Around three years ago, I attended church for the first time in a many years. Prior to that I had rejected the fundamentalism of my youth and as a result ended up spiritually adrift for a long time. When I left the church in 2003, for more details see my forthcoming book from Wipf …
Category: Uncategorized
Law and order on the border?
Theological reflection on the caravan of asylum seekers.
Oppression in Jesus’ name
One of the things that gets me riled up is the conflation of things done in the name of a religion by fundamentalists with the actual teachings of said religion. Case in point, America in 2018 is being enthralled, in the most negative sense of that word, by fundamentalist "Christians" who are gleefully celebrating every …
Grace and forgiveness: A theological conundrum?
Jesus' teachings on forgiveness are well known. We are called to forgive, just as he did, even on the cross. That's a tough ask for most of us, because throughout our lives there are people who do things that sometimes wound us so profoundly. Those deeply inflicted wounds can come with long lasting consequences, such …
Continue reading Grace and forgiveness: A theological conundrum?
Today’s theological reflection
June 23, 2018 “The confusion of peace with security is a daily routine in our violent state of affairs. Judicial peace, school peace, marital peace – all degenerate into security under the influence of violent methods. The use of violence , expressed in force, extortion, and control, destroys the the end and increasingly replaces it …
Pride Month: A Christian reflection
In the early 1990s I was indoctrinated, the only other appropriate word would be brainwashed, into fearing and discriminating against those who were born homosexual. It was a time of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military and I was in the Marines. I was also a member of a Southern Baptist Church in Honolulu …
Thank you for your service
I grew up in a rural north Texas town after relocating there with my family from Kansas City, MO in the early 1980s. During my childhood and teens, I was exposed to evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity of the conservative Church of Christ variety along with the Southern Baptist Church variety. In 1990, after graduating from high …
Some issues are black and white
Jesus was nonviolent. If one reads the Gospel accounts and takes them seriously, the fact that Jesus was nonviolent is easy to ascertain. It's right there, in black and white (or sometimes red, with 'red letter editions'. Angry white men are all too often the perpetrators of mass shootings. Despite having killed 9 people, all …
Biblical inerrancy is a myth.
Copyright Dillon Naber Cruz I am now a post-fundamentalist Christian with an evolving view of scripture and a still developing Christology. As a child I went to Sunday School, mostly because my grandparents sent me, along with their youngest son Steven (who though my uncle is younger than me) and sometimes my little sister too, …
This Christianity thing is H-A-R-D
"I have decided to follow Jesus...no turning back, I'll follow him..." so goes a well known Christian hymn sung in churches around America. For many self-proclaimed Christians this following of Jesus amounts to what they believe about Jesus from a doctrinal stand point, such as that he is "God's only son," "was crucified and rose …
The Tattooed Theologian 