Last July, I attended a close relative’s wedding shower that had the misfortune of being held one day before Congress voted on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Not having had the clairvoyant luxury of knowing SJR 40 would get shot down in cloture, I was, understandably
It was 1994 and I was a seminarian serving as the Legislative Aide to the House of Bishops’ Committee on Constitution at the General Convention in Indianapolis. The chair of that committee was William Wantland – the then Bishop of Eau Claire – and he
It has the power to wound yet the capacity to heal. It has the power to kill but the authority to resurrect. It is the most powerful weapon used to tear down a child of God yet the most influential tool used to uplift him,
My Earliest Memory My earliest memory of Jesus in church was a shadowy yellow stained glass picture of Jesus in a dark hall in the Southside Baptist Church in Spartanburg, SC, that I attended with my parents when I was less than six years old.
I can tell you the exact moment that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean lost my vote. It was January 11, 2004 when an audience member at an Iowa primary forum asked Dean to stop “mean mouthing” President George W. Bush. According to news reports, Dale
When someone asks us, “Who is our neighbor?” we always feel we know what the right answer must be. Our neighbor is somebody absolutely obnoxious: the biggest jerk we can think of. Being neighborly to this character would be like taking castor oil. It’s a
Many people ask me at times, “What’s so difficult to YOU about being a Christian? You don’t subscribe to all of the dogmatic literalism, in fact, you’re too liberal for most liberal Christians. You don’t have all the little rules and formalities about liturgy and
It’s not that Jesus ever asked us to like people; rather he commanded us to love others. And there’s a world of difference between liking and loving. Any woman in a violent domestic situation may love the man who regularly beats her up, but she
In Luke 10, Jesus is asked by an expert in the law what he has to do to inherit eternal life and He replies by citing what is in the law and asks the expert how he reads it. The expert answers by repeating The
Liberation is not free. It’s just that simple. Liberation costs blood, sweat, tears, and even human life. Liberation combined with disobedience cost Moses and the children of Israel 40 years of wondering in the wilderness. Liberation cost Jesus Christ his life and over 1,900 years