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.
Read MoreUpon 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.
Read MoreBecause, 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.
Read MoreConsequently, 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.
Read MoreJust 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.
Read MoreHow 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?
Read MoreBut 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.
Read MoreLook, 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.
Read MoreIf 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?
Read MoreI’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.
Read MorePeople 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.
Read MoreAnd 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.
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