On Palm Sunday, I led our congregation in a time of confession that connected with the previous week’s anti-bullying initiatives. My daughter then sang a song called, “Don’t Laugh at Me”: I am a little boy with glasses the one they call a geek.A little girl who never smiles ’cause I’ve got braces on my…
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…
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…
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…
John Wesley is credited with the articulation of the quadrilateral for theological reflection made up of Scripture, experience, tradition and reason. It has been likened to a three legged stool in that Scripture is always seen as the foundation with the other three factors providing support. In this section of this disputable matter series, I…
When we consider the potential usefulness of viewing covenanted same-sex unions as a disputable matter in the Christian community, we must understand the diversity with which we approach and seek to interpret scripture. The sheer fact of such difference ought to motivate us to embody a posture of humility rather than self-righteous judgment of one…