Caryn Riswold wrote a moving article about Bruce Jenner’s interview last night with Dianne Sawyer. In the interview, Bruce states, “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman. People look at me differently. They see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything I do in life – it is part of me. That female side of me. That’s who I am.” Caryn’s article is titled “How Should People of Faith Respond to Bruce Jenner?”... Read more
What’s all that violence doing in the Bible? Does it make you uncomfortable? How are we supposed to teach these stories to children? I mean, the first family was marked by violence. Cain killed his brother Abel. How’s that for a dysfunctional family system? Just two chapters later, God floods the earth, killing everyone and everything on the planet except for one family and two of every animal…And somehow we’ve made that a cute children’s story? A boy named David... Read more
Monica Lewinsky and Jesus Christ had the same experience. Their shared experience could have defined their lives. It could have made them bitter. They could have sought revenge. But they didn’t. Instead, they invited us to change. They invited us to live into a better world. Monica Lewinski and the Place of Shame Monica and Jesus both occupied the place of shame. In 1998, Monica became a lightning rod for shame in American culture. In her recent TED talk, The... Read more
was delighted to be invited to an international discussion about creating more empathy between people of different religions. The panel consisted of a Christian (that was me!), an atheist, and three Muslims. (You can watch the video by scrolling down.) The producer of the panel was Edwin Rusch, who is the founding director for the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy. Edwin’s goal is to create “a worldwide culture of empathy and compassion.” Through articles and videos, the website... Read more
Whose side were you on in the scandal that erupted over Indiana Senate Bill 101, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act? When Gov. Pence signed the bill he insisted that all it did was prohibit state or local governments from “substantially burdening a person’s ability to exercise their religion”. Americans are all over freedom of religion, right, so what could be the problem? Well, claims and counter-claims of persecution went up on all sides as politicians scrambled to amend the law.... Read more
In the midst of my family’s Easter celebration yesterday, I decided to check Facebook. Most of my friends posted comments like “Happy Easter!” and shared pictures of their celebrations. But this meme also appeared on my feed: The meme is attributed to Richard Dawkins’ Foundation for Reason and Science and is meant to debunk Christianity and Easter as just another example of an ancient myth. The reasoning goes like this – Christianity has so much in common with other... Read more
Friedrich Nietzsche is a favorite whipping boy among Christians. It’s difficult to blame my fellow Christians for this. After all, Nietzsche is known for many provocative anti-Christian statements, but his most provocative statement might be that “God is dead.” And yet, in his latest book A God Torn to Pieces: The Nietzsche Case, philosopher Guiseppe Fornari makes a claim that is just as provocative: “In the end [Nietzsche] was much closer to Christ than many who would claim to be Christians.”... Read more
This post is in response to Michael Hardin’s 5-part series Thoughts on the Eucharist. Michael’s series is worth reading and rereading. In light of Maundy Thursday, Michael invited me to reflect on his thoughts. In addition, Rob Grayson wrote a beautiful response to Michael’s series, titled A Revolutionary Meal. I did it again. We were at the copy machine printing documents for an upcoming meeting. After our usual greetings, we got sucked into a conversation about a co-worker. “Can you... Read more
For a long time I thought I was too smart for the resurrection. My progressive UCC congregation made a comfortable home for my intellectual faith – I wasn’t letting anyone force me to leave my brain at the sanctuary door. If my head couldn’t come along for the ride, my faith wouldn’t go there. And so my rational, scientific brain did away with miracles of all kinds. They were too easy to explain as metaphors or written off to first... Read more
People feel passionately about religion. Atheists have accused it of being everything that’s morally wrong with humanity, while religious people claim that we can’t have morality without religion. Is religion good? Does it cause us to be better people? Or is it the cause of wars, destruction and violence? As a Christian theologian and pastor, I have passionate feelings about my religion. But you may be surprised why I feel so passionately about Christianity. Christianity is incredibly important because Christianity... Read more
Teaching Nonviolent Atonement
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In