David Henson
Why Sarah Palin is right about baptism by waterboarding
In a speech now heard ’round the Christian world, Sarah Palin said at an NRA rally that “waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists” if she were president.
Christians were up in arms about the apparent blasphemy of the statement, shocked that she would sacrilegiously connect waterboarding with the Christian sacrament of baptism.
End actual poverty first
Perhaps you’ve noticed it. Maybe even on this site in the advertisements.
Makena can’t read the Christmas story.
...Roberts, Scalia and the Voting Rights Act
There is a wicked irony that as the United States marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, the country’s highest court is edging closer to gutting one of the movement’s greatest victories.
As Americans everywhere celebrate the marches, martyrs, and nonviolent courage of Civil Rights activists in Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta and elsewhere, the Supreme Court seems poised to rollback the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or at least, eviscerate key provisions that make it functional legislation.
On our behalf
For Lent, I’m repenting.
And, as a progressive Christian, I’m also reclaiming repentance.
...Battle of the Sundays: Pulpit Freedom vs. World Communion
A curious thing is happening this Sunday in churches across America.
For some, this curious thing is Pulpit Freedom Sunday. The day, promoted by the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom for the fourth year, urges pastors to speak out in favor of candidates they support, defying IRS restrictions that forbid such political speech in religious nonprofits.
It’s generally a bad idea, and even most conservatives Christian pastors disagree with the ADF on this one. Yet there are still about 1,000 pastors who signed up for the ADF’s intiative, and, of course, Fox News personality Mike Huckabee has pledged his own support.
Meanwhile, in many mainline churches, the curious thing this Oct. 7 will not be Pulpit Freedom Sunday, but World Communion Sunday.
Of mothers and fathers
When
I became a stay-at-home father several years ago, I slowly realized
that all the theology I had studied in seminary, if I were honest,
didn’t connect with my new reality of diapers, spit-up and frozen breast
milk.
The great Thanksgiving
I love feasts.
Not so much the eating part, but the preparing part. For the past three
years, since becoming a stay-at-home dad, I have done most of the
cooking, especially around the holidays, planning, preparing, and
cooking festive feasts.
Can anybody find me somebody to love?
I have no enemies.
How am I to love them?
No
enemy curses me. No enemy raises fists at me. No enemy persecutes me.
No enemy hates me. I doubt anyone in the enemies of my state - Taliban
or Al-Qaeda - care much about a stay-at-home dad living in a suburb of
nothing in Texas. Frankly, I'm not important enough to have enemies in
this world, and I'm not doing anything important enough that might make
me any, either.