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What’s this dude doing? A sermon on John 2:13-22 and Jesus turning over the tables (part 1)
Hi friends, I recently had the chance to preach a guest sermon on John 2:13-22, the passage where Jesus flips over some flippin’ tables. Here’s the story, as the NRSV translation tells it: 13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling…
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New year, new Substack
Hi friends, Here we are, with January almost gone, and I’m not sure I’ve quite wrapped my mind around 2024 yet. But I wanted to share with you something I’m starting in this new(ish) year: a Substack! I feel like Substack is the kind of thing that’s old news to a very particular kind of…
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What exactly broke the world? Reflections on Fortune by Lisa Sharon Harper
Hi friends, Something I love about Lisa Sharon Harper’s recent-ish book Fortune is that it raises—and then unpacks—this question: What exactly broke our world? I think this is a crucial question. But it’s not always one that we talk about—at least not with nearly enough specificity. In my experience in Christian circles, in particular, people…
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All the authority issues: reflections on a year of Patheos blogs
Hi friends, I recently concluded an almost-year’s worth of weekly-ish blogging with Patheos. I wanted to try to sum up the journey here—including lots of links, in case there are posts you haven’t seen yet but want to check out. Lots and lots of links. You’ve been warned. After kicking off the blog with some…
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If love conflicts with our politics, let’s change our politics
Hi friends, I don’t often seek out Christianity Today articles, but sometimes people bring them to my attention. And sometimes I have some feelings and thoughts about them that feel worth sharing. For instance: this recent piece about a West Texas pastor who shelters migrants, despite holding generally Republican stances on immigration. It’s so complicated.…
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Individualism twists our understanding of injustice
Hi friends, Ally Henny was an (online) classmate of mine in seminary, and I’ve appreciated her voice on social media ever since. But I hadn’t really read much of her (non-social-media) writing until now. I just read her recently released book, I Won’t Shut Up: Finding Your Voice When the World Tries to Silence You.…
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Super chill book review part 1: Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey
Hi friends, My general goal is to post here weekly-ish, so I kind of wanted to get a “super chill book review” of Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto (Little, Brown Spark 2022) out last Friday. But then I was tired. There’s been a lot going on. And I thought, if I’ve learned anything…
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Race-based affirmative action: what’s in it for white folks?
Hi friends, I want to say a little more about affirmative action. I feel like this is one of those things that, for some of us—that is, for those of us who don’t feel like we’re directly impacted—that is, for those of us who are white (and/or perhaps Asian American?)—it might be easy to move…
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Shiny and Happy
Hi friends, I’ve been continuing to watch all the recent evangelicalism exposé documentaries. It’s a lot. I’m talking The Secrets of Hillsong (some reflections here and here). I’m talking God Forbid (on the Falwells, yikes). And I’m talking Shiny Happy People (on the Duggars, Gothard, and IBLP). This week, I wanted to share a few…
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Super chill book review: Atlas of the Heart (Brene Brown)
Given how long it took to get a copy—that is, one of 114 copies—of Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart (Random House 2021) from the local library system, I’m going to venture a guess that rather a lot of people are reading it or have read it recently. (Also, it’s a TV series? I haven’t…