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My essay on the essay (from Beyond Walls)
This summer I am going to be teaching at a Kenyon College writing workshop designed for clergy who want to hone their writing skills for conversations beyond their congregations and denominations. The program, Beyond Walls, is envisioned as an interfaith conversation with writers and clergy from both Jewish and Christian traditions. I will be teaching essay writing along with Rodger Kamenetz, and he and I each have an essay in this month’s Beyond Walls e-mag.
Don’t shop at the Safeway!
“Don’t shop at the Safeway!”
This is what my husband and I heard time and again when we told people where we had purchased our new home....
It's time to change the way pastors get paid
The budget passes, with a reluctant majority. The pastor sweats as the whispers continue. No one knows how they’re going to keep their pastor. The pastor becomes very anxious, but doesn't know how to respond, because the minister has not done anything wrong. There has even been growth and vitality in the last years. But that still can't make up for the last couple decades of decline or keep people alive. The pastor has mouths to feed and loans to pay. The message is clear. The church will not be able to afford their leadership for long. It's hard to focus on ministry, so the pastor begins putting energy and effort into looking for another call.
Presbyterians scrap ad campaign deemed offensive to minorities
c. 2015 Religion News Service...
Police encounters
We are confronting a reality that for some of us was just an abstraction: black and white communities perceive the police differently and are treated differently by them.
Reframing our story
I've seen family relationships crash and burn on the Christian celebrity circuit. I've seen how we get so addicted to praise that we can't handle criticism. But when we write, we generally become healthier humans.
What a friend we have in Jesus
We often like to speak, in Christian circles, about the God who descends, who comes down, who is somehow nearest to those on the bottom, those who find themselves on the wrong side of the scor...
Marjorie Silva, a (Christian!) baker against hate
One baker doesn’t want to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Another baker doesn’t want to decorate a cake with the words “God hates gays.” Are the two cases comparable?
The differences may be obvious, but they’re also complex.
Other people saying things
"For them, Heather Cook’s crime spree began with her ordination, and continued because the church that consecrated...
Accidents of Providence, by Stacia M. Brown
Paul Elie has lamented the absence of serious engagement with Christianity in contemporary fiction. He should read Stacia Brown.
As Nigerian election nears, Boko Haram looms large
(The Christian Science Monitor) The purported leader of Boko Haram claimed responsibility in a video Wednesday (January 21) for a mass...
Iraq's Kurds scramble to fend off new Islamic State assault
(The Christian Science Monitor) In the bright January sunshine, Kurdish fighters pose for photographs and dance around an armored vehi...
Historian and theologian Marcus Borg dies at 72
Marcus J. Borg, who for a generation helped popularize intense debates about the historical Jesus and the veracity and meaning of the New Testament, died January 21....
French Jews look to emigrate amid rising anti-Semitism
(The Christian Science Monitor) On a gloomy winter’s afternoon, a group of mothers chatted as they waited outside a primary school for...
Jack Moline to head the Interfaith Alliance
Jack Moline, a rabbi who briefly led the nation’s top Jewish Democratic group, is the new head of the Interfaith Alliance, an advocacy group for the separation of church and state and for progres...
Keep Jesus weird
It's no surprise that Nicodemus goes home befuddled. If discipleship doesn't come with some confusion, it probably isn't Jesus you're following.
Attachment worshiping
It has been two years now since I left my work in congregational ministry—which means that for the past two years I have been able to consistently worship with my family instead of sitting in the p...
What I learned from a year of fiction
Like a lot of my preacher friends, I typically read nonfiction, theology, and fiction classics. So, it was a little different for me to delve into the world of hot-off-the-press page-turners. I did it for a year. This is what I learned.
Marcus Borg reintroduced me to Jesus
Many people will remember Borg as the person who made space for them to return to—or remain in—the Christian faith. It's a wonderful irony.