Faith & Culture
Forgiveness is Not a One Time Thing
The problem with forgiveness as a spiritual mandate is that it is often taught as a one time thing. Extend forgiveness and the slate is wiped clean. This is a toxic by product of substitutionary atonement theology and purity culture.
Read MoreOpposite of John Piper
To me, his theology makes God out to be masochistic. God kills Jesus to save us. God chooses to send people to hell. God is grossed out by our sin. That’s just not the kind of God that I personally want to follow and certainly not a version of God whose followers make this world a better place. It’s violent and spiritual malpractice.
Read MoreBacklash Against Lauren Daigle
I have been living under a rock a little bit because I missed the whole backlash against Lauren Daigle for her appearance on Ellen DeGeneres. To be fair, it’s more like I willfully ignored it because on the scale of 1-10 of how interested I am in evangelical culture wars, it’s a big fat negative eighty six. It…
Read MoreThe Problem with Moderates
The problem with moderates is not that they’re refusing to “take sides,” but that by not shouting your stand for the vulnerable, you ARE taking a side. The side of the status quo and default power systems of the world. Want to know whether you’re standing with the vulnerable and powerless? Ask yourselves, how much…
Read MoreSelf-Love =/= Hyper Individualism
Self-love, self-improvement & self-empowerment is NOT about hyper individualism. A community formed by erasing individuality is not about submitting to one another in love, as I was told growing up evangelical, it was about letting those who hold power in those communities to KEEP THEIR POWER. This is why you hear arguments from complementarians that…
Read MoreDeconstructing Heaven
As much as I find the Christian tradition, as well as other religious traditions’ versions of the after life fascinating, beautiful, and hopeful, I have to believe that it is also a total and complete mystery. Everyone last one of us is an agnostic about the after life if we are honest with ourselves. Whatever belief we have is speculation, no matter how earnestly that speculation may be held.
Read MoreBeth Moore and Fundamentalist Parenting
Isn’t that the Good News for our children? That they aren’t born to engage in power struggles against us, their parents? We welcomed them into our world so we can share in our power and joy and dreams. So we can have this life together of mutual giving and taking, where both parties enrich one another’s vision for what makes us whole.
Read MoreAm I Still a Christian?
Out here, in this messy web of personal identity and political association, I am weary of being a Christian, precisely because I am so uninterested in negotiating that identity.
Read MoreIs Evangelism to Minors Predatory…or Not?
Evangelism using coercion, violent stories, and wielding economic and cultural power over parents of children is predatory.
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