What might it look like to seek peace and justice rather than simply to win?

I am a white male Baby Boomer, born and raised in the (Reformed) evangelical world. I am now retired after having ministered in that world for 49 years. My own “deconstruction” started more than 40 years ago. In September of 2026, my wife and I attended The Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina for the first time. The first Festival was held in 2011, and Wikipedia describes it as “an art, music, and story-driven festival grounded in faith-inspired social justice.” We had no i

I have come to the end of Parker J. Palmer’s wonderful book On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old. The last chapter asks “How shall we then die?” He’s not a fan of the “pie in the sky” perspective: “Theologies that portray heaven as a gated community in the sky don’t speak to my condition. Among other things, an eternity spent exclusively among members of my own tribe sounds more hellish than heavenly.” Now that Palmer is older, he is less certain o

I read this prayer today from Cole Arthur Riley, in her book “Black Liturgies”. There are several valuable reminders here. One is that fear can make us demand definition from mystery. We want to know exactly, black and white, what is what. Often that desire is driven by fear. Another is that we can be several things at the same time – fluid: we can be angry and kind, well and wounded. The last is that sometimes binaries are used to make us small. If fear is your issue, this p

“Who gave us Trump?” This question has driven conversations at every level across America, and generated innumerable articles, books, podcasts, and talking-head shows since DJT appeared on the political scene. A relevant corollary question is: “Why did more than three-quarters of white American evangelicals vote for him, not once, not twice, but three times?” The Holy Post podcast devoted its September 23, 2026 episode to “The Debate over Evangelicalism”, an attempt to

Yesterday, the beloved Wendell Berry died at age 92. He was an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Many of us profited greatly from his various writings, always being challenged by him to pay better attention to what is happening around us, and to do what we could for the good of all things, no matter how small. And he could always comfort: “The impeded stream is the one that sings.” A friend and I were texting about his pas

This coming Friday, August 28, I will be with – hopefully – thousands of others on the Mall in Washington, D.C., marching with the “Defend the Vote” protest. It is exactly the 63rd anniversary of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We march to defend the vote, because voting rights are under attack and the protections generations fought, bled, and died for are being weakened. We march to defend civil rights, because attacks on diversity

Sunday in church we sang the familiar “Amazing Grace”, written by converted slave ship captain John Newton. Everyone knows the hymn. Our congregation is largely upper-middle-class, mostly made up of the baby boomer generation. As we sang the first line, in which Newton declares his amazement at the thought that God would save “a wretch like me”, I considered whether I had been or am a wretch. I looked around, wondering how many in the congregation would identify themselves

I was born, raised, and trained in a strong evangelical (Reformed) community. I spent the first 25 years of my adult life ministering formally from that community. Now, I do not call myself evangelical. That is not because I think the community was/is not well-intentioned and has everything wrong. Rather, I am convinced the community has aligned itself with modern Western culture more than it recognizes and is willing to admit, and that this alignment has produced some bad fr

Rethinking "O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus" and the direction of the biblical story. Recently my lectionary devotional app played a classic hymn - O, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus. (See lyrics below). I remember it well from my growing-up years. We sang it regularly at home and church. I could probably sing every part and most of the lyrics without a book. When I hear it today, those memories go deep. But other thoughts arise after 40+ years of life experience, during whic

A couple of days ago, I wrote to the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, of the podcast The Briefing, about his comments regarding the Trump decoy flight out of Turkey last month and the story that broke this week of the resignation of Dr. Jason Arday, professor at Cambridge University in England. Arday resigned due to investigations into alleged serious plagiarism, academic qualifications, and honorary appointments. There were also serious questions about the truth of things he had said

During the last few years, I have been sourcing my prayers from a variety of ethnic, cultural, and religious traditions. Sometimes the prayers are as good as – or better than – the Bible! But that makes perfect sense to me, because I take literally and seriously the declarations of the Bible that Jesus has created all things and is holding all things together (Col. 1), that “in him we move and have our being” (Acts 17 – note: a quote from a Greek philosopher which found its w

As you may know, I listen regularly to white evangelical leaders in the hope that they will lead us through the times in which we find ourselves with truth and clarity. I would like to hear them show us how to live in a pluralistic society in which white evangelicals are not in the majority, as was the case in the first couple of centuries of the Christian church. I occasionally respond to podcasts, as I did to a podcast of the Rev. Dr. Al Mohler called The Briefing, a daily

I am reading a book called The Gospel According to Eve (2019) by the Rev. Dr. Amanda Benckhuysen (what a great Dutch name!). The book...

Bruce [i] Onobrakpeya (b. 1936) is a celebrated Nigerian painter and printmaker. Onobrakpeya pioneered bronzed lino relief and metal...

In light of the – not optimistic – scenarios that lie before us, those who do not sink into despair want a Plan. What are we going to do?...

“The universe is a cosmic dance of energy…Everything we humans do is about energy.” (pg 240) Energy comes from sunlight, liquids, food...

It is a great temptation nowadays to respond to the “outrage of the day”. (Just in the last week free speech and due process rights have...

“We live in a time of stunning and contagious collective stupidity [i] . Anti-Nazi German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Letters...

Imagine what a “safe landing” would look like in a swirling, stormy world, in which we experience “economic meltdown, climate countdown,...