abuse
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A Prison of Isolation
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6 min read
15. Nor is freedom from people anything but a prison of isolation. We sat in Joe’s arguing over greasy food in a debate over which is more important. Deep down, I knew Jen and I didn’t disagree. Not really. The argument wasn’t real. It was semantic. The heat generated from the friction of our altruism. The…
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Dealing With Truth
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14 min read
Postmodernism and the era of willful deception. I’m not the only one worried about a “post-truth” or “post-fact” era. Many think pieces have tried to tackle the danger of making normal the lies and distortions we’re seeing in the world. But few of them have dealt with why we’re here and what might be a…
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Mocking Jesus
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9 min read
Jesus gets mocked. A lot. I’ve always known that people mock Jesus in each telling of the Passion. But I am struck by how the gospel we call Luke uses the mocking of Jesus as a recurring theme. [bctt tweet=”The mockery is an active participant, a character in the story.” username=”revdrewdowns” nofollow=”yes”] For Luke, the…
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Of the World
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4 min read
Of the World (Day 3 of A Simple Lent) “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” One of the temptations for the Christian is to develop an “Us vs. Them” mindset. We have seen this during those fights over so-called religious freedom. We see this when we…
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Cross or Crucifix?
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8 min read
I still don’t know why Christians wear crosses. The cross was a Roman torture device. The cross was the vehicle the state used to kill insurrectionists and rebels. It was like the medieval head on a pike. It wasn’t reserved for normal criminals or representative of criminal justice in the first century. It was how…
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Adult Formation
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9 min read
A friend recently said that the church is always 10 years behind. When he said this, I nodded as I thought through all the ways we are behind the world. Technology, marketing, human rights, anti-institutionalism, shifting political landscapes, family trends including divorce rates, break-ups, and coupling outside of marriage. I frequently point out that many of…