I’ve been reading Debra Hirsch’s Redeeming Sex as part of the Patheos Book Club for May. It’s one of the better books I’ve read by someone with a traditionalist perspective on sexuality. One of my favorite quotes from the book looks at the contrast between Jesus’ holiness and the church’s moralism today. What was it about the holiness of Jesus that drew people to him like a magnet? Sinners of all sorts were drawn into his orbit… What is it... Read more
The latest buzz on the Christian internet is the Pew research report about Christianity’s decline in America. Mainline Christian denominations have imploded the most dramatically. I’m sure that many of my fellow Methodist pastors and bureaucrats are wringing their hands about these numbers. What’s the solution? More polished audiovisual resources for sermon series, more exotic VBS packages, church basketball leagues? Or what if we went a completely different route? What if churches actually felt holy when you walked into them? What... Read more
I am a social justice warrior. I mean that in the strictly pejorative sense of the term. Calling myself a warrior of any kind is utterly laughable. What I mean is that I interpose myself into other peoples’ struggles as an ally with a mixture of good and bad motives. I don’t think “social justice warrior” as a term applies to people who are directly fighting their own oppression. It’s a legitimate and important critique of privileged people like me... Read more
Christians behave badly on social media. We’re rude. We’re arrogant. We gossip. We spread rumors. We’re not nice like Jesus would be. Or would Jesus be nice? Based on how Jesus acted in the Bible, how would he behave if he were on social media today? 1) He would be both kind and rude but never nice Jesus was never nice to people, at least not in the southern genteel way that I was taught to be nice. He didn’t practice... Read more
This is my mom with my eldest son a few Christmases ago. She’s an excellent grandma and an excellent mother. More than any other human being, she is the one who is responsible for the fact that I made it. She’s the reason I have a tangible account of what grace means. My mother does not always approve of what I do, but she’s always been on my side. She had high expectations for me and there were consequences when... Read more
The other week, a friend playfully tweeted out a warning not to mess around with “gateway heresies” since they lead to bigger heresies. I got to thinking about this and I realized that the core evangelical doctrine of justification by faith is precisely the reason why I’m not afraid to breach the walls of evangelical “orthodoxy.” So I guess that means justification by faith was my gateway heresy. What does justification by faith mean? In evangelical youth group, we learned that... Read more
I’ve been reading Elaine Heath and Larry Duggins’ book Missional. Monastic. Mainline. for a New Orleans clergy discussion group we’ve pulled together this May. Today I came across a quote that I wanted to ponder. Heath writes, “There are many definitions of wisdom but one of the best understandings I have received is that wisdom is knowledge gained through suffering… The wisest people I’ve ever known are those who have suffered the most and whose ministry is with those who... Read more
The Christian blogosphere has been talking a lot about narcissism lately, particularly in the context of an emergent Christian writer’s failed marriage. Last week, this writer’s ex-wife shared her side of the story in a blog post. For me, it was very troubling to read for one particularly dark reason. It made me wonder how much my writing career has poisoned my soul and made me into a narcissist. I don’t say it that way to avoid responsibility for myself. I’m... Read more
“But let justice roll down like waters; and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24 is a verse that gets thrown around a lot in times of protest like the most recent unrest in Baltimore. Taken by itself, this verse is pretty innocuous. Who’s opposed to the idea of justice and righteousness? But it becomes a very different message when we read it in context, starting with verse 21: I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight... Read more
There’s something about shattered glass. It crosses a line for middle-class white people like me. Because it’s visceral. It means that order has been disrupted. The integrity of a building has been violated. Boundary lines have been transgressed. Rain will get inside. People can reach in and grab things if they want to. An alarm will presumably be going off. Whoever owns the building will have to put up a tacky looking tarp until they have time to repair the... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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