Christians are often broadly painted with the same brush by people as a large homogeneous group. When I was immersed in the.fundamentalist's worldview, the term Christians meant the people who believed as I did that the Bible is inerrant, penal substitution was the heart of the gospel, and all nonbelievers were going to suffer eternal …
Tag: theology
For Mastriano theocracy is the point
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 …
Perverse obscenity
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 …
The Earth needs a Sabbath
Biblical scripture speaks to the beauty of our home planet, the need to take care of it, and I believe command to reverence it as well. The Orthodox Church in America notes that reverence is hard to define, saying that it can be seen in attitudes of wonder, awe, submission or respect, along with veneration, …
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 …
On Trump’s pandering and using God as a prop
During a recent trip to Ohio, the current occupant of the White House said that if Joe Biden were elected that Biden would, " "Take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God. "He's against God, he's against guns, he's against energy, our kind of energy."(1) From …
Continue reading On Trump’s pandering and using God as a prop
Recommended reading: Florer-Bixler’s Fire by Night
Melissa Florer-Bixler's book Fire by Night: Finding God in the pages of the Old Testament is a must read for Christians who struggle to make sense of or to find meaning in the Hebrew scriptures. Though her theological and Biblical interpretation skills are clearly evident, Florer-Bixler writes in a wonderfully accessible, narrative style that I …
Continue reading Recommended reading: Florer-Bixler’s Fire by Night
A Ruthian take down of purity culture?
Let's talk about sex.
Looking back and forward with eyes of grace.
It's that time of the year when we arbitrarily flip the calendar to a new year. This time we are also entering a new decade with what I hope is twenty-twenty vision - pun intended. As I look back on a decade fraught with emotionally eviscerating pain, I want to remind myself that there were …
Continue reading Looking back and forward with eyes of grace.
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 …
The Tattooed Theologian 