In recent weeks two men with obscene levels of wealth stroked their overly developed egos as they became the first private citizens to fund a trip to "space." It seemingly did not matter to Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos that what they were doing was an utterly pointless vanity project, or that NASA has been …
Tag: Dillon Naber Cruz
From repudiation to reconciliation
The voters in the United States have spoken and Donald Trump has mercifully been made a lame-duck president. He will go down in history as a complete failure as president, by virtue of only winning one term in office and being rightfully impeached during that term. By his own standard, he claimed that winning 306 …
This isn’t about me.
I have a favorite spot that I like to go to decompress here in Lancaster, PA where I live called The Fridge. It's a local craft beer and pizza restaurant that has long been my go to place to relax, enjoy some great food, and an amazing selection of craft beers. The staff know me …
It’s the heretic of the week
Recently, I was invited to be the 'Heretic of the Week' on the delightful Heretic Happy Hour podcast as part of their series on the Sermon on the Mount. It was a perfect way to introduce people to the concept of permaculture being a way to live out the golden rule and inform our day-to-day …
Discussing Dr. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning
I recently read Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's landmark book Stamped from the Beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America and then sat down to discuss this truly important book with the host of Book Ish: The Canon Continues podcast (Book Ish ). Because this book is so well researched and covers the history …
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Mary started it: An Advent reflection
"Why are you making Jesus political?" "The social gospel proponents don't care about individual salvation, and that's what Jesus was all about." Interacting online is something that I do as a public theologian and I often see questions and statements like those above while perusing the internet. A major, if not THE major, theme of …
Once upon a time…An Advent reflection
Once upon a time... I was a bigot, brazenly proclaiming my bigotry towards God's beautiful and wholly beloved LGBTQIA rainbow children. Once upon a time... I was completely unaware of the racism I carried within me that sometimes came out of my mouth. Once upon a time... I had no concept of white privilege or …
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus: An Advent reflection
When it comes to perusing Biblical scripture, genealogies hardly make for scintillating reading, but that's what we tucked into last Sunday night at Ember Faith Community in Lancaster, PA. To the uninitiated, genealogies can come across as tedious lists of difficult to pronounce names that at first glance do not hold any real theological importance. …
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Bible 101: What the Bible isn’t. Part One
In an earlier post, I wrote about what the Bible actually is because many people are truly confused about the Bible. They think that it is a single coherent narrative with a consistent theological view point despite the fact that it is really a disparate collection of writings that show a great variety of views. …
Incremental changes
In permaculture design, one of the principles is to make the least change for the greatest effect. One of the reasons to do this is to ensure that one doesn't overdo something--like I did while trimming my beard the other day which left me with some designer stubble rather than a full beard...Another reason, in …
The Tattooed Theologian 