"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 …
Tag: Jesus
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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Help Wanted: No penis required
There is a prevalent idea among many Christians, spurious though it is, that women cannot serve in church leadership as ministers, or to teach men in any capacity such as in a seminary class. To do so these folks claim is to ignore Biblical authority. In their view, the world is a sinful place filled …
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 …
A Prayer for Donald Trump
Holy God I lift up Donald Trump, the currant occupant of the White House, in whose hands rest an enormous amount of power, and I pray Holy One, that you will with astonishing grace pierce through the hardness of his heart that has led him to behave in such reprehensible ways. Holy One, Trump's words …
Supporting Trump: A theological consideration
Can you be faithful to Jesus and support Trump? Read on...
A poem for Memorial Day
You've lived your life thinking that every war mattered Wars that we 'won' and that one where America got battered But not before we left verdant Vietnam all torn and tattered Now what will you do since that the illusion's been shattered Propagandists exposed, let's show them door Refuse to believe their phony …
Embracing diversity New Testament style
In my last post, I posited the argument that God loves diversity and based that statement on the obvious abundance of diversity found throughout the natural world. To me that abundance means we should not only accept people in the LGBTQIA community, we should recognize that they were born exactly as they were supposed to …
There’s something happening here: The sequel
If you close your eyes and think about church you may get a flood of images of steeples, pews, and a choir, or of clergy members in various types of garments that denote their office and role. Perhaps you will feel emotions, be they positive because your experience with church has been largely positive. Conversely, …
Continue reading There’s something happening here: The sequel
The Tattooed Theologian 