I’ve lately received a few emails from people looking for tips on how to remain in a healthy emotional space whilst visiting with family over the holidays. So I thought I’d revisit the below, which I first published about this time last year. It’s a way of looking at each of the Beatitudes delivered by Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount, and finding there wisdom anyone can use to make visiting their family over the holidays something they... Read more
“This morning I would like to suggest to you that our gospel reading is one of the hardest texts for us to understand. Not just because of the subtleties of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate, or even because Jesus raises that universal issue of truth to which Pilate will right after our reading ask Jesus, ‘What is truth?’ No, this reading is hard because as 21st century Americans, we have no experience of someone being our king.” (more…) Read more
Hello, friends! So today I’m going to be the sole guest on The Practical Christian, the hour-long radio show hosted by Reverend Guy Lynch, of Unity Church of Las Vegas. The show will air live at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 Central, 7 Mountain, and 6 Pacific. (So ignore what you see on the show’s website, about it airing from 4 to 5 p.m.) If you’ve ever had the pleasure experience of hearing me on the radio, you know how completely awesome... Read more
El motivo que los cristianos conservadores invariablemente dan para sostener que la homosexualidad es un pecado egregio contra Dios es que la Biblia dice que lo es. “Dios lo dijo; yo lo creo”, es el credo del cristiano conservador. Y es comprensible. Es muy fácil criticar a los cristianos conservadores por tomar la Biblia de una forma muy literal – pero creer palabras es, después de todo, lo que todos hacemos de buen grado. Especialmente si pensamos que esas palabras... Read more
[Publiqué esto en mi blog el 20 de Septiembre de 2011. Acompañando al artículo había una fotografía de Jamey Rodemeyer. En la fotografía, al lado de la cara de Jamey, escribí: “¿Crees que ser gay es un pecado? Entonces parte de la sangre de Jamey Rodemeyer está en tus manos.”] Jamey Rodemeyer es un chico de 14 años de Buffalo, Nueva York, que esta semana, tras años de ser acosado por ser gay, se suicidó. Si eres un cristiano que... Read more
Dear Society to Which You, We, She and He All Belong: So we rocked it, right? Dang diggitty we did. And are. And will, still. The beat don’ stop until the break of dawn. And it’s always dawn somewhere. We know some people out there find us raggedy, unkempt, and perhaps congenitally disorganized. And by nature we surely are highly suspicious of organization. Chaos, we get; chaos we like. We understand that from the joyous, raucous frenzy of the subatomically... Read more
Here’s a letter I recently received: Dear John, I spent sixteen years as a fundamental evangelical Christian, trying to get God to fix me. I studied theology and Biblical counseling for three years in the hopes of discovering what I was doing wrong that was keeping God from answering my prayers to make me straight. I struggled with the guilt of same-sex attraction every day, and had no way of turning it off. I was so despondent over my situation... Read more
Late this past Thursday night I got in this email: John, I have the most amazing friend I can ever ask for. He is an 18-year-old, gay Christian. He first came out to me in early June. Later that month his parents found out he was sneaking around with a guy, so they took him out of the world. He was not allowed to speak with anyone for several weeks. When he was returned to his life it was with... Read more
“A salesman, driving on a lonely country road one dark and rainy night, had a flat. He opened his car trunk—no lug wrench. The light from a farmhouse could be seen dimly up the road. He set out on foot through the driving rain. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench he could borrow, he thought.” (more…) Read more
Maybe I just have a weird translation of the Bible. Read more
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