Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Faith

The search for meaning, purpose, and relationship. Our need for love compels us to seek it out, and when we find it, share it.

  • One of the ways I struggle with our arguments about church and politics is that we don’t use the word the same way. Another is that Jesus’s actions seem quite political. Check out my thoughts on my St. Stephen’s blog. One way a church must be political

  • How selfish culture has made a mockery of religious freedom It was just a little thing. Three words: a phrase. The extending of rights. And yet, we all knew what it meant. Things were changing. A lot. All About Me We’ve been selfish a long time. More than a few decades. The Gordon Geckoification of…

  • A Task

    A Task (Day 40 of A Simple Lent) | Saturday A TASK by Czeslaw Milosz In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life Only if I brought myself to make a public confession Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch: We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs…

  • I never could wrap my head around “Good Friday”. Bad Friday made more sense. These days, Evil Friday speaks to me even more. There is nothing good about the crucifixion. Save your fancy atonement theories for another day. And don’t get antsy and start talking about a resurrection. Get your butt back here and sit…

  • The writer of Mark doesn’t condemn Judas. Not like the others. They need Judas to kill himself or bear the brunt of a Godly vengeance: the scapegoat for his betrayal. Like a true villain, more heinous than Pilate (they can’t wait to get him off the hook), more vile than the leadership Jesus spent three…

  • I despise this parable. I always have. Hate, violence, and murder. Images of incarceration and indentured servitude. These are indeed wicked tenants. But I’m not sure the vineyard owner isn’t a little bit wicked too. The fence, the watchtower, the going away and letting them fend for themselves. I find the parable deeply troubling. And this…