Posts Tagged ‘Jesus’
Weeping As Jesus Wept
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9 This week we stepped into a period of mourning, overwhelmed by a string of deaths that remind us again that we live in a…
Read MoreIn Defense Of Thomas’ Doubt
The Apostle Thomas gets a raw deal. Really, in mainstream American Christianity, and in the secular popular imagination, he gets reduced to some kind of one-dimensional figure, known only for a moment in which he was proven wrong. He’s “Doubting Thomas,” the one witness to the resurrected Christ who takes a moment to think rationally…
Read MoreA Christian Mom’s Call To Do The Right Thing
As a mother of a gay son, I don’t think you can really understand where an LGBTQ person is coming from unless you come from a place of intense love. I don’t know that the LGBTQ issue would have registered much on my radar if I didn’t have someone whom I loved intensely struggling with…
Read MoreThe Source Of My Hope For The United Methodist Church
As a young queer and trans person seeking ordination in The United Methodist Church, I am incredibly blessed to have a wealth of role models to look to as I imagine the type of minister I hope to become. This may seem a strange thing to say in a denomination that has written discrimination against…
Read MoreThe Story Of Resurrection Is A Story Of Transition
Easter Sunday. A day of many questions and confusion within a hope-filled community. We still don’t know exactly what happened that night and moment. We can’t begin to imagination what folks were experiencing and feeling. As we reflected together this year over the snippets shared in the gospels, we immersed ourselves in imagining the fear…
Read MoreAt Brentwood Cathedral, Year of Mercy Mass Strives to Welcome LGBT People
During Lent in England’s Diocese of Brentwood, the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Helen scheduled a Mass for the LGBT community, in honor of the Jubilee Year of Mercy. While the Dean of the Cathedral, Fr. Martin Boland, presided at the liturgy, the homily, based on the story of the woman caught in adultery…
Read MoreEvangelical Christians On A Faith Journey To Supporting LGBTQ Equality
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal took a bold stance on discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBTQ) people last month. While political pundits want you to believe that he succumbed to pressure from the business community by vetoing the anti-LGBTQ bill, HB 757, the truth is that he upheld the core values that millions of…
Read MoreHow My Gender Journey Became My Resurrection
Easter service was exactly as one would expect, uneventful even, for most of those gathered that morning. As I joined my congregation early that day, I was greeted with the traditional “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” and the blast of the organ and choir singing, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” I took a breath, binding…
Read MoreNorth Carolina’s Transphobic Law Must Inspire Us To Love
Yesterday was a strange day for North Carolina. In late February the city council of Charlotte, the largest city in our state and, including the greater metro area, the home of roughly a tenth of the state’s population, passed an ordinance containing a strong set of LGBT protections including public accommodations protections for transgender people.…
Read MoreGay Christian Facebook Ads Rejected & Resurrected
Image Detail: “Jesus Goes to His Execution” by Doug Blanchard When Facebook repeatedly rejected ads for an LGBTQ book on the Passion of Christ recently, it revealed how religious dialogue can be limited in the social-media age. Censorship in social media, especially social-media advertising, is a legal grey area with few laws and precedents to…
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