Posts Tagged ‘Jesus’
Multiculturalism Cuts Both Ways
“A People of Many Faces” is one of the more intriguing sections of Pope Francis’s The Joy of the Gospel, having to do with cultural incarnations of Christianity. “We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as monocultural and monotonous,” he writes. Earlier he states, “The history…
Read More“Room for Me?” Spotlights LGBTQ Christians In The Reformed Church In America
I see God alive as the church continues to widen our embrace for all people, especially for LGBTQ people of God. God is moving, I have no doubt of this. In the denomination in which I’m ordained, the Reformed Church in America (RCA), I see more churches choosing to follow the way of Jesus and…
Read MoreWhen Our Daughter Came Out
Four years ago our daughter came out to us as bi. She was 20. My first thoughts were that we’d never be the same in the church. No kidding. My daughter is telling me something very intimate and scary, several thoughts are going through my head, and I am a little surprised to realize that…
Read MoreToday Is Painful, But It Is Not The End
In June 2013, Mary Ann Barclay was removed from her ordination process by her United Methodist Board of Ordained Ministry after she married a woman. After being reinstated in December 2013 by Southwest Texas Bishop Jim Dorff, Barclay interviewed before the board this week and was not recommended for commissioning. The following is her statement on this…
Read More“Jesus Preaches In The Temple”
It took Douglas Blanchard’s painting “Jesus Preaches in the Temple” and Kittredge Cherry’s reflections on his series of 24 paintings of Jesus’ life, The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision, to remind me that scripture says several times that Jesus taught in the temple in the midst of the Passion narrative. Of course, most of us remember that when Jesus…
Read MoreFinding God In Transition
From my teens to my early twenties, I was a good Catholic boy. I went to mass several times a week, which included playing guitar with two different church choirs. In college, I even went to Protestant Bible studies to hear the Word of God. When I was 18, I began to explore becoming a…
Read MoreLoving All God’s Children Equally
Today’s church, the Body of Christ, is at a crossroads. Some denominations are trying to wear an accommodating mask under the guise of phrases like “hate the sin, love the sinner,” but upon closer examination, we see that these words have a less-than-Christ-like tone. How can love be a sin? The “sin” here is love,…
Read MoreSeeing With The Eyes Of The Soul
Picture the scene as Mary Magdalene weeps outside the tomb of Jesus. She’d already witnessed her Lord and friend murdered days earlier, nails hammered hard through his hands and feet, his body dying before her. And this morning she’s up early to clean and anoint him, but he isn’t here! His body’s missing! “They’ve taken…
Read MoreWhat Jesus Told Me
Playing a “gay Jesus” figure in Terrence McNally’s passion play “Corpus Christi” for the past eight years has given me a deeply intimate and awesomely sublime connection to the teachings of Jesus. This play brought me back to a faith I unofficially, and internally, denounced after being baptized, raised, and confirmed Catholic. I couldn’t give…
Read MoreChristianity Made Me Bisexual
I grew up in the church and prayed the sinner’s prayer at least a dozen times between age six and sixth grade. As someone who grew up in the church, I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering how much my life has been shaped by my parents’ religion. With a different upbringing, I might have…
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