Dear Gov Abbott, I am writing you as a Christian pastor, and calling out your inclusion of the phrase “illegal immigrant” in your tweet regarding the senseless murders of five innocent people in Cleveland, Texas. I would remind you how our common faith in Jesus Christ insists that “In Christ there is no Jew or […]
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 […]
This is different, isn’t it? We’ve been here before. We’ve been in church, the Sunday after some mass shooting…somewhere…and we’ve viscerally felt the horror and the shock. You’ve heard me preach on those Sundays. But this is so different. This is our home. Our city. Violence toward our police. In our downtown, where some of […]
Friends, This blog is a message to delegates to the upcoming United Methodist General Conference. If you are a delegate, I hope you’ll watch it. If you know a delegate, I hope you’ll forward it to them. The primary message is this: “Restructuring” or “Reframing” will not help solve the intractable conflict over LGBT issues […]
Donald Trump holds up various mirrors to American society. If you don’t understand this, you’ve probably misunderstood why he’s so popular. Trump’s outrageous political statements are a kind of Political Mirror for many Americans. Personally? I believe Trump does not share the core values of many of those who see their reflection in his Political […]
Originally posted on Ten Thousand Places: In Jesus’ time, the nation of Israel was under Roman rule. The Israelites were allowed to live there and practice their faith for the most part, but they had to pay taxes to Caesar and obey the Roman laws. To the Israelites, the Romans were evil and ungodly. They…
“Gethsemane” has always been my favorite song from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” In fact, I’d have to say it ranks as one of my top ten favorite all-time songs, period. Today is pretty much the day of the year to remember it. No better time than Maundy Thursday. I first encountered the song, and JCS, as […]
As I left yesterday’s interfaith gathering at Northaven, I was filled with joy, peace, and hope. Everything about it exceeded our expectations. There were double the number of folks that we assumed would come (around 420). There were wonderful surprises that even I didn’t know would happen (“This Land Is Your Land,” played on Middle […]
I burst into tears on the way home from my bike ride tonight. They were unexpected tears, to be sure. And they had nothing at all to do with the ride. In fact, the ride had been great. For the fifth time this December, I took a ride in some seriously cold weather. Twenty seven […]
To be a Christ-follower is to look foolish to the rest of the world. We tend to believe that this is a relatively modern thing. It is not. The earliest use of the name “Christian” was to derisively mock those who followed Jesus. And then, there’s this. This drawing is from a building in ancient […]
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