I lost a very dear friend the day after Christmas.
I look, out of habit, out of longing, out of love, really, but he is not there. It is as if his singular space – the very soft shape of kindness within my world – has been cut out.
“Good orthodoxy leads to good orthopraxy” is a common aphorism wielded among conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. It’s frequently worded in a more aggressive manner: “without proper orthodoxy, there can be no proper Christian discipleship.”
Few progressive Christians believe that God is something we can truly ever fully understand. Yet, in constantly choosing to anthropomorphize God, we provide ourselves with fertile mental ground for believing we are doing just that.
At the heart of the Christian faith is the central command of Jesus to love God by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. In other words, the precursor to effectively loving God and effectively loving others is to build a healthy rhythm of self-love.
The following is Part 2 of two columns drawn from an interview with Rachel Laser, President of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
The following is Part 1 of two columns drawn from an interview with Rachel Laser, President of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, December 1st, 2022. It has been edited for length and focus.
Advent is a season especially attuned to the Darkness, and it’s rhythms—not primarily the light. For the Darkness has a strange luminosity all its own, but our eyes must readjust.
African Americans are still disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic. And the epidemic is heavily concentrated in urban enclaves like Boston, Detroit, New York, Newark, Washington, D.C., and the Deep South.
For the last six weeks, my congregation in Norman, Oklahoma, has been reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s wonderful book, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others.
Thanksgiving 2022. There is much to be grateful for; and much to be concerned about.