-
A subversive approach to a subversive parable [From Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43] On the surface, the story reads quite clearly—maybe a little too clearly. If you’re a regular church attendee…
-
The Heresy of Christian Nationalism
The Christian Nationalism that fueled January 6 is rooted in heresies.
-
Heavy Burdens and Hope: A Review
Until now, learning how to discuss these Bible bullets with any confidence seemed overwhelming. But Bridget Eileen Rivera has done all the heavy lifting.
-
Buddy Stouffer’s Execution Was the Last of 2021. Will It Be the Last to Be Proved an Error?
On Thursday (Dec. 9), Oklahoma executed Bigler “Buddy” Stouffer, a 79-year-old deeply committed Christian who has maintained his innocence since being convicted of murder in 1985. It was the last…
-
Buddy Stouffer’s Execution Was the Last of 2021. Will It Be the Last to Be Proved an Error?
On Thursday (Dec. 9), Oklahoma executed Bigler “Buddy” Stouffer, a 79-year-old deeply committed Christian who has maintained his innocence since being convicted of murder in 1985. It was the last…
-
Living Out Our Dual Citizenship
Might Paul’s example, together with relevant teachings and the life of Jesus, guide an exploration of our “dual citizenship” in the U.S. and in the Kingdom of God?
-
Reflections from a Recovering Christian Nationalist Leading to the Anniversary of January 6th
By Liz Daye
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being thoroughly discipled in Christian Nationalism: the idolatrous entangling of God and country for the sake of power.
-
Remembering the Insurrection
It was a terrible day for America and a terrible day for all of us who love Jesus.
-
Unlearning the Gospel of Whiteness: A Tribute to the Arch, Tata Desmond Tutu
The gospel is only good news to the poor if it is good news for all those made vulnerable.
-
In These 12 Days of Christmas, Thoughts on Mother God
Motherhood is an earthy, human, painful, female event, filled with soaring joy and searing pain. God came to us like this.
-
Finding Security as the World Is Upended: Reflections on Isaiah 26
By Bob Ekblad
They are willing to try trusting God without knowing exactly what this means. I want to too.
-
Christmas in the Borderlands
By RLC Editor
With a week in the borderlands behind us, I am processing, and I am grieving.
-
A Ride for the Common Good
By Joel Simpson
These are lies that feed our fear of strangers, of non-white bodies, and of people who are poor and from poor countries.
-
Mary’s Virginity Matters, but Not for the Reasons You Think
And so if we hold the virgin archetype up against Mary of Nazareth, we might be surprised by what we find. What if Mary’s virginity tells us not just about…
-
A Here-and-Not-Yet Gospel of Peace
By Anna Kelly
Too often, we have numbed the aches and groans of the world in a false peace that seeks to resolve and explain away our neighbor’s pain (or worse yet, to…
-
It’s What Didn’t Happen that Matters: On the Trial of the Murder of Ahmaud Arbery
And because of this, they trusted Dunikoski with a kind of trust that is often only extended to those closest to us—family—and called her Auntie to prove it.
-
Jesus is Waiting at Our Border
To reject the foreigners at our border is in many ways to reject the very face of Jesus.
-
The Kin-dom of God
When I first encountered a prayer using “kin-dom” instead of “kingdom,” I remember thinking that it was a sort of liberal watering down of the robust vision of Christ the…
-
The New War on Christmas
This week also marks the 9th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting (December 14), one of those all-too-familiar moments when our country said, “Never again”… and then let it happen…
-
Life as a Lesbian Christian: This Is What I See
Then one day, bone exhausted, something hit me. What if this thorn is actually a mustard seed?
-
Is Pro-Life Evangelicalism Killing Adoptees?
Adoptive parents can build platforms and careers off adoption, but adoptees who circumvent the system, usually offering their emotional labor at no cost, receive backlash.
-
Where Is Jesus in the Pandemic Protests?
By Mal Green
One person’s expression of unlimited liberty is another person’s experience of unwelcome restriction.
-
Protecting What We Have
By Morf Morford
And no force in human history would dare confront such an ingrained and manifested belief system. Except one did.
-
Can Theology Be an Idol?
One of my favorite classes in seminary was Christology. It was the systematic biblical study of the person of Jesus Christ (that’s a mouthful!). By collecting and summarizing passages of…
-
The Time is Now for Justice for Caregivers
But the truth is that home care workers are struggling to make ends meet.
-
Julius Jones was spared by a governor who prayed. Let’s all now pray to end the death penalty.
The irony cannot be missed. Christians all over the world were praying that a Christian governor would not execute a fellow Christian brother who is almost assuredly innocent.
-
Deconstruction’s Critics Are Those With Much to Lose
I do not take deconstruction lightly, nor do I wish for churches to die. I want the church to flourish, and flourishing requires weeding out that which is harmful.
-
The Only Border Crisis is America’s Disgusting Treatment of Migrants.
By Doug Pagitt
The border is safe unless you are an immigrant. For immigrants and asylum seekers, it is dangerous and even deadly.
-
The Mark of Cain: On Who Deserves to Live
By Morf Morford
Killing in the name of God should be the ultimate oxymoron – the most extreme self-canceling, obvious-to-all contradiction.
-
The Ones Who Led the Way
By Amy C Roemer
It is through their testimony, their witness, that they passed down the faith we have today.
-
Single and Ready to…Rethink Church, Family, and What It Means to Belong
It can be less lonely simply not going to church than going and trying to be a part of something that largely was not designed for you.
-
Stewards of Our Home: A Litany for Our Interdependent Relationship with All of Creation
To be a true steward of a truly hospitable home means we must remember that sacredness.
-
To Anyone Else Feeling Stuck in Perplexity
I used to think I was losing my faith, but now I think I’ve actually been growing it deeper all along. If that statement is relatable, this article is for…
-
Cultivated Meat and the Prayer of Saint Francis
In the current moment, I don’t think there’s a more effective way to be an instrument of peace than pushing for federal funding for cultivated-meat research.
-
Transcending Boundaries as People of Faith
By Morf Morford
God’s love, if we believe it, is unlimited and crosses every human-made boundary.
-
We Must See No Stranger
By Valarie Kaur
Anti-blackness transcends political party; it permeates our culture and becomes keenly visible in moments like this.
-
A Time to Grieve
Then I return to bearing witness, recognizing that there is indeed a time for grief, and we are in that time.
-
Drawing My Own Map in a Post-Evangelical World
For someone who thrives on order and stability, drawing my own map is more than navigating uncharted territory. It’s calling me to trust myself, trust God, and believe that the…
-
Money and Activism: Faith-Fueled Investing to Fight Climate Change
As someone who has been in advocacy work for a while, I’ve begun to wonder how much all this ‘righteous anger’ accomplishes if we don’t learn to examine our own…
-
Hope for Hunger: We can Answer the Moral Call to End Malnutrition
By Mark Viso
I believe in our country’s ability to boldly lead an effective global response to food security and adequate nutrition and this initiative offers a blueprint for faith-based and U.S. government…
-
Bearing Witness as the First Step to Justice
Being a faithful witness means listening to survivors and believing them at their word without shaming, criticizing, or belittling.
-
Bishop Barber’s Remarks to the Vatican Conference on Ending Poverty
I am honored to be here at the Vatican on the feast of St. Francis to share with you on behalf of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for…
-
Dazzling and Cruel Transitions Out of Homelessness
There is an aspect of health and wholeness that cannot be defined by Maslow or medicine or psychology during transitions like this.
-
Facing Our Shattered State
By Bob Ekblad
What will it take for people to finally acknowledge our broken, shattered state?
-
Jesus Among the Insurrectionists
It is good and right to speak out against harmful distortions of the way of Jesus, but Jesus invites us to go further than that.
-
The Only Way is Through
I had no clue why something in me snapped. Then a couple of months ago, I picked up Brian McLaren’s book Faith After Doubt.
-
Seeking Wholeness: Moving Beyond the Abortion Debate
Maybe when we stop arguing over legality, we’ll be able to see the women and the children who are caught between the battle lines.
-
Why Are There So Many Toxic Pastors?
By Jon Mathieu
What’s wrong with us? Why do we keep empowering, following, and fawning over this type of leader?
-
Reaching Past the Obvious to Find Belonging
The challenge, then, is for us to go beyond the surface-level labels we wear, to go beyond visible markers of identity.
-
American Altar: Poetry, Gun Violence, and the Gods to Whom We Sacrifice
We Americans are much slower to see the idols of our own times and cultures.
-
Pastor of . . . Doubt?
The life of those who follow Jesus can be beautiful and amazing, and that beauty almost always includes doubt.
-
Why Do You Say You Love Jesus?
By Morf Morford
What I really want to know is why this “love” so often doesn’t look like love; why this “faith” doesn’t look like faith. Would they say, “It’s not about what…
-
In Opposition of the Line 3 Pipeline
Now, four years later, I want to follow up the heartfelt message of that video by expressing my public opposition to the Line 3 pipeline — and by asking you…
-
The Wrong Debate: On Alabama’s New Gas Chamber
By Chris Brown
As states grapple with how to resume killing, the only debate seems to be over the method.
-
Women of Faith Can Help Advance Climate Justice
Even though I am not a climate scientist, I recognize that the climate crisis is an existential threat impacting all of creation. As a woman and a person of faith,…
-
A Love Song for the Long-Haul: LA UMC Pastors on Hurricane Ida Aftermath
The journey ahead is complex and rightly so—filled with both triage and rehab efforts, insurance claims and bucket truck parades, adrenaline highs and compassion fatigue, questions about climate change and…
-
What I Learned About God by Praying for Osama bin Laden
Like every other college student and most Americans, I didn’t know the name Osama bin Laden. I also didn’t know God.
-
The Amnesia of ‘Never Forget’
Abroad, “never forget” hides a slow forgetting of the universal morality to which we once aspired as a country.
-
Faith Leaders Gather in Houston in Response to Gun Violence
By Kathryn Post
The Red Letter Christians’ gathering went on despite the cancellation of the NRA event.
-
Kayla Craig is Resourcing Parents for These Times
For those worried about their kids in these days of active shooter drills and other unsettling events, Kayla Craig fearlessly opens doors into frightening scenarios. How do we pray about…
-
The New American Revival: Christian Nationalism’s ‘Delta Variant’
Many will say it’s all about freedom, but it’s really about power.
-
The Morning After Ida Makes Landfall, a Prayer
By Patrice Gopo
Some days I wake in the morning disoriented, my mind mixing up my dreamscape with the reality of what transpires in life. In my dreamscape, my arms reach for a…
-
For Afghanistan, Hospitality is the Least We Should Do
By Bill Mefford
This knowledge should lead us to lament the terrible damage we have caused, and this should then shape how we move forward.
-
Healing Our Divides: Why This Matters
In large part, that’s why we become so persistently polarized, and that’s why our divisions can intensify to the point of mutual fear, hatred, and hellish violence.
-
How Should the Church Respond to the Tents That Line Our Urban Streets?
Until we begin to ascribe to the people we’re attempting to “serve” the same kinds of complexities, nuances, kindnesses, and curiosity that we ascribe and acknowledge in ourselves, we will…
-
With Red and Blue Fingerprints on Afghanistan Horror, a Call to Grieve
By Mark Bauer
Acknowledge the brokenness that could produce such gut-wrenching darkness. Internalize. And then get to work . . .
-
God of Liminal Space
God was in that spot. God was in the most mundane, powerless, painful place.
-
Roots of Justice
Much of the healing involves acknowledging that institutions, not just people, are racist.
-
How Sunday Schools Can Help Prevent Gun Violence
As we return to Sunday School or youth programming, we have an opportunity — whether it takes place in person or online — to inform and educate families as we…
-
‘Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue’: Positions of Power & Torah Justice
By Cory Driver
We must ensure that those in power do not succumb to human weakness, depriving those in their charge of the justice that God so passionately wants for all.
-
Stewarding Our Privilege for the Kingdom of God
Unbridled privilege destroys our witness and credibility in the world, prohibiting disciples from taking on the mindset of Christ, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and seeking the peace and prosperity…
-
The Practice of Prayer vs. the Prayer of Practice
Even though I don’t do much planned-praying these days, the action of following Jesus does sometimes draw desperate prayers out of me.
-
Speak Love, Not War
Why is it that our modern church culture identifies faith with the language of pain, aggression, and domination more so than with nurturing peace and equality?
-
How Mormonism Can Save America
By Jana Riess
Mormonism teaches me that I don’t get to excommunicate folks from my world just because we disagree. And I am so, so glad of it.
-
The Christian Right and the Decline of White Evangelicalism
In short, the quantitative and qualitative evidence – and, I will add, my own anecdotal evidence – strongly support the argument that the Christian Right has been a primary factor…
-
Worth Fighting For: A Word from the Desens House
By Dean Wright
Standing in the midst of that house in chaos felt like a refection on the chaos of my soul over the past few years. After being very active in our…
-
Jesus, Justice, and the Suffering of the Marginalized
By David Piorek
Yet, where we see suffering, we often see Jesus. Jesus’ arrival in the Gerasenes shows us how he breaks into the marginalized areas of our societies where those who are…
-
The Violence of a Religious Minority’s Majority
By Todd Johnson
Where is the enlightenment in using force to preserve the way of life for a minority that will not espouse these self-evident truths? Where is the justice in allowing this…
-
The Calling of Transformation
By Morf Morford
These are the people who follow the calling we are all called to follow: to leave a trail of transformation wherever we go. There is no greater calling.
-
The Racist Policing of China and the United States
Two massive injustices happening against two different groups of people in two different nations of the world should be equally addressed, simultaneously lamented, and simultaneously confronted.
-
Evangelicals Dangerous Understanding of Jesus
Given their belief in a limited amount of available goods and resources in the world, coupled with the cultural belief that, because everyone was created in the image of God,…
-
Announcing a Season of Nonviolent Moral Direct Action
If we cannot refuse cooperation with voter suppression now, we have no hope of representation in the coming decade that will work to address the interconnected crises of climate catastrophe,…
-
The Uncomfortable In-Between
By RLC Editor
Discomfort leads us to a place where we are bothered when we compare what we have to what others don’t have.
-
Mother Earth Has Suffered Enough: We Need Stronger Methane Rules
Rains and snows came when they were supposed to, bringing much needed refreshing to our community and land. Now, we are in a prolonged drought. We are in a national…
-
Violence & Victory
By Gena Thomas
Violence is a byproduct of victory in the prosperity-scarcity framework, as people are subconsciously taught to seek prosperity at all costs. But seeking justice requires us to lay down our…
-
3 Roots of Discrimination in God’s Church
By Todd Lollar
You may be surprised what people deem as secular society is not where I’ve experienced the most discrimination as a person who is differently abled.
-
To Get Our Nation Back On Track, We Need A ‘Holy Recovery’
Scarcity has been the name of the game for far too long in American politics. We are constantly offered a choice between which group of people is forced to go…
-
Blessing a Cultural Threshold
By Dori Baker
A threshold is a place of letting go of an old identity and waiting on a new identity to emerge. It is a liminal moment when the sacred is being…
-
The Religion of Jesus
By Sarah Lawing
Through the writings of Howard Thurman, I have learned what I have always known. The religion of Jesus has always been about desiring a more equitable and just society, which…
-
Walking in the Shadow
We have experienced a long night where we have been brought face-to-face with the staggering inequities pervading our society. No longer are we able to say we didn’t know, for…
-
Christian Leaders from Around the Country Read Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech
By RLC Editor
One-hundred and sixty-nine years ago today, abolitionist, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass gave a speech to the 600 members of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society entitled “What to the Slave…
-
Christian Leaders from Around the Country Reading FREDERICK DOUGLASS’ 1852 speech “WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY” (Read on July 3, 2021)
By RLC Editor
One-hundred and sixty-nine years ago today, abolitionist, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass gave a speech to the 600 members of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society entitled “What to the Slave…
-
Brian McLaren, Doubt, and Decoding
It’s time, McLaren says with a clear tone of fearless urgency. In a world riddled with division, stuffed with nuclear warheads, and barrelling down a storyline of extinction, we need…
-
Liturgy for Flag Removers
May we not litter our sacred spaces with the flags that we do not (ought not) worship. Christ, have mercy on our American dreams.
-
Nationalism and the Undermining of Global Missions
By Bill Mefford
Thus, what I have strongly urged my evangelical Christian missionary friends serving in other countries to do is to lovingly and strongly confront the nationalism of their supporters.
-
I’m not a ‘Real’ Man: Jesus, John Wayne, and Disability
By Sy Hoekstra
The background is that I am blind, and have been since I was very young. I was never going to be a soldier, police officer, cowboy, or any of it.
-
3 Things the Church Probably Didn’t Teach You About Sex
By Andrew Lee
There is so much more the church can do to celebrate sexual relationships. Sex should be talked about in the church. We won’t always get it exactly right, but I…
-
A Time for Shalom
By Nathan Hunt
Six days a week we struggle for freedom. On the Sabbath, we sit in the liberating truth that we are already free. And as we dwell in Sabbath freedom, the…
-
Propositional Church in a Wounded World
By Morf Morford
What were those “statements of faith” in the light of tragedy? Social upheaval? Personal challenges? Difficult relationships? Crisis? Or even encounters with wonder and discovery?
-
Ten Ways to Resist a Dictatorship
By RLC Editor
This is our inheritance and our legacy. No matter what, our motherland will never lack in courage. Thank you for bearing witness to our resistance.
