Is God’s sovereignty threatened by the regulation of guns or pollution?

Last updated on: December 3, 2015 at 11:20 pm By Morgan Guyton

“God isn’t fixing this,” says the front page of the New York Daily News about the latest mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. The paper shared the tweets of several prominent politicians who said they were “praying” for the victims of the tragedy. Before the shooting happened, the top piece of political news this week was the latest attempt to establish some kind of international agreement about pollution standards in Paris. Of course, any sort of agreement about pollution would... Read more

Can Christian theology promote terrorism?

Last updated on: November 28, 2015 at 7:26 pm By Morgan Guyton

We don’t know exactly what motivated the white terrorist who attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs this week, but this disturbing terrorist meme came through my facebook newsfeed this morning. It does a good job of pulling together several aspects of a toxic Christian theology that have promoted terrorism (YES, terrorism) over the past five hundred years of colonial violence that European Christendom has inflicted against millions of brown people throughout the world. White Christians and the recipients... Read more

I’m thankful for the “ungrateful” protesters

Last updated on: November 25, 2015 at 9:34 am By Morgan Guyton

The last time I heard my grandpa say the N-word was at a Thanksgiving dinner about 20 years ago. My sister got up and left the table. She refused to rejoin the family unless my grandpa promised never to say that word again. I remember thinking that she was being rude and melodramatic. Because you’re not supposed to make a scene at Thanksgiving dinner. You’re supposed to chuckle nervously and ignore the crazy, racist things your relatives say. Or in... Read more

Was Moses a terrorist?

Last updated on: November 23, 2015 at 8:38 pm By Morgan Guyton

Over the past week as terrorist attacks have happened in Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, Mali, and Nigeria, I’ve found myself haunted by a passage from the Bible. In Exodus 32, Moses has just come down from Mt. Sinai with his stone tablets of God’s law and he sees the Israelites worshiping a golden calf and running wild through the camp. So he calls the sons of Levi to him and he says, “Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout... Read more

Support Clothing Drive for Uganda’s Good Samaritan Initiative!!!

Last updated on: November 19, 2015 at 10:49 am By Morgan Guyton

Some of you will recall that I’ve used my platform to put out appeals in the past for the Ugandan Good Samaritan Initiative. They are a grassroots NGO devoted to supporting orphans and vulnerable children. Grassroots NGO’s in the Global South have a tremendous challenge finding supporters from the US because we tend to only trust and support top-down charity organizations based in the US like Compassion International or World Vision. GSI is partnered with a 501-C3 mission organization called... Read more

Five favorite quotes from Mandy Smith’s The Vulnerable Pastor

Last updated on: November 18, 2015 at 1:08 pm By Morgan Guyton

I first encountered Mandy Smith at the 2014 Ecclesia National Gathering where she preached an amazing sermon on the “double-edged sword” of God’s word in Hebrews 4. She pointed out that most of us see this sword as a weapon for us to use against our opponents when in fact it’s a scalpel that God uses to operate on our hearts. I originally blogged about her sermon here. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading through Mandy Smith’s... Read more

Resisting the Great Terrorist

Last updated on: November 14, 2015 at 9:23 am By Morgan Guyton

The word devil is a bastardization of the Greek word diabolos, which is a compound word combining the preposition dia (amidst, through) with the verb ballo (to throw). So diabolos captures the connotation of someone who throws something into the midst of human community and creates agitation and chaos. In other words, the devil is the great terrorist, the being or phenomenon that is behind every thought and deed that spreads hate, that sabotages human community. Whatever the motives of... Read more

An open letter to the white #Mizzou student who wrote the open letter to black student activists

Last updated on: November 12, 2015 at 11:59 pm By Morgan Guyton

Dear non-racist white college student from Missouri, I’m an anti-racist white campus minister who is very troubled by the things that are happening at your university. Since you disabled the comments on your blog, I’m not sure there’s a way to share this with you directly. But I’m writing it anyway to practice speaking about this topic with patience and compassion. Since I’m very passionate about fighting racism, I’m not always patient and compassionate with my fellow white people. I... Read more

The callousness of Erika Christakis’ #Yale intellectualism

Last updated on: November 12, 2015 at 4:30 pm By Morgan Guyton

In case you hadn’t heard, Yale is going through some drama. A group of administrators sent out an email before Halloween asking students to be racially sensitive in their costume choices. A professor named Erika Christakis took offense at this email and sent an email of her own bemoaning Yale’s political correctness. And now a group of students is demanding Christakis’ resignation. I don’t think Christakis should get fired. But I think her email exudes a level of callousness that... Read more

Starbucks’ brilliant exploitation of the war against the war against Christmas

Last updated on: November 9, 2015 at 11:11 am By Morgan Guyton

I hate Starbucks. It’s nothing personal. For my generation of anti-globalization activists at the turn of the millennium, Starbucks became the symbol of corporate globalization just like Nike. They are the Walmart of coffee. It should be oxymoronic to have a chain coffee shop, because coffee shops are supposed to be the one place left where local culture happens. Starbucks has a brilliant marketing campaign going on right now. By baiting a handful of far-right wing-nut Christians into attacking them... Read more