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Jesus Offends Us
John the Baptist is locked in a cell, full of doubt, wondering what the whole Jesus experiment is really all about. He is left questioning everything. What is my role in this? Was I wrong? What he’s really thinking is this: Jesus isn’t the Messiah. This Sunday’s gospel is Matthew 11:2-11, and just in case…
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Scapegoats, Villains, and American Fear
Terror In the wake of the bombings in Boston and the pursuit of the suspects, I’ve been trying to find a way to respond. Something that wasn’t part of the noise. Something that was honest to my experience of needing to watch, but knowing that the coverage would be far too speculative. Studies of the…
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Love King? Live Kingdom.
MLK was a visionary, not because he was a civil rights leader or because he was faith leader, but because he had vision: he understood Jesus’s vision. And he cast it out for us to see. A world in which we lived the Kingdom of GOD, not just paying it lip service. A vision in which he famously…
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What I Heard Phyllis Say
At the end of last week’s Emergence Christianity conference (#EC13) there was a confusion. Phyllis Tickle, the conference keynote speaker, who presented her work on Emergence Christianity throughout, made a couple of controversial statements. Julie Clawson makes a good accounting for them here. However, I heard her differently. First, I will state that I…
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Mary, the Witness
a Sermon for Advent 4C Text: Luke 1:39-55 Learning about Mary One of the things that excited me as a priest and presbyter of the church is how many people have mentioned Fr. Steve Bancroft’s sermon a year ago. Several people have come to me and spoken of that moment in which they heard for…
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Sex as Biblical Marriage
Reading Genesis again for our Bible study, I have found this nuance with regards to how the writers use the concept of marriage quite interesting: having sex with someone makes you married. To unpack what this means, we ought to step back from our 21st Century “culture war” arguments about what marriage means or who…
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David Henson on Marriage
As I prepare this week’s Eating Scripture, I read this piece on this week’s gospel by David R. Henson: Just Marriage: Jesus, Divorce and the Vulnerable. Do yourself a favor and read it.
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Failing a Father
This guest post by Registered Runaway on Rachel Held Evans’ blog is too powerful to ignore. “Church Stories: Forgive them, Father” I want a church in which we can all celebrate and live up to the type of fatherhood described in the story. And their children inspire us to be better fathers as this one…