When I was a young Baptist, going to high school in the late 1970s, “secular humanism” was the big thing for evangelicals to rage against and to fear. Long before Tim LaHaye struck it rich with his best-selling Left Behind novels about the Rapture, he
I believe that God is an old, African, Appalachian, Jewish, homosexual, paralyzed, poor, tired, woman. I believe she has great wide hands that have been ripped from picking cotton, filthy from mining coal, raw and cracked from harvesting the crop, rotten from searching in garbage
When I was eight years old, I remember a preacher standing in the pulpit pointing his finger at my mother, shaking his finger at her, and preaching that anyone who missed church to take care of the sick was going to hell. My Mother had
I’ve started and stopped writing this article maybe a hundred times. I have so many thoughts and feelings it was genuinely hard to organize them into a coherent account of the last 8 years. After making my decision to go ahead and begin looking for
There are times, Mary, when the world is dark and harsh and uninviting. But this is not news to you. You know all too well the language of anguish your gay and lesbian children speak when crying out against the hatred, fear, and religious discrimination
We should be happy that [Jesus] did not say, “Like your enemies.” It is almost impossible to like some people. (Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love) I was in third grade when I acquired my first enemy. Her name was Linda. She was a
I definitely believe that “loving our enemies” may, at times, be one of the most difficult things about living the Christian Way. And as a bisexual man whose ideal marriage consists of being committed to both a wife and male partner (openly and honestly) and
Standing before a crowd of people that hate you. Receiving strike after strike to your head, neck, back and face as people whip you, throw stones, and clenched fists, swinging violently. They hate you and want you dead! In their opinion you are guilty. But
What if the dying Christ had looked down upon the cross and raised His voice to His heavenly Father and proclaimed, “Father, do not forgive them for they have caused me great pain and suffering”? Would we still have the same image of Jesus? Would
As a young child, I can remember being taught that Jesus said to love your enemies. It seemed easier then to understand, because faith came a bit easier because you hadn’t been in the world for long and the world wasn’t much in you either.