Encountering the gospel anew through “The Chosen”
Since 2017, “The Chosen” has quietly emerged from streaming services and DVDs to national recognition. What is so unique about this still evolving series on the life of Jesus?
Review of “A Darkly Radiant Vision,” by Gary Dorrien
Historian Gary Dorrien’s work is equally astonishing in scope and dedication as he works to bring theological voices and movements to fuller appreciation for their contributions to what he terms the overall “Black social gospel.”
On celebrating Black History Month
There was, and still is, an urgency to publicly proclaim and celebrate the achievements, challenges and triumphs of Black folk. This month, and beyond, I encourage enthusiastic participation in activities, studies, and ceremonies that will increase awareness of our treasured African American history.
“When all of God’s gifts are being celebrated and used, there is a joy that is abundant”: an interview with Rev. Dr. Gina Jacobs-Strain, new ABCUSA general secretary
I think it’s up to all of us to work together so that all of God’s gifts are being used. When all of God’s gifts are being celebrated and used, there is a joy that is abundant. There’s a generosity of spirit, I think that’s what we want in our denomination.
Jesus and Samaritans 2.0
Jesus embraced the Samaritans—who were despised by his people—and lifted them up as heroes in many of his stories. His message: Let us, people of faith, embrace those who are despised. Let us live like Jesus and the Samaritans 2.0.
New Year’s reframing
Ringing in the New Year offers an opportunity for new perspectives. There is the look back and the look forward, a combination of life review and life planning. How can or should we make use of this inflection point in light of Christian faith?
I never felt more Baptist
Walter B. Shurden gets a fair amount of credit for naming the four Baptist freedoms. Still, if I could make a small addendum to his famous book, I’d tack on the freedom of attire and self-expression. This is why you might find a Baptist minister in a robe on Sunday morning or a pair of overalls, perhaps even an apron.
A new year’s prayer for a world on thin ice
What if we set spiritual goals this year to be in a more emotionally intelligent and attuned conversation with the earth? Might we hear the ice melting as tears—the weeping of creation?
The Barbie and Ken movie: reflections on one of 2023’s most influential, and potentially award-winning, films
We too may jump in the pink convertible with a goal to find ourselves and be free, but one lesson from the movie is to watch carefully what new commitments we make. Like the prodigal’s journey, venturing into the world can end up lonely, chaotic, and, ultimately, a dead end.
Fostering deep community, strong spirituality, and rigorous discipleship
In 2024 let’s commit to fostering deep community, strong spirituality, and rigorous discipleship. Baptists of all people should be communal people. Our theological and praxis foundations are built upon the need for us to read Scripture together, engage in social dialogue together, worship together, and share in mission and ministry together. We are not alone together; we are united together in Christ.
Dreams make us change direction
When we listen to our dreams we are invited to be like Joseph, and the Magi, and walk a different way. We are invited to be like Mahalia and Martin and share our dreams with others. Our dreams have the potential to erode the evils of Empire. We must only find the courage to take them seriously.
Making peace: remarks at the Faith in Democracy Interfaith Vigil at the US Capitol
Three years following the horrific events of January 6, 2021, we are still grappling with the uncertainty of our survivability and sustainability as a democracy. We are also asking: what is the prescription going forward for curing our inflamed divisions and unresolved conflicts?
Epiphany aha: the Divine crumb trail
In January, Christians all over the globe celebrate the season of Epiphany. We commonly use the word “epiphany” to describe a revelation or an “aha” moment. The scriptures and the season of Epiphany explore the ways God surprises us when we open ourselves to new experiences, adventures, and opportunities God places before us. When we, like the magi, decide to follow God into unknown territory, we discover grace, forgiveness, love, compassion, spiritual insight, and even learn new things about ourselves and God.
‘Next of Kin’: a story of travail and hope
Like its biblical inspiration, Next of Kin features strong female protagonists, breaking past obstacles of economic ruin and great hardship to find a way forward. The novel is its own story, not meant to present a story simply parroting the narrative beats of the Book of Ruth. Yet in its new setting, the story that the Book of Ruth tells gets a refreshed lease on life.
Looking back to look ahead
What are you planning for 2024? Wait! Before you jump in, take a few moments to take stock of this year. Then think about next year.
Taking stock of the life I lead
In a season of life where I need reminding that God can move in profound ways, I’m thankful for the highs that a card in the mail can spark. I’m grateful for the people I’ve met who are out there questioning. And I’m thankful for time, a constructed fabrication or not, as it forces me to pause and take stock of the life I get to lead.
Exchanging agendas with God: the beginning of discipleship
At some point, if we are to become disciples of Jesus Christ, we have to make a holy decision to follow him. The precise details of how a disciple accepts the call of Christ and begins the journey of discipleship vary from person to person. But in every case the starting point involves an exchange of agendas between the disciple and Christ.
How still we see Christmas today
Whenever we move from one place to another, whatever the reason, we end up letting go of some traditions and adding new ones from the new place we call home. What are some Christmas traditions you used to practice and what are new ones that have gained new meaning?
Advent and AI
The spiritual invitation of Advent and Christmas strikes me as precisely the opposite of “AI” or “hallucinate,” two words of the year for 2023. This season is all about paying attention, waiting, watching, listening. It is about bringing our fully embodied, fully incarnate sensory selves to be as present and intimate and awake as possible with the ever-astounding mystery and glory of being itself.
Joseph, backup quarterback
In the gospel narrative, Joseph is the backup quarterback. Mary is the star. And that is as it should be. Yet Joseph was faithful, devoted, and played his part well before he faded from the scene not long after the birth of Jesus.
Four ways to prepare for Christmas
From the word Advent also springs the word adventure. Imagine considering that there are adventures of faith for you. What would an adventure of faith look like? How would life be different if you actively chose to pursue an encounter with the Divine? To help prepare for those adventures of faith, consider four ways to prepare spiritually for Christmas.
A tender God
May we remember something that is as true of God during Advent as it is at Christmas, just as it is true on Good Friday and in the Easter narratives of Thomas and the resurrection. That truth is this: we serve a tender God.
With the poor and meek and lowly
In his new book “Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity,” D. Glenn Butner Jr. appeals to Christians to see the ignoble reality of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt as a story that keeps repeating in human history and in this morning’s news headlines.
This year I am lighting a new Advent candle
This year, I am adding an extra candle to my Advent wreath: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and Grief. Advent is most commonly known as a season of waiting, but it is also a season of grief.
I put my grief in a suitcase
I’ve lamented my way through my time at Yale Divinity School, crying out in both pain and gratitude because I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and because my grandparents were not there to see me receive my Master of Divinity. I am becoming more fluent in the language of lament, learning its hollow vowels, complex conjugations, and myriad metaphors. And I thank God that God’s still patiently listening for my voice, even when I don’t really want to talk.
Cats and church growth
Just like meeting a cat when they make you break out in hives, meeting people where they live, where they grow, where they love—in the sacred interiority of their homes—is not an endeavor without risk. But it is in these spaces where we move from encountering the world and expanding the reach of Christian community, into what it means to make and build and sustain and nurture the relationships on which a truly redeemed world relies.
The Christians of Gaza
The voice of Palestinian Christians frequently speaks clearly in response to violence and injustice. The present war is no exception. Whether the church around the world listens or not is another question.
The relationship of hope and fear
During Advent, many churches will sing the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” with its lyric “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” We sing these words, but do we wonder why there is a relationship between hope and fear?
When hope is a four-letter word
This Advent, I find myself again wondering where we can find hope in the midst of the tremendous suffering in our world. Amid public and private suffering, hope feels like a four-letter word.
Why you should buy your pastor an e-bike for Christmas
In the winter of 2013, I started an experiment of walking, taking public transit, and bicycling for my job as a pastor. This fall I added a new form of transit, an e-bike. E-bikes are not for everyone, but they can be an alternative to cars for many, especially pastors.
Seasonal affective disorder and the gifts of advent
This year, my sun lamp is my Advent wreath. I can’t explain how this works exactly. It only has the one light; there’s no way to turn on more and more of it as the Sundays of Advent pass. But I want to mark this beacon of light with some sort of reverence this December, to bless it in this season of darkness.
The joy that comes from Jesus
Advent reminds us that the best things in life are not the trinkets, toys, thrills, and temptations of this world that come from the outside in an attempt to give us a temporary thrill or some short-term pleasure. Life is about the gifts that God provides that work from the inside out and sustain us even when everything is not going our way. The themes of Advent point us to those gifts of hope, love, peace, and joy.
Starting the new church year reading the NRSVue
My congregation will begin reading from the NRSVue at the beginning of the new church year, the first Sunday of Advent. I am looking forward to continuing the journey with them with this “update.”
Why we do what we do in worship: developing a liturgy that is of the people
What would an exercise in developing a liturgy that is “of the people” mean? Forget about the divide between those who like liturgy that is rote vs. those who like liturgy that is spontaneous. I’m interested in the actual “heart” of liturgy, why we do what we do or why we even do it in the first place.
New church growth metric: How many dogs did you meet this week?
Do you want to know if your work as a pastor is having an impact on the community? Do you want to know if your church is transforming the lives of those outside its walls? If so, stop counting how many people attend worship or walk through your doors during the week. Rather, adopt this new metric: how many dogs did you meet this week?
Celebrating Advent and Christmas amid a war
On November 10, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem published a Statement on the Celebration of Advent and Christmas in the Midst of the War. I realized I needed to put the letter in front of our church council to see how, as a congregation, we might want to respond in solidarity. I’d like to invite you to do the same.
A Thanksgiving hymn calling for an end to oppression
The hymn “We Gather Together,” often associated with Thanksgiving, is a song for any who are oppressed and look to God for help and for justice.
Giving thanks–for cancer?!
I wouldn’t say I’m thankful for my husband’s cancer. However, it has brought blessings into our life, including a greater appreciation for our life day to day.
“Don’t deprive yourself of peace”: global crises, human limitations, and an all-knowing God
Amidst the waterfall of news, we need to build moments of peace into our lives. But I think there is another question. How much do we really need to know? Do we really need to know everything, all the time, everywhere, about everyone?
Authentic hope comes from building together
We know we are not where we want to be as a country—or as a people. Our work is not done. But the answer is not to give up or retreat.
Prophet or priest: pastoral leadership for extraordinary times
What does it mean to be a pastor during these extraordinary times? And how do we remain not only spiritually healthy, but also physically, emotionally, and psychologically balanced in our vocation?
Thank God for green pastures
If not for my time in the valley of the shadow of death, I would not fully appreciate how sweet life is amid green pastures and still waters.
Help, please.
I did not complete the hike because I am “hardcore.” I completed it because I knew when to ask for help.
Turning the world upside down: religious freedom, civil rights, and the struggle for a more just, equitable world
Baptists and other religious minorities turned one world upside down and gifted us the world we live in today where I am free to practice my faith and others are free to do the same.
Deep calls to deep (in the honking of your geese)
Watching the wild geese overhead in the “stick season” of November in northern Wisconsin, I’ve come to wonder if we might be able to say something like “Deep calls to deep in the honking of your geese?”
The first-woman straitjacket
A baby serves as a metaphor for today’s church: fragile yet beautiful, crying yet worthy of every effort toward consolation, messy yet adorable.
Like a Rolling Stone: the church and rock ‘n roll united by a hard truth
This is a Jann Wenner moment for the church. It is time to search our hearts and examine our practices, asking how the church continues the sexism and racism reflected in society.
Saintly ways: reading the lives of the saints today
Roman Catholics and Protestants alike benefit from being in dialogue, from sharing our stories with one another. For we enrich our understanding of what God is doing in the world and that the Spirit of God never ceases in empowering the faithful, especially in times of crisis and challenge. Yet stories of saints need to be read with care, lest in our telling, we are reinforcing uncritical readings of those stories that valorize issues of gender, power, and beliefs or practices best left in the distant past.
Bearing witness to the suffering of both sides
As we sat in a Shabbat service in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors over the past week, we saw unbelievable pain and grief. We also witnessed the mourning of our Palestinian siblings at a vigil. As Christians, we must bear witness to such grief, but we must not make the mistake of only seeing one side’s pain.
The love of Daniel Tiger
Just as Christ commands us to believe as a child, Fred Rogers, and now Daniel Tiger, keeps reminding us that we won’t always be the best, but we all deserve the chance to try to be the better version of ourselves. The Imago Dei. The one that God sees when God declares us beloved.
Pastoral care: don’t get hooked
Pastoral care is an essential part of ministry. Individuals and families in the congregation are under our care. However, it’s easy for pastors to get sucked in doing more for people than is good for them—or for us.
We must deal with our public grief
When loss occurs, grief inevitably follows. Yet in public life, grief from our collective losses seems to routinely get short-circuited. We seem incapable of allowing it into our lives. But that stymies our shared project of creating communities that thrive, because it causes so many of us to pretend or wish our losses never happened. For others, it means a retreat from public life entirely.
PLEASE! Not in my name!
I join with millions of people around the world pleading with America’s government to cease financial and military support for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Further, I join with a global community in calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to this war. All lives matter!
Beyond the legacy church building
Too often a legacy church survives, or not, because of choices made about the church building. Fortunately, my 150-year-old congregation transformed the overwhelming burden of supporting our legacy church building before it was too late, but not without significant conflict and risk. Here’s what we’ve learned.
The post-pandemic church: who’s here and who isn’t
Lately I’ve been thinking that I wish I had a big picture view of church life in North America in the fall of 2023. Then I realized having a big picture view is probably a pipe dream. Part of life in the church in 2023 is just who’s here and who isn’t.
Trading my stole for an apron
When I see an apron, I think of service. I think of hospitality. I want my apron to remind me that to follow the lowly Galilean, I’m called to a life of service and hospitality, which embraces the personal and works to strip away anything disingenuous.
And the cares of tomorrow can wait ‘til this day is done
When Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait,” he was correct. Day after day, our voices and actions are called upon to labor for justice. Yet burnout is counterproductive to our advocacy for the least of God’s children, which may be why Jesus told his followers, and us, not to worry about tomorrow.
Israel has the right to live in peace as do the Palestinian people
What happened in Israel last Saturday and continues to this moment is an inhumane, unjustifiable, and atrocious terrorist attack that must be condemned by all people of good will.
Harrowing history
“The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe” traces seemingly disparate loose threads that come together – largely connected by the complicated figure of comic book publisher Harry Donenfeld.
“Contend O Lord, with those who contend with me…”
Many male clergy routinely disrespect women, including fellow clergy, through words, actions, and thoughts. None of this is by coincidence or happenstance, nor does it happen in isolation—it is both by design and a perpetual product of society’s, including the church’s, refusal not just to explicitly acknowledge sexism and misogyny but far more critically, to do the dire work of repenting and addressing these ills in ways that do not require women to “to do the work.”
From the editor: Across the US political spectrum, contempt, acceptance of violence on the rise
Across the U.S. political spectrum, contempt is on the rise. So too is acceptance of violence as a political tool.
Can an exhausted majority find hope in a campaign for dignity?
Change has to start with us,” Shriver believes. “We all have some responsibility for our division. It didn’t just happen to us. We’re doing this to ourselves, and we can undo it.”
Dis-Membership: religious leadership in a season of squishy commitment
The unsettled nature of voluntary participation is by no means limited to religious professionals. Religious professionals have a special role, however, and a special vulnerability in the face of squishy participation in faith communities.
Separation of church and state does not mean the church is politically innocent
We must disabuse ourselves of the false notion that the church is apolitical. We must overcome the concept, so commonly taught among us, that we might somehow, in separating church from an influence over the state or the state having influence to keep us from being church in certain ways, arrive at some spiritual state of political innocence in which spirituality or religious life is not political.
The Gospel according to Bluey
Bluey brings to life characters who appeal to parents and children alike, and even to folks who don’t have kids but watch the show for its meaningful message. A message, I believe, possessing pieces of gospely good news.
Walking around a Confederate cemetery
As I walked around a Confederate cemetery, I wondered what other choice the young soldiers buried there could have made. The values they were raised to believe to be true were affirmed by their schools, their textbooks, their newspapers, their families, friends, their whole culture, and worst of all, their churches.
Why we need to be American Baptist
Amid today’s political polarities and culture wars, American Baptists have significant contributions to make to American society, particularly in the recognition of women in ordained ministry and the rightful place for all religions to provide spiritual life and practice to all Americans and residents from all corners of the world.
Are you creative?
A colleague of mine once presented a theological paper where he made an excellent case that the image of God was creativity. I’ve never forgotten this idea.
Kids who die, adults who contribute
The things that cause kids to die in this country – hate crimes, suicide, racism, neglect, abuse, hunger, war, gun violence – were no different in Langston Hughes’ day than they are now, and they ought to spur us not just to act but to move. What movements ought we to be crafting to love and protect children?
We are meant to go together
When we do not go together as communities, we remain divided and fragmented. Loneliness becomes inevitable. Challenges mount and begin to look intractable.
Rafting with Jesus and Jared: what I learned on the New River
Being a disciple of Jesus is like rafting. As with life itself, there are long stretches of calm though constant movement punctuated by moments of turbulence requiring intense action and effort.
When shall we overcome?
Why are we still singing about freedom as an aspiration? Why have we not overcome already?
Still masking after all these years
We saved lives in 2020 with social distancing and with a vaccine in 2021. We have the potential to save them today if we resist the push to all or nothing and instead focus together on how we can reduce harm.
Remembering Olive Tiller
“She was willing to be a leader when needed and a follower when needed.” Such virtue is among the greatest needs—but least celebrated—of our movements.
Calling Pastor AI
Remember all those committees and board meetings? We don’t need them now. Pastor AI takes care of everything, and everyone gets what they want.
Estimada interrupción: un instrumento de Dios para lanzarme a hacer las cosas de manera diferente y para hacerme más fuerte para el camino que tengo por delante
Pablo apostaba por la renovación interior, aquella que inicia con un encuentro con Dios y que obra día a día en nosotros. Esa también fue mi reflexión ver el obrar de Dios día tras día.
Dear Disruption: an instrument of God to launch me to do things differently, to make me stronger for the path that lies ahead
Paul bet on inner renewal, the one that begins with an encounter with God and that works day by day in us. That was also my reflection to see the work of God—day after day.
Estimada Interrupción: la discordia abre paso a la experiencia nativa, brindando una plataforma para la voz nativa
Las comunidades nativas, aunque dormidas bajo el peso del silencio forzado, la pesadez de los ciclos de abuso y el mensaje persistente de que fuimos eliminados, eliminables y derrotados, ahora podemos reclamar nuestro idioma, nuestra cultura y nuestra capacidad de amar y proteger a nuestros niños en nuestros hogares, en las escuelas y en la iglesia.
Dear Disruption: discord gives way to the Native experience, providing a platform for the Native voice
The Native communities, while dormant under the weight of forced silence, the heaviness of the abuse cycles and the persistent message that we were removed, are removable and defeated, can now reclaim our language, our culture, and our ability to love and protect our children in our homes, in schools, and in the church.
My heart aches: saying goodbye to Lolita
Held captive for 53 years, Lolita suffered severe neglect and abuse, while spending her days begging for bits of food by performing the unnatural acts required by her captors. Lolita died in captivity on August 19, 2023, before she could be returned to her native waters.
From the editor: The pull of the water’s edge
The water’s edge exerts a deep pull on me, a reminder of life’s ancient origins in the ocean.
The mystery within the clergy soul
Clergy will find some collegiality with Sidney Chambers in James Runcie’s Grantchester Mysteries book series (and the two priests of the Grantchester television adaptation). The times are changing, the pastoral calling continues, and those in service of a parish call keep the faith, sometimes even despite themselves.
Our country, may she always be in the right
Neither Jesus nor Paul taught blind patriotism or a simple accommodation of the state’s or country’s actions. For both, the Kingdom of God is where our hearts reside and “our citizenship is in heaven.”
Save one life. Start there.
We know that saving one life does not save the world. But we have to start somewhere. And once you get started, you might be surprised at the chain reaction of actions that you spark in your community.
Calling all prophets
The end of the relevance of the church will not come at the hands of a pandemic, AI technology, or a particular party gaining power; no, it will come at our own doings. It will come when prophets stop speaking.
Keeping Sabbath
Keeping Sabbath runs counter to the ways of the world and the powers that be, but keeping Sabbath is a reflection and a reminder that we are not the pinnacle of creation. Rather, the enjoyment of God and God’s creation is.
Butterfly lessons for a climate-changed world
Like the monarch butterflies, themselves facing the stresses and challenges of a changing world, we as a species need to embrace the radical art of transformation and migration that butterflies teach, because there’s a truth and a challenge that’s now as close as the air we breathe: in our climate-changed world, we cannot be done with our changes.
Cruel summer
As the heat of the summer continues on and likely becomes more severe next year, as Christians we must remember our command to creation care and reexamine our choices. Climate change isn’t a political issue, it’s a grim reality that is facing us all.
Did Jesus preach about being woke?
An image I recently saw on Facebook depicted Jesus preaching to the crowds, with the phrase boldly proclaiming: “Being ‘woke’ is literally what Jesus preached about his entire life.” Is that accurate? “Woke” wasn’t in use the way it is today when Jesus preached, but would the core of his message qualify as being “woke” as we understand it today?
Our backstories tell the whole story
Discover your own backstory because it will permit you to empathize with others’ backstories. Take time to share your backstory with others, always being mindful to allow time for them to also share theirs.
Sinead O’Connor sang and spoke truth
Sinead O’Connor sang and spoke truth. I aspire to that kind of boldness, righteousness, and courage. I hope you do too.
It was in the clearing: hush harbors and soul freedom, past and present
Hush harbors were the secret meeting places of enslaved Africans in which our identity and humanity were affirmed. What our ancestors started in the hush harbors unfortunately must live on today, so that those of us who have been pushed to the margins can find peace, acceptance, belonging, and gain clarity about the journey ahead.
The misunderstanding of Abraham: patriarchal thinking and painful realizations in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’
The ideological framework Abe Weissman begins to shed in season five of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ unfortunately is pernicious and alive and well in today’s world.
It is more important than ever to keep the “local” in “local church”
We don’t need churches steeped in ideology, left or right. We need local churches. We need churches on the ground, on the streets, and in the margins; churches who know their communities and whose communities know that they are loved and welcome in their spaces.
Summer reading: A selection
One of the blessings of adulthood is you get to read whatever you want (no matter what other people or the latest must-read lists tell you).
Beyond rainbow flags: what it means to make church safe for LGBTQ people
That is what I wish a rainbow flag on a church meant: safety, accountability, growth mindset, active allyship. I want churches that commit to being different from the torrential rains of homophobia and transphobia that threaten to drown us. Not just a little different, but actively working against the forces that threaten us.
On summer travel
What is it precisely we learn through travel? What’s uniquely different about going to, or having been to, other places, as compared to simply reading about them in books or watching slideshows about them (or in the new media era, reviewing Facebook posts about them)?
Living beyond categories
Human issues of race and gender aren’t easy. Christians get them wrong. But they are issues that, for better or for worse, Christianity has a long history of trying to transcend, as we try to say that God loves all people and wants all people to know love in turn.
When God calls
If only males are entrusted with the ability to discern God’s call, women are considered “less than” competent regarding matters of the soul. Frankly, a realm where women are considered less than fully competent souls doesn’t sound much like the Kingdom of God to me.
What cities and churches can learn from an urbanist’s vision
House of worship are experiencing a great emptying, becoming disconnected from their communities as congregations shrink. Jane Jacobs had some ideas that could help churches and their cities thrive.