At Cross Purposes
Column by Rev. David M. Felten on January, 21 2021As one who’s had to endure a career in a denomination whose global trademark is a burning cross, it once again raised the question in my mind of how the cross, burning or otherwise, had become a symbol of hate and White Supremacy.
Doubt, Faith, and Why Breaking Up (with Authoritarianism) is Hard to Do
Column by Brian McLaren on January, 14 2021I grew up in a 6-day creation sector of Christianity. Evolution, we were taught, was a Satanic deception to make us lose our faith. It was a banana …
My Penny
Column by Toni Reynolds on January, 7 2021I feel a small bit like the woman who threw her last penny into the offering pot in the temple. This article is my penny, this column is the offering pot, the readership is the Temple. Because this is the most precious penny I have at the moment.
Where Do We Go from Here, Redux
Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on December, 31 2020The year 2020 has been a stressful one. With George Floyd’s death as an inflection point about race and racism in America, an unprecedented presidential election, and social unrest during an ongoing pandemic with a rising death toll, something is deeply broken in America’s body politic.
Just Looking at Christmas
Column by Rev. Jim Burklo on December, 24 2020Such is the looking at the figures in the crèche scene at the birth of Jesus. The crèche is a window into the eternal quality of the now, an icon of the divine point of view. It is the slack-jawed, timeless, aimless, free, worshipful Awe that is Love that is God.
Getting Beyond the Usual: Giving Birth to Jesus in the 2020s
Column by Rev. Lauren Van Ham on December, 17 2020There are 3 parts of Jesus’s birth story that we want to open here, like gifts. There are many parts of this story that, once unwrapped, hold great truth and importance including dreams, angels and what was going on for Joseph.
Except for God… freedom never kneels.
Column by Rev. Gretta Vosper on December, 10 2020It has been a burdensome year and it is likely to get worse before it is over.
Grateful & Communal Creatures: ZOOM & The Dynamic Reality Of Being Saved
Column by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. on December, 3 2020When you gaze up into the night sky, perhaps from the sateen darkness of Glacier National Park, or the cozy vestibule of your backyard, what do you see? Pin-wheeling galaxies? Endless expanse of interstellar space? Familiar special neighbors such as Orion or Ursa Major?
Ball of Confusion
Column by Rev. Roger Wolsey on November, 26 2020“Man [Humankind] can’t become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him of all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.”
A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part III
Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on November, 19 2020Too many whites argue that slavery is a thing of the past for which present day whites are not responsible. In the previous two essays, I tried to debunk that myth. It is the cause of so much pain today for black and white Americans.
Surrendering to the Will of Earth
Column by Jennifer Wilson on November, 12 2020The origins of the word surrender come from the French roots for “to give back,” and “over.” And that is exactly what surrender is. It is not laying down our arms, it is not choosing peace over justice, it is not breathing deeply and meditating our way out of our pain. True surrender speaks to our relationship with our common mother, the Earth. It means to give back to her, over and over again, above and beyond what we think we are capable of giving.
Eternal Totality: On a More Rational God
Column by Rev. Mark Sandlin on November, 5 2020Religion prefers a definable God. By definition, one of the purposes of religion is to draw us closer to God. The way religion has typically been practiced, this implies some degree of “knowing” God. To know God we must be able to define God. The problem is, in the act of defining God, we are limiting God.
The Astounding Accomplishments of Julian Norwich
Column by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox on October, 29 2020Most people, if they know anything about Julian of Norwich, know two things. First, that she said “all things will be well, every manner of thing will be well,” a testimony to hope or what Mirabai Starr calls “radical optimism” that arises near the end of her book Showings and ought not to be understood as “spiritual bypass” or denial of suffering. Second, people have heard that she talks about the “motherhood of God” quite often.
“Liminal Grief”
Column by Rev. Matthew Syrdal on October, 22 2020As the leaves turn color and fall into the ground, and the migratory patterns and bird songs slowly shapeshift into a dirge, as the sap sinks into its source, we might listen closely to our bodies and psyche. If we allow ourselves the space to pay attention we can feel the shift towards the liminal time of fall. Fall in-between the erotic vigor and embodiment of summer, and the pale, dormant latency of winter.
Racism – How Did We Get Here
Column by Rev. Dr. Velda Love on October, 15 2020The documentary Africa’s Great Civilizations is an in-depth study of the world’s first humans, the cradle of civilization, and the birthplace of the Christian religion. Episode one begins a journey through anthropological and scientific discoveries where viewers learn that Africa is the genetic home of all currently living humanity.
Jesus and the Void
Column by Dr. Carl Krieg on October, 8 2020We all are painfully aware that we in the US are living in a time of extreme violence and anxiety. What we may not know is that Jesus lived in such a time as well, and the parallels are quite striking.
Time to be Radical
Column by Rev. Deshna Charron Shine on October, 1 2020Often when we think of radicals today, we think of religious extremists or we associate a negative connotation with it. But the word radical actually means far-reaching fundamental transformation. And fundamental transformation is exactly what we need today, individually and collectively.
“Confronting Politicus Distractus”
Column by Rev. David M. Felten on September, 24 2020Recently, a half-dozen young people in our small town organized a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration. The march was seen by some as an intrusion of threatening other-worldly politics into our predominantly (99.8%) white town and riled up a lot of emotional responses on social media.
A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 2
Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on September, 17 2020When I write as a white man about calling for reparations, this is the source and origin of the damages for which we bear responsibility and for which we seek repair. The question I want to ask in this essay is this: how far removed from that source are we. Is it a distant relic of the past from which we are now utterly disconnected
When Everything Becomes Sacred
Column by Rev. Lauren Van Ham on September, 10 2020We could describe the pain we’re in right now as the colonial anesthesia wearing off. In epic fashion, events of the past many months have connected all the threads of the story: white supremacy and racism, detention centers and prisons, militarism and policing, the wealth of a few at the expense of essential workers, broken healthcare, hurricanes, derechos, and wildfires, and certainly others.
So… if we care, what do we say?
Column by Brian McLaren on September, 3 2020Recently, I received an email from a reader who asked, “Hi Brian. I would love to know your thoughts on speaking with close family members who are active or retired police officers during this time. I’m seeing so many black activists and white allies calling for the police force to be defunded and dismantled.
Can Imagination Save Us?
Column by Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft on August, 27 2020I’m thinking a lot about this moment. Under 70 days until the most important Presidential Election arguably of all time, close to six months into an unprecedented global pandemic, increasing racial uprisings, increasing inequalities, anxieties, looming questions, delayed and potent grief.
Humility: The Key To Our Salvation
Column by Rev. Brandan Robertson on August, 20 2020One of the most fundamental postures of any mature spirituality is that of humility, and yet on both the left and the right it seems that humility is always in short supply. Throughout human history we have craved to know the answers to the big questions that seem to endlessly loom above us: Why are we here? Who are we? Where are we going? Is there a purpose to any of this?
A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 1
Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on August, 13 2020Of all the things white allies were willing to activate for, through decades of civil rights movements, reparations were the one thing that even the most committed white leaders have avoided talking about, much less fully committing to.
The “Good Trouble” of John Lewis
Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on August, 6 2020John Lewis, the ‘conscience of Congress’, preached a lived theology and activism of “good trouble.” Good trouble was the work of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and it was an expression of Lewis’s faith. The immediacy of his “good trouble” was heard in his jeremiads, inviting all to action. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Lewis repeatedly said throughout his lifetime.