A few days ago a friend of mine posted something online that revealed his hatred for Muslims. In response, I suggested that he should consider what Jesus said about learning to love our enemies. Not only did my friend not take that advice very well, he quickly accused me of being a “self-righteous Pharisee” and said that “Jesus opposed being a Pharisee.” Before I could respond he ended the conversation by un-friending me. Now, I could write a blog post about... Read more
Quite often when I talk about following Jesus into preemptive love or proactive agape, people will argue that nonviolence doesn’t work. But it does. Even in World War 2 – the one example brought up most often in discussions like this – the Nazi’s admitted after the war that they were totally unprepared for how to respond to nonviolent resistance. “B.H. Liddell-Hart, widely acknowledged as the foremost military writer of our times, discovered in his interrogation of Nazi generals after... Read more
The church bombings on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka were directly in retaliation for the Mosque shooting in New Zealand last month. Where does it end? This Us vs Them mentality starts out as simple tribalism, but very quickly escalates into violence, war and eventual annihilation. You disrespect me and I will disrespect you. You beat up one of my tribe, I attack three of yours. You kill one of mine, I kill five of yours. You kill ten... Read more
We, the Church, are the Body of Christ. We are the physical representation of Jesus in the world today. As the Body of Jesus, we seem to be much more comfortable in the dark of the tomb, wrapped in our own shroud, meditating on this death of our Lord, with the stone rolled shut across the door. We ignore that what we are called to do – as the living Body of Jesus – is to go out and proclaim,... Read more
I’ve started to notice that the wisdom of Jesus is a bigger part of our collective intelligence than I ever realized before. I often hear people who are not followers of Jesus quote Him in their conversations with one another. This made me wonder just how many of the phrases we commonly use are actually attributed to the words of Jesus. Here’s what I found: Going the extra mile – Mt 5:40-42 The truth will set you free –... Read more
You can’t really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve [who happen to be homeless]. You can’t really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or Jasmine [who happen to be Gay, Trans and Lesbian]. You can’t really love Muslims until you love Usha, or Ibrahim [who are Muslims]. You can’t really love any group of people as long as you only see them as an anonymous collective that sits behind a label.... Read more
For the last few years, our family would host an interactive and meditative Good Friday experience in our home. We’d spend the day setting up different stations around our house and invite our neighbors, our friends, our house church family and pretty much anyone who wanted to join us to participate. In the evening, just as the sun was going down, people would enter the house quietly and visit the various stations spread throughout our home in any order they... Read more
The signs are obvious. There’s not much time left for us to correct our course before it’s too late. Young people are leaving the faith in record numbers Political divisions have created a fractured and broken church community Evangelical churches are growing older and less relevant Most young people say that politics in the pulpit is driving them away from church And they’re not coming back. So, that’s why I’ve decided to do something. First, I’m teaching a 3 week... Read more
It started in September of 2017. Three authors who did not agree on everything theologically came together to agree on one thing: We can love and respect people even if we disagree. Since then, the three of us – that’s me, Jamal Jivanjee and Matthew Distefano – have recorded almost 50 episodes of the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast which have been downloaded over 100,00 times [to date]. We’ve had some amazing conversations with people like avowed atheist Bart Ehrman,... Read more
Do you suffer from BPS [Bible Psychosis Syndrome]? It’s more common than you might realize. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to diagnose the symptoms: *Do you find yourself easily confused by statements in the Bible that suggest that the Bible isn’t your authority? *Do you often use the phrase “But you wouldn’t know that if it wasn’t in the Bible!“, especially in response to statements from the Bible that point to Christ [but not to the Bible]?... Read more
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