In 2001, my spiritual mentor Bob Holum gave me a book that completely changed everything for me: Rene Girard’s Things Hidden Since the Foundation of This World. I learned the sad news that Girard died this past week, so I wanted to reflect on how his ideas helped Jesus’ cross and the Christian gospel make a lot more sense to me. While Girard’s ideas come from a secular anthropological framework, I think they can be brought into conversation with the Bible... Read more
The word “Satan” in Hebrew means “the accuser.” When we stir up drama against other people by making false accusations against them, we are doing the work of Satan. There are zero documented cases of a transgender person using their gender identity as a means of sexually assaulting another person in a bathroom. There are many documented cases of transgender people being bullied, assaulted, and murdered in bathrooms and other places because of their gender identity, which is why the... Read more
So it’s that time of year known as Reformation Sunday when we remember the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral on October 31, 1517. Most people who are fans of the original Reformation are not fans of the idea that we are going through a reformation today. Because John Calvin got Christianity perfectly right, and if you have any questions about it, you can get them clarified by Hermann Bavinck or... Read more
My son Isaiah and I have developed a tradition. Each Saturday after he plays soccer at the Fly along the Mississippi River, on the way back, we stop by Audubon Park’s prayer labyrinth. Isaiah has tended to understand the labyrinth like a maze: it’s a race to see who can get to the end first without stepping over any lines. But today when we got to the labyrinth, an older woman had arrived just before us. And she was walking... Read more
Obedience and authority. The two favorite words of white conservative evangelical Christianity. They are at the center of the cultural crisis on display in our almost daily incidents of racialized police brutality. Who really has authority? Is it the cop who body-slammed a high school girl in Columbia, S.C. this week or the girl’s classmate who took the cellphone video that held the cop accountable? Is authority derived in the threat of physical violence or in the outrage of witnessing... Read more
One of the most important struggles of my spiritual journey has been the way that mental illness — my own and other peoples’ — has completely confounded my conception of morality. I often wonder if what allows some people to view the world with perfect moral clarity is that they have never faced the terrifying helplessness of not being able to trust their own minds. My understanding of the Christian gospel was shaped decisively by my experience of being built... Read more
Progressive Christians aren’t supposed to like the Boy Scouts, especially not the Scouts’ religious program “God and Country.” When we see those two words together, it evokes the dangerous idolatry of Christian nationalism. When the original Christians were asked to offer sacrifices to a statue of the Roman emperor, they refused and were put to death. I wonder what they would think about putting their hands over their hearts and pledging allegiance to a flag. We may say... Read more
I wonder how many other men out there feel as unmanly as I do. Every time I’m at a kid’s soccer game or a Cub Scout campout, I find myself surrounded by a bunch of guys in Oakleys who are bigger, stronger, and more confident than I am. I’d like to think that some of them have the same insecurities when they’re around other men. I wonder how many men would be liberated and healed if we got together... Read more
In the aftermath of the latest tragic school shooting in Oregon, the Internet is pulsating with a war of memes between the two sides of the gun debate. One of the ways that pro-gun Christians have claimed the higher spiritual ground is to say, “We don’t have a gun problem in our culture; we have a heart problem.” It seems more accurate to say our culture has a heart problem with guns. As a pastor, I don’t feel very qualified... Read more
Nothing makes Jesus facepalm more than the stupid oversimplifications of our culture war. Apparently, some culture warriors scored an audience for Kim Davis with Pope Francis. And the Internet has exploded. Because when you meet with somebody, it means that you endorse everything they have ever said and done. The fact that Pope Francis didn’t cancel his White House visit when he learned that the gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson was going to be there made it look like the... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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