Where Does God Dwell?
By spiritualizing place, and thereby transmogrifying place-based identities into racialized ones, Christianity cooperated with the machinations of settler-colonial capitalism in its world-making...
View ArticleThe Miraculous Power of Limitations
Jesus’s followers seek a “prophet” who serves human desires for control and vengeance: the power his followers think is essential in order to defeat their human oppressors. They forget that the prophet...
View ArticleDavid’s Political Apology
The politician David's apology may communicate genuine remorse, an intention to make amends, or his acceptance of the consequences of his actions. Or, it may be a word-smithed damage control statement,...
View ArticleGood Anger
Whether the text of Ephesians directs its audience to anger or simply acknowledges the common experience of anger, one thing is clear: anger is not to be condemned. Source
View ArticleWisdom’s Warning to Lovers of Death
I believe the recognition that wisdom and love go hand in hand cannot simply be abstracted as some general and vague love for the world and its persons. It is, in fact, a general and abstract love that...
View ArticleThe Shoes of Peace: Let us Find Our Way Through
Put on your feet whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. These shoes are not weapons, nor are they articles of protection. We are instructed to put on a pair of shoes that makes...
View ArticleWise Religion
Nowadays, people often measure the authenticity of religious practice by how much it flies in the face of broader society. In Deuteronomy, Moses offers a different vision for how religion might relate...
View ArticleFavoritism in the Church
When leading members in the church uncritically participate in class based favoritism, they become complicit in oppression. The message of James is simple and arresting. Judgement awaits those who...
View ArticleWisdom’s Judgment
Wisdom’s words of judgement are not for others; they are for us. Wisdom has called and we have refused. She has stretched out her hand, and we have not heeded. Source
View ArticleDisownment and the Discourse of Death
To be personally acquainted with disownment and the discourse of death—simultaneously, from divergent communities—and still desire to be “servant of all” is, perhaps, one way to journey through death...
View ArticleCommunities of Confession
How do we repent in a manner that is concrete and substantive but does not risk re-hurting those whom we have wronged? James’s notion of confession together in community offers one possibility. Source
View ArticleThe Power You Have
Our problem is neither that we have power nor that we lack power. Many factors outside our control determine how much power we actually have. Our problem is that we fail to recognize the power we do...
View ArticleChristianity Unreconciled with Wealth
Is wealth the opposite of Christianity? Is profit antithetical to the kin-dom of God? A look into Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli’s accounting process – now called reconciliation accounting – reveals...
View ArticleSeeking Wisdom in the Political Whirlwind
The question I would like to pose this week is whether a theophany of the kind that we find in Job 38 would satisfy people—the aggrieved, the hurting, the oppressed, the battered—as a response to...
View ArticleCalling God to Account
Today’s texts are complicated, messy messages of divine justice. Perhaps the best we can learn from Job or Bartimaeus is the courage to call God to accountability. Source
View ArticleIs God’s Kingship a Progressive Idea?
Kingship is an irredeemably hierarchical, patriarchal form of rule, right? Maybe not, says Psalm 146—if the king is God. Source
View ArticleA Widow’s Presence
In her very presence, the widow performs the political act of bringing to light oppression and injustice. Our task is to learn how to see her. Source
View ArticleThe End of a World is not the End of the World
Jesus’ saying about the destruction of the temple gives us a way to view human structures as the powers they are but also as provisional—as all human things are. Source
View ArticleChrist, the (Subversive) King
If Christ is King, he takes on that role in order to subvert dominant understandings of power and its exercise. Christ turns power and kingship upside down and uses them for new and much more creative...
View ArticleThe Politics of Shame: Reflecting on Psalm 25:1-10
In that trust in the divine, one can unashamedly open up their positions and postures because God receives people as they are and as they wish to come. God doesn’t blame and shame any names; rather God...
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