Language in the conversation at the intersection of faith and sexuality can be particularly challenging. The challenge comes for a few reasons. First of all, the language seems to change rapidly and it can be hard to keep up. Secondly, language means different things to different people – so what works in one context can…
The Day of Silence and Day of Dialogue are coming up and I’ve been pondering some of the inherent ironies in these two initiatives. The Day of Silence is an initiative of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network). GLSEN “strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless…
I am late entering the conversation around the Lisa Ling, Our America program entitled, “Pray Away the Gay?” If you haven’t had the opportunity to view the program, you can view it here. The program created a buzz with a fair bit of controversy and criticism. At the risk that my weighing in is “old…
Driving down south for spring break I wrote the following: I saw a forest decimatedher trampled leaves were weeping. “Apocalypse” her branches cried. Who smugly says she deserves it? Orange buds then redmistake spring for fall…… drip like blood. tenacious, fighting, breathing, budding, living Encased in the crypt of consumerismdefiant dancers declaring….. the restoration of…
I recently had an article published in the Christian Educator’s Journal. This is a publication that reaches over 4,000 teachers and administrators who serve primarily in Christian schools. I thought I would share the article here too: It was a story I’d heard before, but hearing it in the Christian school I’d graduated from, brought…
I’ve just returned from New York City – not exactly the place one might imagine as a place of deep quiet renewal. But in the first evening of the 2 and half day arts encounter I was participating in, I felt my soul sigh in the best sense of the word. I felt like a…
So I’ve been resisting writing this post since the end of my sabbatical two and a half years ago. But given the last seven lengthy, rather dense posts, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to share it. Growing up we weren’t allowed to have pets. For a brief period we had a kitten named…
In the midst of all the multi-faceted layers of diversity we have explored, I find it curious that the benefits of applying Paul’s guidelines in Romans 14 are not applied more widely to the question of covenanted same-sex unions. The reality is that there is diversity in perspective on this matter in our families, our…
When we look to the actual community of same-sex attracted and gay Christians, we see men and women committed to Christ, committed to engaging the Scriptures as God’s revelation to them, and committed to journeying as faithful disciples. And among them, we see the reality that this is a disputable matter. There are those who…
When we look at the issues that Paul raises as disputable matters in both the book of Romans and his first letter to the Corinthian church, it can be easy to consider the matter of eating meat previously sacrificed to idols or the appropriate day for worship to be fairly benign issues. When we then…