Spirituality. Politics. Music. Life.
“If Jesus came back, and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.” — Woody Allen What am I supposed to do with the fact that, apparently, Robert Jeffress and Woody Allen agree with one another? Besides being men who —many believe— carry sexual secrets, what else do these two have […]
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I want to follow up on my prayer of a little earlier, and talk a bit about today. My prayer earlier was: Dear God, May everyone in our city be safe and may the day be violence free. Amen. #TrumpDallasRally For many of us in Dallas, given our history, we hold our breath any time […]
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In our Methodist tradition, we (wrongly) claim “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The research behind this story tells us: That does not appear to be true. We are lying to ourselves about what historical Biblical teaching actually said. Before we get into it, and for those who are confused….there’s an old […]
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Botham Jean’s brother, Brandt, offered a remarkable moment of forgiveness toward Amber Guyger today in the courtroom. But his Mother said deeply important things too. We must hear them both. Brandt offered forgiveness and an embrace to Amber Guyger. As DA John Creuzot said, almost nobody in the judicial system sees moments like that, ever. […]
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What if our opinions on the Amber Guyger trial comes down to a question of “who do you feel empathy toward?” It may not come down to this. This may be a foolish question to ask. But the question keeps popping up in my head this week, as I’ve listened to the testimony…and especially as […]
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The murder trial of Amber Guyger is underway here in Dallas. For those of you outside the city, or not paying attention, sufficed to say our city is tense and anxious about the trial and upcoming verdict. Last Monday, I was at a meeting of about 40 clergy with Faith Forward Dallas. There was extended […]
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As we crossed back to the US yesterday, I snapped this first pic of a sign placed by Border Patrol: “CPB Welcomes Your Comments.” We had just spent time listening to the stories of migrants camped out on the Mexican side. Cubans. Hondurans. Salvadorans and Guatemalans. All of them have been pushed back across our […]
Read MoreAs we cross the border today, I’m struck by the predominance of FEAR. Fear of “The Other” is fundamentally what drives the kind of policies we see now. We must understand the real dynamic of the past two years: 1. While our immigration laws have needed reform for decades, there was never any “invasion.” 2. […]
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Today, we cross the border to see the violence/damage that the “metering” policy has wrought. God calls us to love the neighbor as we love ourselves. To have one law for the migrant and the citizen. Instead, we created a new “metering” that is subjecting migrants, Mexicans, AND US CITIZENS to new and dangerous crime […]
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Survivor’s Guilt. Imposter Syndrome. Two words for relatively similar experiences that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized many people have. Including me. The older you get, you start to look right and left, and sometimes you see folks who used to be standing beside you…aren’t. Somehow, you’ve “made it through” some life-trial, or tragedy. Somehow, […]
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