When you live in Culture War Mode there is always a battle to fight, a side to take, and people to fear.
When you live in God's Kingdom there's always a stranger to welcome, a neighbor to befriend, and an enemy to love.
It takes a serious lack of imagination and arrogance to believe that a God who transcends all of time and eternity and created all things in the cosmos is utterly transfixed on the victory of one religious group in one of the youngest nations in the 21st century.
A Christianity rooted in patriarchy will always define women first and foremost by their relationship to men.
A Christianity rooted in the gospel of Jesus will see women first and foremost as human beings created in God’s image.
May we understand the difference.
The gestalt of every American Christian’s cry of persecution is “There were rules but I decided I didn’t want to follow them because the world revolves around me.”
Toddlers in tshirts sold for grift.
I’ve learned the enemy often uses politics, social media, and scandal to make sure we’re angry, judgmental, divisive, and crave condemnation for others more than mercy, understanding, and forgiveness for them.
In my role as a pastor, I’m not trying to get everyone to agree on everything so much as I’m attempting to create environments where our disagreements don’t automatically become cause for disunity.
An entire generation of church kids like me heard their fellow Christians scream “character matters!” when it came to Bill Clinton’s moral failings.
Only to watch all moral standards fly out the window when it came to Donald Trump.
This is what happens when you worship power.