Unity: The Conservative's Worst Nightmare or Our Best Hope?
The Problem with Unity This past Sunday, while sitting in the Sunday morning session at the Unity Spiritual Center of Denton, I had a powerful flash of insight: This is the religious conservative’s...
View ArticleWho Owns the Title to Orthodoxy?
Orthodoxy–authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice. Many claim it for themselves. But I ask: who really gets to own this word? Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological...
View ArticleTo Trust in The Lord
Most of us can agree on major goals. For the church, it is “Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul and love your neighbor as yourself” and “Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the...
View ArticleThe UMC At the Crossroads: Elitism or Inclusion–or Holy Love?
“Nothing, I would argue, is more effective at driving people away from religion than watching its most elite representatives—the whitest, malest, straightest, most educated, with the biggest...
View ArticleThe church then and today: the need to exclude defines us
Saturday was Sicily. We wandered in the small villages that Francis Ford Coppola inadvertently made famous by filming parts of The Godfather movie series in them. We were making our way to a church...
View ArticleIt’s time. Blow up the UMC. My own breaking point.
These responses may be the breaking point for me. A church based on a theology of grace operates with the same nastiness of our current political discourse. I had planned a gentle, thoughtful post...
View ArticleIt Is What It Is: The Bus, The Cruise And The UMC
I managed to hold on until we got off the bus, headed to the pier edge, sat down on a fortunately placed piece of covered pipe and waited. The outcome was inevitable. After a few bouts of retching, I...
View ArticleYes, Fighting Church Folk: There IS a Great Bunny of Wisdom
The often-funny Pearls Before Swine comic strip with its “Great Bunny of Wisdom” wish speaks specifically to our crazy political world. The fights in the church world, particularly the UMC one, nearly...
View ArticleResponse To The Great Divorce, i.e., “Protocol Of Reconciliation & Grace...
Even as I appreciate their attempt to mediate the great divorce, frankly, every single one of the people who created and signed this document is himself/herself guilty of disobedience to The Discipline...
View ArticleThe UMC Must Die To Have Any Hope Of Life
My idealist vision of the hope of life after death? We acknowledge and act on the reality that the prophetic word of God emerges more from the uncomfortably marginalized than from the comfortably...
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