Controversy

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP IS ALWAYS WILLING TO STAND UP FOR SOMETHING AND BE CONTROVERSIAL. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH WILL DIE OF BOREDOM BEFORE IT WILL DIE OF CONTROVERSY.

John Shelby Spong, from a lecture delivered July 14, 2014 at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.

Factory Farming

This

Female Ordination

For centuries, women’s rights have been withheld because of religious patriarchy’s claim of women’s supposed moral inferiority. Women’s ordination has remained a controversial issue and is not available to Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant denominations, despite the compelling arguments for women’s equality and the progress that feminists have made in creating a voice for women around the world. Many, if not most, Christian institutions still reject the notion that women should have equal rights to ordination.

The consequences of the denial of ordination rights to women are far reaching—the conscious and subconscious mindsets created and supported by antifeminist religious positions are damaging to progressive movements and serve to keep people in an archaic mindset that presupposes the spiritual and moral superiority of men, which can be used to support abuse, oppression, and varying forms of mistreatment toward women.

Christian Worship

"…The purpose of employing cultural, ethnic, or ritual forms in worship is to ‘serve the gospel… The use of diverse cultural gifts in worship is an imperative, as the gospel cannot be communicated outside of human culture. But the use of these gifts is always for the sake of the gospel, and not for the sake of culture.’"

— from Worship for the Whole People of God: Vital Worship for the 21st Century by Ruth C. Duck.  Quoting Karen Ward’s “What is Culturally Specific Worship?”

My Life's Scripture

While I claim the Bible as my scripture, I cannot say to the degree that some can that it has been formative.  While the Bible certainly informs my life and my person, it’s a book I didn’t find until my teens.  Considering myself ethnically “American,” I also feel that my racial heritage informs my life very little.  My mother might claim “Irish,” but I don’t feel that way.  I don’t know stories about my ancestors that are particularly meaningful to me.  I would have to suggest that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a huge part of my identifying story.  I am not sure that translates into preaching contexts, but it is very true for me.  I often turn to that show to ground myself or to explore a feeling.  What I can most glean from that reality is that my storytelling should offer the same kind of connection that I found in the show:  parallel and metaphor.  When I can reimagine Bible stories to include me as a character, to include us as characters, I think I can better communicate the messages I find in the text.

You Can Become a Blessing

Dedication

Gatlin Property

spinachandmushrooms:

On the Gatlin property.

The Trail of Tears went through my in-laws’ property.

For Those Whose Work is Invisible

Dayton, Tennessee

spinachandmushrooms:

The house.

This is where I spent my Christmas holiday last year– in the mountains near Dayton, TN.  In Dayton there are TONS of churches, but no UCC or MCC or UU… sad face.

Repentance

There are many ways in which healing may need to take place in our lives.

Sometimes we need literal, physical healing. Sometimes we need to heal our emotions, our relationships… Sometimes the relationship that needs the most healing is the relationship with ourselves.

Sometimes our spiritual relationships need healing.

A balanced life needs support in more ways than one. I don’t advocate spiritual practice to cure cancer or fix your relationship with your mother. I do believe, however, that a healthy spiritual life can positively affect our lives and relationships by bringing us focus and balance.

I-- perhaps like you-- often struggle with the things that religion does in the world and the theologies that are often put forth by religious institutions. Repentance is something I have struggled with because I don’t want to advocate a form of religion that requires us to beat ourselves up all the time, but I’ve come to understand repentance a bit differently than I used to.

I think a spirit of repentance can allow us to have an honest relationship with God.

Sometimes when we feel guilty or insecure or like we’re not our best selves, it can inhibit our relationship to the Divine. When we adopt a repentant spirit, a spirit that is honest with God and ourselves, we can break the self-destructive cycles of guilt.

We often shut God out when we feel we aren’t “good enough” for God, but the reality is that we need God most in our times of self-doubt.

God is more present in our lives when we allow God to be. When we stop shutting God out, feeling bad about ourselves, we let God back in.

We deny ourselves grace when we shut God out– and God is full of grace. We deny God when we refuse the extravagant love and grace that Divinity offers us. Sometimes we dislike ourselves so much that we are afraid God does, too. When we can’t believe in the love of God, it’s hard to love ourselves and others. The beautiful truth is, though, that God keeps on loving. Infinitely. When we can believe that– really believe it– that the spirit of Divinity in this world is love and loves us unconditionally, we can let God back in.

I want us to let God in.

Sometimes we want to deny God. It can be very hard to accept love. Sometimes our guilt and refusal to accept help, love, and acceptance from others keeps us from receiving God’s grace. Sometimes our intellect prevents us from talking about God, because we feel as though it makes other people disregard us as a social sheep.

This is where repentance comes in. Repentance can be freeing and loving in ways that we might not expect.

So repent. Repent if you feel like you’re not who you should be, or who people expect you to be, because such feelings will do little for your soul. They further your self-hatred, but they do little for your relationship with God. You can talk to God. You don’t need to feel ashamed. You don’t need to feel like you don’t live up to God’s standards.

Guilt builds up. It drags on our souls and makes us hate ourselves and creates little encouragement to help us change ourselves or the things around us.

God is able to provide symbolic reciprocity.

Feeling guilty is not enough because, although it seems counter-intuitive, there is pride in guilt.
Guilt requires nothing.
We feel bad and get down on ourselves, but guilt affects no one but ourselves.
Guilt is ME talking to ME and saying, “Me, you suck.”
That doesn’t do anything.

Humility comes when we openly speak to God and others, when we have enough willpower to take our feelings past guilt to repentance. The willingness to be honest, to open our feelings and transgressions in complete shamefulness, to say, “I am not perfect. Praise for the life of Jesus and his example to us all.”

In realizing our limitations, in opening our guilt to God, in repenting, our relationship with God becomes real. Our relationship is realized, not just something we want. We need willingness to be honest with God. Repentance goes beyond guilt, because it is honesty, acknowledgment, and commitment. So today I want to ask us to be open– really open– to God. I pray that in opening ourselves in honesty to the spirit of the Divine, we will find grace and healing in our lives that will free us to be co-Creators in the world and to bring the justice and peace that are so desperately needed. Let us be open to God and bring Grace into the world.

Dayton, Tennessee

Trail of Tears

Expression

"Exercising the right to speak says something about the power and value of authorizing one’s own perspective. To be author of our own reality is to claim the value of our experience, to trust our ability to reason and reflect, and to accept ourselves as we really are. This is central to the meaning of “voice” as authoritative expression."
Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson, Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (Lucas Park Books, 2014), 12.