By now almost everyone has heard the news that Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Education Ryan Walters is requiring that the Bible be taught in every public school from grades 5-12.
If progressive Christians pride themselves on radical truth-telling, then our time has come, and it will be dangerous. .. what will happen to those of us who have long-held unpopular and unorthodox religious beliefs?
I have spent my life working on the inside of organized religion, even though my love/hate relationship with most God-talkers makes me an outsider.
Just when you thought things could not get worse, the Southern Baptists have declared that not only can women not be pastors, or anyone in a “position of authority over men,” but that SBC churches already led by women should be purged from the denomination.
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.
Let’s be clear, this is an audacious idea. Writing a book about God is an audacious project. In fact, claiming to know anything about God is more than audacious—it is intellectual blasphemy. So, to begin, let me be clear. I have no idea what I am talking about.
Sometimes, as one goes about the normal duties of one’s professional life, a pattern of activity slowly becomes visible until one wonders why this had not been seen before. …