Excommunication According to Jesus
Through vivid symbolism, Jesus was making a clear condemnation of the religious rulers who took it on themselves to judge who was in and who was out of God’s favor.
We Broke the Silence on #ChurchToo. Now It’s Time for #MissionsToo.
I have my own #MeToo stories and #ChurchToo stories. Yet, I also have #MissionsToo stories and they have yet to be given space in these movements.
Forgiving as Defiance: How a Female Enneagram 8 Moves On
In the strangest twist of grace that is so laughably just like God, it is the very person that I am which was so detested my former conservative missions community that allows me to forgive them.
To Be A Scapegoat
my counselor casually mentioned how my family had been scapegoated in the missions community. After she said that I spent several weeks reading about scapegoating and trying to decide if she was right. I think she was,
Betrayed by God
I feel betrayed by his silence and apathy, or at least by what looks like silence and apathy to me. As my son said, “How am I supposed to trust anyone when they tell me they care about me after this?” How do I trust God’s love for me when it feels like God is less concerned with justice, truth, and kindness than I am?
I Am Not A Safe Person
None of us can be safe for everything. We have to choose what we will be safe for and what we will be unsafe for.
My Transformation from Complementarianism to Egalitarianism
If God’s desire is that men lead unilaterally over women, yet over and over in Scripture there are situations in which women are in authority over men, God is incompetent… or else this is how God wants it to be.
Sea Glass Forgiveness
I’ve never been much of a collector. If anything, I love throwing things away. Probably a consequence of a life lived on the move since childhood. I hold onto material possessions lightly, and there are precious few things that I can say have any real sentimental value to me. One of the few exceptions is sea glass. On my honeymoon fourteen years ago, I started keeping the sea glass that I found on my walks along the shores in whatever…
The Cyclical Nature of Faith
In a linear perspective, one “winter” is okay, but another is a crisis. But this isn’t the reality of nature or faith. We are seasonal beings, and every season contains both hope and hints of the coming change.
Certainty: Faith’s Distraction
Too often in Christian circles faith is equated with more certainty. More certainty means more faith. The truly mature do not doubt, or so the line goes. But that is a Western cultural perception that has everything to do with how much we live in our heads and intellectualize faith and very little to do with how Scripture describes the essence of a faithful life.