There are memes on social media that hilariously depict how something started and how it’s going. There is not much pretty about how 2020 started and how it’s going. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope.
Read moreOur hard-hearted stance in the church
In a time when the American Church should have fallen to its knees in repentance before God, we chose to double down on our stiff-necked responses and tried to hold onto what little power that remained.
Evangelical reckoning
Staying silent does me no good.
It is long past time for white evangelicals to call out injustice, bigotry, violent rhetoric, disparaging language, racism, misogyny, abuse of power, and the idolatry of Christian nationalism in their own communities, even if doing so comes at a cost. The cost of not doing so is undeniable, and it is a cost largely born by others.
Atlanta, racism, misogyny, and evangelicals
Our long-running stubbornness to not stop and have some serious conversations is becoming so incredibly toxic… and exposed. As conservative American Christians we seriously need to stop and examine our lives. Instead, we make excuses, put up walls, and keep fortifying our crumbling positions.
Read moreRace, CRT, Nationalism, Evangelicalism, etc.
This is a longer podcast interview, but it is succinct in how my theology and life ethic has been forming. The easy dismissal by white evangelicals of Critical Race Theory, the lack of listening, the lack of critical thinking… all of it. Thabyite Anyabwile puts into concise language where my formation has taken me these past few years.
Give a listen HERE.
Our lack of discernment is killing us
It is all at once laughable, irritating, and enraging. It wasn’t a decade ago that someone could float crazy ideas and just basically have them laughed off. Not anymore. So, the laughable has become enraging. To even point this out used to be embarrassing for me to do… now it is necessary.
Read moreWhere am I found?
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:15-17)
This is the challenge I have in my life: where can I be found? Since moving from a place I lived for 20 years, I’ve had to rebuild those places and I can honestly say it’s hard on me.
Read moreMoving away from fundamentalism
As a reminder, it exists to the left and to the right, but as Dan White points out, that doesn’t advocate for “centrism,” either.
Year end thoughts
For the first time in years I have kept a paper calendar (more as a diary) consistently. I let it be a place I recorded what I did rather than things to do. So, I took a look back.
Read moreFacts and Truth
In light of our current crazy political environment I find this quote incredibly insightful:
“The effort to state an absolute fact is simply an attempt to achieve what is humanly impossible; all I can do is give you my interpretation of the facts.” — Ivy Lee, one of the first to practice the new field of public relations in the 1920s. (From These Truths, by Jill LePore, p. 412)
I hate to say it, but that guy got it right 100 years ago. It’s the environment in which we now exist.
