Volume 14, Issue 2
Taming Our Tongues
Cover Stories
God’s Guide to Anger Management
By Rev. Candace Chellew
No matter how other people treat us — no matter how angry we may get over how people treat us or how political situations affect us or our world — we must continue to offer everyone we meet the bread of life. We must continue to imitate Christ — to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.
A Lifestyle of Taming the Tongue
By Rev. Sarah Flynn
I stress that we must speak from the still center of our lives rather than off the top of our heads when we are in situations where hard words are being uttered. This is more than just a political strategy for us, it has to be — a lifestyle!
I’m Rubber, You’re Glue
By Lori Heine
Sin is serious business. To be self-serving, or callously rude, in the discussion of what breaks God’s heart is blasphemy. Anyone who speaks to us in such a way has already sinned in so doing. We need do no more than smile at them as we shake the dust from our feet. Before God, their own words will convict them.
The Tongue Can Be a Two-Edged Sword
By Jim Johnson
The Devil is a powerful foe, and he also uses the spoken word, sometimes even that which is written in the Bible, to confuse, mislead, and denigrate people — to get between them and God as something like a roadblock, causing the individual to fall out of or never enter into fellowship with the Lord.
To Speak or To Be Silent
By Rev. Vera I. Bourne
I know that I am a child of the living God, and that there is a place prepared for me beyond death’s doorway. I have no need to waste words arguing with those who will not have their biased views challenged or changed.
Speak Your Peace
By John H. Campbell
With the thousands upon thousands of words that exist, we can select those which are based in love, and elect to attempt to shatter the cycle of fear and hurt with them when others might attempt to use words to hurt us.
Words Have Their Own Life
By Rev. Suzie Chamness
A word, once said, cannot be unsaid. Words can be used to inflict suffering; I compare cruel words to murder.
Sticks and Stones
By RK Reader
Loving those who hurt us is often a challenge — but it is the command with which we have been left.
A Very Small Rudder
By Karen E. Allen
When I was a kid if someone called you a name, the popular comeback at the time was, “What you say is what you are!” I didn’t even realize it at the time, but wow, what an accurate comeback.
Features
Will What the Professionals Say Finally Matter?
By Dr. Robert N. Minor
So, the APA reiterates professional standards again in the midst of regular misuse of “psychology” by antigay religious people to cover their religious prejudices. The debate really, then, is about the use of religion and religious arguments not anything psychologically wrong with LGBT people.
No Accommodation of Toxic Religion
By Rev. Dr. Jerry S. Maneker
Apparently, in its attempt to accommodate toxic religion, and even their client’s misunderstanding of God, faith, and sexuality, the APA affirms that it might be OK to suppress these primal needs in spite of the fact that any attempt to “change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.”
The Institution of Marriage
By Robert Hanchett
If modern-day Protestant fundamentalists knew anything about the theological foundations and history of their faith, they would be the last people mobilizing to defend the “sacred institution of heterosexual marriage” as if it were the central tenet of their beliefs.
The Place for Using and Abusing Children
By Dr. Robert N. Minor
Making schools safe for all children, such has LGBT kids, continues to be a struggle. What should be a no brainer — we want every child to be safe in our schools — finds the right-wing objecting to it because it might promote the mere tolerance of “homosexuality.”
Gay Saint of 9/11: Mychal Judge
By Rev. Kittredge Cherry
Father Mychal Judge, chaplain to New York City firefighters, responded quickly when Muslim extremists flew hijacked planes into the twin towers.
What We Can Learn from Exodus’ Alan Chambers
By Rev. Dr. Jerry S. Maneker
I have genuine compassion for the Alan Chambers’ of the world! And I have even greater compassion for all of God’s Gay children who have been cruelly victimized by the mind-set that would in any way bear false witness against them!
Lessons from Moses’ Father-in-Law
By Lincoln Rose
Much like Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, our lives have taught us a lot about things that the church is uncertain about or would rather not touch.
Madness
By James Wilson
To me, ‘mad’ has two different meanings. One is ‘angry’; the other is ‘insane.’ Both appropriate.
Letters to the Editor
From the Pulpit
From Small Things, Mama, Big Things One Day Come
By Rev. Candace Chellew
In the same way that God grows a small apple seed, or peach pit, into an entire orchard or grove of trees that produce even more fruit to feed the multitudes — so God can take our smallest gift of love, or time, or prayer, or generosity, and transform it into a gift that keeps on giving not just in our community, but in our state, our country, and around the world.
It’s Not About the Rules
By Rev. Ray Neal
Jesus is constantly calling into question the Holiness and Purity Codes and telling everyone that it isn’t the rules that are important, but how much they love God, and how much they demonstrate that love by loving others.
God’s Call
By Gary Simpson
God saves; we respond. God calls; we respond. God intervenes; we respond. When it comes to calling people to serve, the call is personal — individual — to you as a person. I am not convinced the call of God involves people seeking out God and offering God their services. There might be times when it happens that way, but I believe God calls people to service.