Blog — Derek Penwell

My WLEX Interview about Governor Bevin's Criticism of A.G. Andy Beshear's Religion over Reproductive Rights

"If you're going to talk about somebody else's faith - that seems to me to be a higher standard that one ought to hold one[self] to and the governor has failed at that," said Pastor Derek Penwell.

Penwell openly supports women's reproductive rights, and tells LEX 18 that he is not Baptist, but as a Christian, he said he doesn't believe it is fair to judge Beshear's faith based on his political stance on abortion.

"It's one thing to say 'we disagree with the Attorney General on this issue.' It's an entirely different thing to say 'because he does not agree with us and this point of our theological understanding, he is therefore not one of us - he's not a Christian,'" said Penwell.

Christianity, Social JusticeDerek PenwellAugust 16, 2019Reproductive Rights, Gov. Bevin, Andy Beshear, Social JusticeComment

The Irony of White Evangelicals and Their Offense at Taking the Lord's Name in Vain

It is now possible in large sections of Christianity to feel oppressed by powerful satanic forces vying to rain down imagined persecution on a perpetually aggrieved faithful, while simultaneously offering servile obeisance to the powers and principalities who rain down actual persecution on people of color, feminists, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, refugees, children, and the impoverished. It is a damning indictment of Christianity that according to white evangelicals, one can now unashamedly serve Caesar … as long as Caesar covers himself with the thinnest patina of patriotic Jesus-y-ness, wearing the belt of anti-Christian conspiracy, the breastplate of anti-abortion politics, the shield of patriarchy, the helmet of barely disguised white nationalism, and the sword of anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

A Lack of Empathy: How White Evangelicals Have Failed Jesus

What’s especially infuriating about white evangelicals rolling over and showing their bellies to the Republican party’s clown car full of fascist-wannabes isn’t just the street magic soul-contortions they must fool themselves into believing they’re not performing, but their remarkable lack of empathy and compassion.

Christians Need to Stop Just Believing in Jesus and Start Living Like Him

But this investment in correct belief over faithful embodiment of Jesus’ teachings has begun to wear thin—at least among those people who’ve read the Gospels, but who fail to see Jesus’ most publicly pious followers as authentic examples of Jesus’ teachings.

Christianity, Social JusticeDerek PenwellJanuary 12, 2019Protestant Reformation, Faith, Works, Nones, Justice Comments

Seven Lessons I've Learned as a Pastor of a Congregation That "Gets It"

Upon celebrating my eleventh anniversary at the church I pastor, it seemed a good thing to set down some of the most important lessons I’ve learned by serving a congregation that “gets it.” Here are seven of them.

ChristianityDerek PenwellJanuary 2, 2019Pastor, DBCC, Pastoral LessonsComment

A Christmas Welcome: The Outlandish Jesus the Powerful Wanted to Kill

Because, you see, the baby who got the authorities worked into such a murderous lather is the same outlandish Jesus whom those same authorities eventually executed as a political revolutionary. The manger and the cross are linked as symbols of God’s cosmic upheaval of the present world and its systems of domination.

Social Justice, ChristianityDerek PenwellDecember 24, 2018subversive, Jesus, ChristmasComment

Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Others

Consequently, to imagine myself as Abraham—or Sarah or Lot, for that matter—is to forfeit an opportunity to be exposed to a different, harder truth that the text has to show someone who lives the kind of privileged life I do.

But while I haven’t ever had to pull up stakes and head into the unknown, I have lived in a place for which other people have left their own countries and the houses of their parents on nothing more than faith in a promise. I’ve lived my whole life in a land that has been the often inhospitable destination for people just like Abraham and his family.

Christianity, PoliticsDerek PenwellDecember 12, 2018Abraham, Immigration, Refugees, Literature, Cognitive EmpathyComment

Dear Evangelicals, I Don’t Think You Realize How You Sound to Everybody Else

Just saying, “I’m not an Islamaphobic, xenophobic, homo/transphobic, racist” isn’t convincing anyone but those who already agree with you—no matter how sincerely you believe it to be true. Your actions are the best argument for who you really are, what you really believe. Right now, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, there are a bunch of folks in the world who think you and the God you claim to serve hate them.

ChristianityDerek PenwellNovember 17, 2018evangelical christianityComment

The Unjust Judge and the Persistent Widow: The Curious Case of the Brett Kavanaugh Nomination

How is it that after all these years so many who claim to follow Jesus still find themselves propping up a system in which the vulnerable have to cry out to powerful, self-protecting men for a little justice?

Politics, ChristianityDerek PenwellSeptember 28, 2018Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford, Ethics, JesusComment

Remarks for the Families Belong Together Rally

But maybe what we need most right now is some nervous politicians, politicians scared of our outrage, afraid of what we’re capable of doing in the name of justice and love.

Advocacy, Christianity, PoliticsDerek PenwellJune 30, 2018ICE, Immigration, Family SeparationComment

Kentucky's Governor Might Be a Christian, but I Don’t Think Much of His Christianity

Look, I don’t care how many Jesus fish you’ve got on the back of your car, or how many times you’ve sung Shine Jesus Shine, or how stirringly you can talk about orphans in foreign countries, if you refuse to help the people you have it within your power to help, then the Jesus you’re so publicly selling doesn’t have anything to do with the one found hanging out with lepers, giving sight to the blind, and holding the hands of the untouchables in the Gospels.

What Kind of Human Being Are You?

If all you can manage to do is celebrate your good fortune without having any sense of compassion for those who fear for their lives, what kind of human being are you?

Christianity, PoliticsDerek PenwellApril 4, 2018Empathy, Compassion, Christianity, Donald Trump, PoliticsComment

The Jesus Gap

I’ve struggled for some time with the realization that when the church fails—as it often does—it fails most egregiously in giving people the resources necessary for the outrageously radical act of following Jesus.

Mainliners Survival Guide, ChristianityDerek PenwellMarch 21, 2018Jesus, emergence christianity, millennials, ChristianityComment

Not everybody can take the same things for granted

People like me can afford to go through life taking for granted that because we’ve never been harassed or profiled that maybe other people are just making it up in their heads when they say they have been. Because for one thing, we almost never understand other people’s motivations—and so we often project our own motivations onto others, supposing them to be about the same. And for another thing, if we’re wrong, and people actually are the target of racist, xenophobic, or sexist motivations, it doesn’t have much affect on us personally.

Christianity, PoliticsDerek PenwellDecember 22, 2017racism, xenophobia, sexism, white privilege, Empathy Comments

Dear White Evangelicals: An Intervention Letter

And the understandable reaction when you’ve been the cultural homecoming king and queen forever—but then start finding yourself repeatedly stuck at the “wrong” lunch table—is to feel like dark forces are conspiring against you. These dark forces get filed under the heading, “political correctness,” which is really just that state of affairs in which it’s no longer safe to disparage people you feel are undeserving of your respect.