Being Christian Without Losing Your Mind
You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. — Psalm 139:13 Here’s a fun exercise to put mortality into perspective. Google, “What was the most popular car in the year I was born?” It turns out for me, in 1953, it was the Chevrolet (not …
Everyone is tempted by their own cravings…Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when sin grows up, it gives birth to death. — James 1:14-15 The phrase, “sowing wild oats,” dates back to the 1500’s. It refers to seeds that look like any other seeds that produce good crops. However, once wild …
The season for annual conferences in the United Methodist Church has drawn to a close. The main order of business this year was dealing with requests from churches wanting to disaffiliate. The latest tally is that approximately 6,000 left. As the conferences approved their disaffiliation, there was a sense that we should grieve their departure. …
Every so often you run across a quote that stops and makes you think, like this one from Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette: “Our faith, frail as it is sometimes, is also flexible. It is self-correcting as we have profound encounters with people who are different from us and are exposed to new experiences and ideas.” …
A quirky passage in Deuteronomy frames the breaking apart of the United Methodist Church quite nicely. Deuteronomy 15:1-6 presents a beautiful, idyllic vision for the Israelites. Personal debts would be forgiven/cancelled every seven years. If everyone honored such grace, Israel would find itself being a utopia: “Of course there won’t be any poor persons among …
“Go in through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road wide, so many people enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it.” – Matthew 7:13-14 In my Bible-belt-pious years as a young Christian, I knew exactly …
Actually, the problem is with the words, not the values. It arises when you use a phrase, understanding what you mean by it, but the reader or listener takes it another way. A conservative newspaper columnist recently wrote of her apprehension that liberals were pushing the LGBTQ agenda. She feared they were attacking the “biblical …
There are two defining virtues for a Christian: honesty and humility. Honesty: Christians have the courage to try and see themselves as they are, as objectively as possible. We search for blind spots, masked prejudices, self-justifications, and so forth. (Wasn’t that the point of Wesley’s small groups?) Humility: We admit we are hopelessly and unconsciously …
I’m intrigued by something Father Richard Rohr wrote in his The Wisdom Pattern: Order-Disorder-Reorder. “It seems to me we must begin conservatively—with clear boundaries, identity, and a sense of respect for our reality. Then, and only then, can we move out from that strong center, according to our education and experience.” (p. 61) The trick, …
I am relieved by the proposal recently hammered out by the inclusive, high-level mediating group dealing with the future of our denomination. If it ends up being presented at, and approved by, the 2020 General Conference in May, then the decades-old wrangling over gay ordination and same-sex marriage may finally come to an end. It …