The eunuch sought God despite the fact that he had heard that there was no love for him there.
My full immersion into the world of TBN and a Christianity that can seem like it’s from another planet entirely, rather than strengthening my confidence in the sufficiency of my own tradition, has act...
It felt like a gift that had been caretaken by generations of the faithful and handed to us to live out and caretake and hand off. Like a stream that has flowed long before us and will continue long a...
I often think that the effort we put into trying to pretend something about us is true — that we are less than we are or more than we are or that one aspect of ourselves is the whole story — is based...
Her relationship to God wasn’t doctrinal. It was functional.
God was never about making me spiffy; God was about making me new.New doesn't always look perfect. Like the Easter story itself, new is often messy. New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks lik...
Because in the end, we aren’t punished for our sins as much as we are punished by our sins.
The resurrected Christ does such an unbearably loving and merciful thing. He does not rebuke Peter for failing him in his time of need. Instead he gives Peter breakfast, and then he gives Peter three...
When what seems to be depression or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over, try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to...
Trent had just spent an hour describing what he learned as a kid from his church: how the only way to please God, the same being who created him with a sexuality to begin with, was to not engage with...
There are many reasons to steer clear of Christianity. No question. I fully understand why people make that choice. Christianity has survived some unspeakable abominations: the Crusades, clergy sex-s...
The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ.
My mother claims that the first time I said more than one word at a time, I skipped the two-word combinations altogether and went right to Do it self. Yes, thank you very much, I will do it myself. I...
It’s about how God continues to reach into the graves we dig for ourselves and pull us out, giving us new life, in ways both dramatic and small.
I think this is why we at House for All Sinners and Saints sometimes say that we are religious but not spiritual. Spiritual feels individual and escapist. But to be religious (despite all the negative...
For all the misguided harmful messages of my religious upbringing, I still cherish that I was raised in a family where things mattered. Our lives bore a continual inflection of faith. I belonged to a...
To say Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy is to lay our hope in the redeeming work of the God of Easter as though our lives depended on it. Because they do. It means that we are an E...
Whenever people annoy me beyond reason, I can guarantee it’s because they’re demonstrating something I’d rather not see in myself.
This was the bonus to liberal Christianity: I could use my reason and believe at the same time.
The fact is, we are all, at once, bearers of the gospel and receivers of it. We meet the needs of others and have our needs met. And