My post from last Friday continues to generate passionate responses from all sides. I’ve gotten positive and negative feedback, both publicly and privately. The most challenging and yet generous response has come from one of my closest friends, Sarah Cunningham. Sarah is a fellow author, blogger, and event producer — we’ve worked on stuff together in the past, and we’re currently planning two events together. Over the past few days, Sarah and I have talked at length on the phone,... Read more
I’ve gotten many emails about my call for schism over the role of women in the church, in addition to all of the public posts and tweets that you can see yourselves. Among the emails is this one, posted with permission, from Shirley Taylor. Shirley is the head of Baptist Women for Equality and the author of Dethroning Male Headship. She partners with the Center for Biblical Equality and blogs about these issues at bWe. Because there isn’t a Baptist church... Read more
Slavery was de facto and normative in the ancient world. Last week, Courtney and I saw the ruins of many colossal structures in Rome, each built by slaves of the Roman Empires. Some of those slaves were captured enemy soldiers, while others were merely born into the wrong caste. Few in the ancient world (or medieval world, for that matter) questioned the institution of slavery. It was the gasoline in the engines of civilization. Notoriously, the institution of slavery is... Read more
I don’t take this lightly. I very much take Jesus’ prayer for unity in the Fourth Gospel seriously. Our eschatological hope is that the church will be one, and that we will all be united in belief, practice, and love. But sometimes we need to separate. We need to say hard words to those who are not living the way that Jesus laid out for us. We need to divorce. The time has come for a schism regarding the issue... Read more
It wasn’t so much this: It was more of this: (more…) Read more
We’re in Assisi, home of St. Francis. Today Courtney and I hiked up the mountain outside of town to Francis’s hermitage. Built into the side of the mountain, it’s an amazing complex of cells and chapels and doorways I could barely squeeze through. I’m guessing that Francis was a small man — most Umbrians are. Like Mother Teresa, Francis was recognized as a very special and holy person during his own lifetime. Only two years after his death, he was... Read more
I first walked into Ibiz leather shop in 1989 as a college student, and I walked out with the nicest belt I’d ever owned. I walked back in yesterday, took the belt off my waist, and handed it to the daughter of the man who’d sold it to me years before. Her parents opened the shop on an alley in the ancient city in 1972. They still work there, as does she, these many years later. She cleaned my belt,... Read more
Yesterday morning, Courtney and I arrived in Rome for our honeymoon. By my count, this is my 13th trip to caput mundi. I first came to Rome in 1989 as a senior in college, and the trip changed my life. I came because my beloved professor, Edward Bradley, nearly shouted at me, “Dammit, man, you must come to Rome with me. We’ll walk in the footsteps of the saints!” (Read about it here (PDF).) I’ve come back many times since.... Read more
Here are just a few of the pics from yesterday, the day in which Rachel & Ratchet and Tony & Courtney got married, Jay Bakker witnessed, and Caroline Yang shot photos. Also, it was 23 degrees. (more…) Read more
When Courtney and I were married by Doug Pagitt at Solomon’s Porch in July, 2011, there were no legal documents signed. The State of Minnesota and Hennepin County were not invited to our wedding. Our parents, my kids, other family and friends all celebrated just as joyously as any other wedding (maybe even moreso), and no one asked when we were going to sign the legal contracts required by the state for our marriage to be sanctioned by the government.... Read more
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