunderstanding, or responding to injustice unjustly– but I think that if you could distill it down to the most basic form, you’d find something that was rooted in fear. When fear takes our brains... Read more
Last week I wrote two posts on recovering from spiritual burnout and talked about some of my own struggles I had in this area recently. We covered both reasons why so many are feeling burned out right now, and also some things to take a break from in order to prevent burnout. However, the one really big point that needs to be hit in this discussion is the issue of prayer. Prayer is perhaps one of the most important spiritual practices in... Read more
In the context of discussing the issue of Christian Nonviolence (perhaps the most common issue I discuss here) a lot of objections come up– objections I appreciate, because I once had them myself when I was first discovering what Jesus actually taught. As we’ve journeyed together, I’ve found myself answering many of the same objections over the span of multiple different discussions. As a result, I decided to do a first ever video blog (something I hope to do more of)... Read more
I’ve previously written at great length on the Christian persecution complex here in the United States and how it’s both unattractive and offensive to Christians around the world who actually are persecuted for their faith. As Christians begin to lose the privilege they’ve previously held in society, many are engaging in a case of mistaken identity and viewing their loss of privilege– their process of becoming equal with everyone else– as persecution. Now it seems that the persecution complex is being taken... Read more
With political season kicking off again, so is the season where folks begin to use the term “Christian nation.” Some claim we were one, some claim we are one, and some say we need to become one. Yet, each time I hear that phrase I have an inner Princess Bride moment where I say to myself, “you keep using that word, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Because truth be told, if America actually were to become... Read more
“Socialist.” It’s the new word that’s been thrown around these last few years as a way of criticizing someone without actually talking about the issue at hand- typical with name calling. Not a week seems to go by without this word being used to describe me, and I would venture to guess that if you sit on the same side of the fence as I do, you too occasionally get accused of being a socialist. Or, maybe you’re one of the... Read more
Today is the National Day of Prayer and all across the country, churches will host events catered toward praying that God would bless our country. Unfortunately, I believe praying “God Bless America” is putting the cart before the horse; long before we have the audacity of asking for God’s blessing, we as a nation should enter into a chapter of humble repentance. Even after such a period of repentance, we would still be wise to refrain from petitions of blessing– and... Read more
Yesterday on the blog I wrote about how I had spent much of this winter suffering from spiritual and emotional burnout, and that I had a hunch I wasn’t alone. Judging from your comments and emails, it turns out my instinct was correct- a lot of Christians are feeling burned out these days. As part of my own process in sorting out how I got to such a dark place, and from the wonderful insight and advice from many of my peers,... Read more
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