Four questions – about Trump, Evangelicals, self-deception and the Civil War
A true story from the past it seems important to tell. Four questions about the present it seems important to ask.
The great righteousness-justice divide
Ultimately, collectively, the church quenched the Spirit’s voice in order to embrace the society’s values. The church began to preach - and to try to live - a righteousness unencumbered with justice. But. God.
Checklists, idols and loving God
The preacher urged people to love the Lord with all their hearts. Yet, tragically, he himself did not know how to do it. He did not know what wholehearted devotion to God looks like. He could only offer a checklist.
Bucking the system: Shunning, submission and Jesus
When you earnestly seek to do what’s right, inside a system you do not recognize as broken, you’re asking to be blindsided. When you implicitly trust leaders who depend on the system for power, image and funds, you’re asking to be betrayed. Not seeing what you need to see, you won’t have a clue what’s going on.
Leah no more
How many women today can testify: The church culture, to which we have given ourselves, has used us and used us to make someone else look good, while profoundly rejecting our personhood, our adulthood, our worth, us.
Yes, Lord, I do
Even though I cannot live out any commitment perfectly, I can set my heart toward it and use my voice to affirm it. And that matters. A lot.
Sort of like frog gigging: How religion kills rest
Today where you live, religiosity slaughters Sabbath by the very way it tries to keep it. But when people desperate for rest leave the comfort of religious exhaustion and stumble toward God himself, Sabbath remains – and the Lord of Real Rest revives them.
Going with God
Choosing to go with God where my church culture had forbidden, I had no clue how much seeing and grieving lay ahead. And how very much love and life.
The Civil War, the South and the church
Abuse had begun to open my eyes to evils in my church culture. Then, God took me on a pilgrimage into the past, to show me what is happening now.
Bullying in the church
Mobbing, or adult bullying, is abuse. It's a form of psychological violence. It's agonizing to experience, and the agony multiplies when you have believed the abusers and their colluders to be godly Christians. Bullying thrives in systems where manipulation, coercion and control are accepted as the norm.
Spiritual schizophrenia and the two-headed snake
"How long will you try to go both ways?" Elijah cried. Where people identified with God cling to deep double-mindedness, they empower a two-headed snake.
And the future starts now
Even in suffering, even in exile, may you find growing within you: A life energetic and blazing with holiness, conceived by God himself. Life healed and whole. Laughter and singing. Genuine faith proved genuine. Living hope. One-anothering love. A future that starts now.