So what do we do with the Intersexed, those born with ambiguous genitalia? Shall we just call them God’s mistakes and be done with them? A black and white world is easier for all The world is ever so much easier to deal with when everything divides into two neat categories. This is good, that is bad. This is heaven, that is hell. This is day, that is night.This is right, this is wrong. This is a wave; that is a... Read more
The news hit early today: the Supreme Court struck down the law passed by the Texas Legislature that placed extreme restrictions on abortion access in Texas, particularly for poorer women in rural areas. The Supreme Court action, called the Whole Women’s Health Ruling, can be found here. I am relieved at the awareness shown by the justices of the unfairness of the laws. I grieve that we need abortion clinics and providers. But we do. In our unjust, deeply broken... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: New medical capabilities using something called “molecular scissors” that change human DNA bring hope to those with debilitating diseases, but also profound moral concerns, especially regarding designer babies for the rich. It opens the real possibility of ultimately creating another species, Human 2.0. We often hear the word hope applied to Christian hope and the afterlife, but increasingly people turn to medical science with prayer as an add-on, secondary to our own efforts to prolong this... Read more
I can’t stop seeing the parallels: 52% of voters in Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, surfacing the deep unrest about politics and economics and threatening the fragile union that holds Europe together financially. Trump/Sanders, one not a Republican but running on the Republican ticket, one not a Democrat, but refusing to cede that he is not the Democratic candidate for POTUS, have surfaced the political and economic discontent in the US, threatening the fragile union that is... Read more
The long-pursued Harriet speaks with Lord Peter, the man who loves her and now wonders if he has done good for her by finally convincing her to marry him. From this conversation comes my favorite passage of my favorite book: I’m only trying to tell you, in the nicest possible manner, that provided I were with you, I shouldn’t greatly mind being deaf, dumb, halt, blind and imbecile, afflicted with shingles and whooping-cough, in an open boat without clothes or... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: Can you tell me the background for Dan Patrick’s tweet? This verse comes from the New International Version (NIV) translation of the Greek Bible. The NIV is a male-centric interpretative translation so I am going to turn to the more accurately inclusive New Revised Standard Version where the verse reads: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.” Background material: The letter to the church at Galatia was probably the earliest... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: Why did Jesus die? I have always believed the very traditional story that I was born sinful and until I accepted Jesus as my saviour, God could not accept me, no matter how much he loved me. I was taught that Jesus death was a blood sacrifice which would wipe out all of my sin. My problem with this of late has been the jumping through hoops and changing goalposts of salvation. For example, some might say... Read more
By now, I would guess that most have heard about this privileged Stanford student who brutally raped a young woman and then was sentenced only to six months in jail. The young athlete’s father wrote to the judge to plead for a lenient sentence, saying essentially that his son’s 20 golden years should not be disrupted by the “twenty minutes of action.” Yes, that’s all the mention that the raped woman got in the father’s mind. Twenty minutes to destroy... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: On Sunday we talked about whether Jesus had a running itinerary going all the time while he was busy doing all his seemingly random acts of healing and good teachings. You know, whether his ultimate agenda was always in the back of his mind. I suggested it was like he was following a winding river branching off into tributaries as they came his way, then returning always to his predestined way. My question is did he always... Read more
This morning at General Conference, we saw a heated debate about providing much, much more money for theological education in Africa. The statement kept coming up about how fast the church is growing there. The call for far more funding for advanced theological studies there suggests that many African clergy may not have anywhere near the amount of theological education that is considered normal or necessary for pastors in the US. So, I tweeted: “Could it be that the African church is growing... Read more
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