Imagine centuries of faith undone by a telescope!
It bothered me that other people weren’t bothered.
Oh, if I had a penny for every time I’ve been informed by a evangelical male that I have trouble with submission, I could plate the moon in copper.
Inspiration is not about some disembodied ethereal voice dictating words or notes to a catatonic host. It’s a collaborative process, a holy give-and-take, a partnership between Creator and creator.
Yet rather than confessing our sins, and rather than dismantling the systems that perpetuate them, many Christians shrug it off as part of an irrelevant past or spin out religious-sounding rhetoric about peace and reconciliation without engaging in the hard work of repentance and restitution.
I’ve heard many recovering alcoholics say they’ve never found a church quite like Alcoholics Anonymous. They’ve never found a community of people so honest with one another about their pain, so united in their shared brokenness.
God is still breathing. The Bible is both inspired and inspiring. Our job is to ready the sails and gather the embers, to discuss and debate, and like the biblical character Jacob, to wrestle with the mystery until God gives us a blessing.
The good news is you are a beloved child of God; the bad news is you don’t get to choose your siblings.
But perhaps the most unsettling thing about a new church is the way the ghost of the old one haunts it. For better or worse, the faith of our youth informs our fears, our nostalgia, our reactions, and our suspicions.
Like a garish conch shell, my cynicism protected me from disappointment, or so I believed, so I expected the worst and smirked when I found it.
When God gave us the Bible, God did not give us an internally consistent book of answers. God gave us an inspired library of diverse writings, rooted in a variety of contexts, that have stood the test of time, precisely because, together, they avoid simplistic solutions to complex problems. It’s almost as though God trusts us to approach them with wisdom, to use discernment as we read and interpret, and to remain open to other points of view.
This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another.
Philip got out of God’s way. He remembered that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.
Faith’s not about finding the right bush. It’s about taking off your shoes.
I’m afraid that just as wealth and privilege can be a stumbling block on the path to the gospel, theological expertise and piety can also get in the way of the kingdom. Like wealth, these are not inherently bad things. However, they are easily idolized. The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God himself will break one.
It’s the oldest religious shortcut in the book: the easiest way to make oneself righteous is to make someone else a sinner.
Through touch, god gave us the power to injure or to heal, to wage war or to wash feet. Let us not forget the gravity of that.
As far as I’m concerned, the teachings of Jesus are far too radical to be embodied in a political platform or represented by a single candidate. It’s not up to some politician to represent my Christian values to the world; it’s up to me. That’s why I’m always a little perplexed when someone finds out that I’m not a Republican and asks, “How can you call yourself a Christian?
Something about communion triggers our memory and helps us see things as they really are. Something about communion opens our eyes to Jesus at the table.
So why do our churches feel more like country clubs than AA? Why do we mumble through rote confessions and then conjure plastic Barbie and Ken smiles as we turn to each other to pass the peace? What makes us exchange the regular pleasantries – “I’m fine. How are you?“ – while mingling beneath a cross upon which hangs a beaten, nearly naked man, suffering publicly on our behalf?