I no longer practice in the field of nutrition. The farther I went with it, the more deeply I realized that the field is rife with Diet Culture and toxic beauty standards, as well as ableism and health-shaming.
Now, more than ever, is the time to express our faith forthrightly, publicly, and invitationally.
I, along with many other progressive Christian ministers I know, have grown increasingly cynical about our faith. We no longer feel that the faith that we’ve evolved to embrace has much of a bearing on our daily lives or an impact on the world.
I walked out of our church in ritual silence with the procession at twilight and was met—stunned—by the radiant face of the nearly full moon. I started to weep. Especially tired this particular Maundy Thursday, I was hit by the welling up of unprocessed emotion from a particularly hard year.
If Jesus was right when he said, in his inaugural address (as found in Luke 4), that the Spirit of God’s agenda is to help the oppressed, the weak, the broken-hearted, those with (in Thurman’s words) their backs against the wall, then no wonder many people are struggling with their religious identity.
In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1945 that the Western world was on the precipice of a new era, an era without religion. God, as the “answer” to unsolvable questions, was continually being put out of a job as science continually extended the boundaries of human knowledge.
Using the word “god” to conjure an all-powerful deity with biblically-proportioned prejudices and condemnations is dramatically different from using the word “god” to call us to a “no matter what” sort of love. I talk about this a lot. About ditching archaic language. About reading more than just the Bible or not reading the Bible at all.
Because I choose to remain within the church, I have to ask myself regularly “why do I believe what I believe?” and also “why do I stick around?” Why do I choose to stay put when the church has caused so much harm?
Parents and caregivers, you are on the frontlines of the revolution. You are raising humans that will perpetuate white supremacy, or be actively anti-racist. You are raising humans that can break down walls rather than build them. So stop thinking your praying has ended, or your activism decreased.
Many of us who grew up in fundamental spaces were taught to live in dualities: black and white, in and out, saved and unsaved. In those spaces, there isn’t liminality. There aren’t many safe spaces to ask really hard questions, to show anger toward injustice, or even to grieve when we need to grieve. We are taught to brush it off, smile, move on, trust God, and believe.