I’ve often been struck by the fact that so many holidays around this time of year focus on light – the Christian seasons of Advent and Epiphany; Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights; and the Pagan celebration of Yule. The short days and long nights of this season seem to call forth some innate desire…
Category: Social Change
A New Reformation
With the exodus of many of its most conservative congregations, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has now fractured over the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusion, as did mainline Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches before them. The UMC fracture, however, occurred in reverse order: whereas conservative congregations departed the other denominations when they voted to ordain gays…
Balance
In a recent podcast interview, the host asked me how I nurture my own spirituality, and I answered that I do that by seeking balance. A few weeks later, my spiritual director suggested that I work on finding balance in my life, which has pushed and pulled me in many different directions this year. Many…
Rooted and Rising
In 2007, Paul Hawken published a book called Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. The book documents grassroots activism around the world, ranging from NGOs to billionaire philanthropists to local, individual efforts. The movement is enormous, but so widely dispersed that it…
Sex and the Bible
Issues of religion and sexuality are as potent as ever. The overturning of abortion rights, church division over LGBTQ rights, and the morality of sexual relations outside of marriage turn on questions of right and wrong, which for Christians are grounded in scripture. Yet no area requires that we contextualize biblical guidance more than sexuality…
Broken
Like most Americans, I was heartbroken over the mass shooting in Texas that killed innocent children at school. I was heartbroken to learn that the shooter was just 18 years old, the same age as the shooter who killed 10 black people at a grocery store in Buffalo just ten days earlier. But what breaks…
A National Epiphany
January 6 is the one-year anniversary of an armed assault on the U.S Capitol. It is also Epiphany in the Christian calendar. Meaning “revelation” or “manifestation,” Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, symbolized by the magi who came from the East to honor him. January 6, 2021, was a revelation as well,…
Why I Fly My Flag
On the 4th of July, I flew my American flag, as I do on most national holidays. But doing that as a white Christian could now label me with an ugly form of patriotism that believes that only those who share my racial and religious identity are true Americans. An African American wondered aloud to…
UMC Fracture
The last three posts have looked at the breakdown of society in this time of historic social change. They have focused on US politics, but I return now to The United Methodist Church (UMC), whose continued fracture over LGBTQ inclusion offers a perfect illustration of this moment of change. The UMC recently announced that its…
Dangers of Propaganda, Part 2: The Believers
In this second post about the role of propaganda in the recent election, we look at the millions of Trump supporters who believe his claims that the election was rigged. In trying to understand how a large swath of American voters could believe such a specious claim, we make the mistake of assuming there is…