"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: religion
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 …
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 …
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. …
Strike!
Today all around the world people are striking for climate change because government's have been responding at a sloth like pace. A movement that began in large measure because of the persistence of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who has become the face of the movement, has grown exponentially. I wholeheartedly thank her for standing 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 …
Fourth of July reflections
Summer time and the living is easy...so goes the song lyric. When I was a kid in elementary school living in Kansas City, MO, summer time was a time when good memories got made. Some of those memories are related to the fourth of July celebrations, that in my youthful innocence and ignorance I took …
Bible 101: What is the Bible?
For many people the question posed by the title of this post will be easy to answer and may even cause them to feel perplexed as to why it's a question at all. Their answer would simply be, "It's the Word of God," or they might perhaps quip that it's humanity's Basic Instructions Before Leaving …
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 …
Christian persecution in America?
Vice President, and fundamentalist Christian, Mike Pence recently told the predominantly white graduates of Liberty University (a fundamentalist university run by Jerry Falwell, Jr. who is a vocal Trump supporter) that they should be prepared to be ridiculed and shunned for holding what he calls "traditional Christian beliefs." In his view the "voices for tolerance" …
The Tattooed Theologian 