Seeking to cover the nakedness of actual wrongdoing is the heart of the American dilemma today. And there’s a word for this behavior: “Enabling.”
All in Faith & Culture
Why we must not look away in the current crisis
Here’s what’s going on in America today: There’s a steaming pile of goopy food flying about in the next room, and too many of us are asking someone to please put up a curtain so we don’t have to see and smell that unpleasantness. We just can’t be bothered by other people’s problems right now; we’re too stressed out already.
There's a double standard on pastors and politics
In this momentous year of presidential politics, COVID-19 and racial reckoning, it’s time for Christians to reclaim a message that is biblical — whether it appears political or not. Politicians should not be the ones defining what is a biblical view, and neither should church members who just want to avoid being challenged in their biases.
Juneteenth should remind us of all the things we don't know
This year, Juneteenth must not be a “black holiday.” If we are to find a way forward in our country, if we are to be authentic followers of Jesus, we must find the humility to admit that we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do. This year, Juneteenth must become a day for all of us to earnestly fill in the gaps of the stories we have not been taught. To fail to do so will leave us all in bondage.
We need to talk about oppression, not just privilege
As we sat around the restaurant table on Martin Luther King Day – a near-60-year-old white man, a near-30-year-old white man and a mid-30s black man – we discovered we had stumbled into the very thing that can make a difference in our troubled world. We were engaging in meaningful conversation, actually listening to each other.
Have the conversation anyway
The joy we have found in welcoming into church life those who have been rejected and expelled and maligned by the church is beyond measure. Yes, we lost nearly 300 members because of our vote. But we also gained more than 350 new members because of our vote.
How the expectation gap creates trauma for white evangelicals
I’ve finally figured out why so many white evangelical Christians are so angry and claim they are being persecuted in America today. And it turns out we have something in common I hadn’t previously understood.
The problem with pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps
Most Americans believe everyone ought to be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. That’s the ideal we imagined, at least: If everyone would work harder or be smarter, they could achieve the American dream. Here’s the problem with that logic: Not everyone has working bootstraps to pull up.
The problem is not "purple" churches
This is not a Republican-versus-Democrat problem in our churches – although some politicians are working overtime to make it that, and one interloper has taken the reins vigorously. This is a failure of all of us to espouse a consistent ethic, a consistent theology, a holistic view of the demands of Christian community.
Racists don't get to determine who's racist
When someone frequently has to tell you how they are ‘not a racist’ or ‘not a bigot’ or ‘not sexist,’ there’s a pretty good chance they actually are those things.
The moral quandary of selling beds to child detention centers
This is the trickle-down moral economics of American policy today. It's harder and harder to know who are the good players and who are the bad players and who are the opportunistic players. It's possible some are all three at the same time.
A pope and a priest and World War II
Recent travels have afforded me the opportunity to walk in the paths of both Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty of Ireland and Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli of Rome. Their paths converged at the Vatican during the atrocities of World War II. The subsequent passage of time has shown Pius XII to have been complicit in enabling Hitler’s genocide while appearing to say slightly reassuring things and O’Flaherty to have quietly done the right thing by saving 6,500 people from execution.
In America's culture wars, the Golden Rule is no longer enough
Sadly, it seems America’s cultural divide has reached such a bitter impasse that the Golden Rule no longer applies. We’ve short-circuited it by jumping to the conclusion that “others” are not like us enough for the Golden Rule to apply.
The Joseph story informs us on climate change
Here’s a biblical appeal to evangelical Christians who don’t feel any responsibility to prevent further worsening of the climate: The why doesn’t matter so much to those of us (like me) who can’t cite the specifics of climate science. The what-to-do does matter to all of us who believe God has entrusted the earth to human care.
We suffer from information overload, and the cure is critical thinking
We've got more information, more data, more facts, more research available to us today on every subject imaginable than ever before. Most of us are not lacking in access to information. What we lack is willingness to consider all the available information and to think critically about that information.
Preaching the "red letters" often leaves congregants red in the face
What congregants seem to mean when they ask pastors to “just preach the gospel” is to avoid the things that make them uncomfortable and cause them to leave worship with something less than a warm glow in their hearts. They want Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday sermons, not Ash Wednesday or Good Friday sermons.
Why being transgender is not a sin
Even among Christians who appear kind or progressive, too often the existence of someone who identifies as transgender gets chalked up to “sin.” No doubt that’s the root reason so many Christians happily pile on against transgender persons and their family members about bathrooms and schools, because in their heart of hearts, they don’t understand transgender identity and simply default to thinking it is a sinful lifestyle choice.
A memo from 1968 to today’s Christian parents: Teach your children well
One of the greatest blind spots of white privilege is the ability not to talk with your children about critical issues of the day, to “protect” them from reality. Black parents don’t have this privilege. Hispanic parents don’t have this privilege. Poor parents don’t have this privilege. Immigrant parents don’t have this privilege. My parents had this privilege, even though they would have been sympathetic to integration. The point is, they didn’t have to talk about, though.
What the church could learn from ABC
It turns out that ABC has a sharper moral compass than the Evangelical church in America today. ABC took a stand against racist hate speech by cancelling the “Roseanne” show, which was making the network a ton of money. In contrast, Evangelical pastors and churches have bowed down to the most blatantly racist American president since Andrew Jackson and have refused to challenge him for fear of losing influence in Washington.
Remembering Ed McAteer and the Jerusalem embassy
Unless a face-to-face with Jesus has straightened out his theology or his politics — or both — Ed McAteer no doubt was smiling down from heaven this week as the United States relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No religious figure worked harder for such an outcome than McAteer, who died in 2004 at the age of 78.