Most folks tell me they think of me as a laid back, fun-loving, peace freak. I’ve always thought that was a reasonable assessment. As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. You see, I’m the Bogeyman. I know — it shocked me too! According to an article on theweek.com, conservative Christians have a new Bogeyman – and it’s me! It gets worse: It’s probably you too. In her new book, evangelical author Chelsen Vicari speaks of one of... Read more
This is the fifth post in a series called: “This Collar Is Too Tight: Heresies From a Southern Minister.” You can read the first post here. The short explanation of this series is this: the institutionalized Church spends a lot of time defining who’s in and who’s out. Biblically, I find that a lot of the “measures” used don’t hold up. I’m making the argument for a larger acceptance of theological diversity in the Christian Church. “Are you serious?... Read more
“Love” is a notoriously difficult emotion to define. The word sounds so simple, yet defies a simple definition. We throw it around like a Frisbee. “I love you.” “I love my kids.” “I love my spouse.” “I love a good Cab Sauv.” “I love Sunday football.” You know what I really love? Vanilla ice cream with crunched-up Reese’s Cups in it! When trying to define love, the problem we run into is this: the love I have for my kids,... Read more
(A Prayer of Confession) Good and gracious God, Life itself is a struggle between peace and violence. In the wild violence gives life to some even as it takes it from others. In relationships violence shatters hopes, destroying both people in different ways. Inside ourselves violence wreaks havoc as we tear ourselves down in judgement, low self-esteem, self-doubt, and pity. Yet, in each of us, it would seem there is a seed of peace. It calls out not only to... Read more
I have this nasty habit of oversimplifying things. So, feel free to let the “it’s not that easy” and “you’re such a simpleton” arguments begin, but I truly do think that all of the problems of the Church can be attributed to one thing. You fix that one thing and you can save the Church from its continuing slide to irrelevance for increasingly larger portions of society. Possibly the most frightening and disappointing thing about this “one thing” is that... Read more
(A Prayer of Confession) Good and gracious God, Somehow, in the U.S, we’ve arrived at a place, where we focus on our differences rather than our similarities – which is curious since we have more in common than we have differences. We’ve arrived at a place, where we make feeding the homeless illegal and owning a gun a basic human need – which is curious considering both put people’s lives at risk. In the U.S., somehow, we’ve arrived at a... Read more
This is the fourth post in a series called: “This Collar Is Too Tight: Heresies From a Southern Minister.” You can read the first post here. The short explanation of this series is this: the institutionalized Church spends a lot of time defining who’s in and who’s out. Biblically, I find that a lot of the “measures” used don’t hold up. I’m making the argument for a larger acceptance of theological diversity in the Christian Church. Every Sunday of... Read more
Congratulations United States! We officially have one of the most dehumanizing minimum wages of the 26 richest countries in the world. Hurrah. To be fair the Czech Republic and Estonia are worse than we are, but, don’t worry, I can’t help but believe we will catch them soon. The bottom line of this chart is that in the U.S., our system does not pay those earning minimum wage “a living wage.” That means there are 3.5 million people in... Read more
Ready for a shocker? Jesus didn’t use Facebook. I know, right? Sure, God uses Facebook, but Jesus never used it. (Is it wrong that I love Facebook’s God more than I love the God some churches talk about?) Since he never used Facebook, it’s a little difficult to perfectly predict what Jesus would and wouldn’t have done, but most of the things on the list are pretty safe bets. Most of them are said a little tongue in cheek. Let... Read more
This is the third post in a series called: “This Collar Is Too Tight: Heresies From a Southern Minister.” You can read the first post here. The short explanation of this series is this: the institutionalized Church spends a lot of time defining who’s in and who’s out. Biblically, I find that a lot of the “measures” used don’t hold up. I’m making the argument for a larger acceptance of theological diversity in the Christian Church. Let me... Read more
The God Article with Mark Sandlin
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