I live in Lancaster County, PA, a bucolic area known for its landscapes dotted with farms, its large population of Anabaptists - the Amish, Mennonites, and Church of the Brethren - its welcome of refugees, and the small city of Lancaster at the heart of it all. For the aforementioned Anabaptist groups, their Christian faith …
Tag: nationalism
America or Jesus?
When I was a child and into my high school years, I was made to say the "Pledge of Allegiance." This nationalistic pledge is still said in some schools today despite the fact that it is quite dangerous for anyone to say for a variety of reasons, which I will highlight below. For Christians, it …
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 …
“I’m still here.” – A veteran’s story.
This morning I had therapy at the local V.A. clinic. When I went in to my appointment I had thought that this would be a fairly routine session. My plan was to ask my therapist some questions related to the book I am currently working on, which is entitled Traumatic Episodes: Finding grace in a life …
Veteran’s Day: A theological view
In my book Go Golden, I write about war and peace, because warfare is the polar opposite of enacting the golden rule. Yet, here in the U.S. (and in other powerful nations) the military is constantly front and center in society. One way in which militarism is perpetuated is the near deification of the military …
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 …
America first?
We are in the midst of yet another dark chapter in American history, which is replete with various crimes against humanity including genocide, murder, chattel slavery, warfare for profit, and being the only nation to ever drop nuclear weapons on another country-- the second bomb being a weapons test and not strategically "necessary". …
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 …
The Tattooed Theologian 