Giving Thanks for Desmond Tutu
Another Great Soul has burned through the flesh of this world to dwell forever in the heart of God. As for so many thousands around the world, Desmond Tutu’s death …
Weeping for the Peace of Jerusalem
In the stunned faces and writhing bodies of little children besieged by bombs and missiles we hear the ancient cry of the God whose own body is constantly torn apart …
Demons Personal and Public
America needs its own day of Yom Kippur — a day of repentance and atonement, a day of confession and renewal. Without a time set aside for naming this essential …
History: The Tragedy and the Farce
Karl Marx begins his famous essay of 1851, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” with the statement that “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as …
Bad Memories — Guest Posting by Scott A. Taylor
Readers of these postings will remember that I have spent many months recently helping to lead efforts by members of our church and community to examine our racist history and …
Capitol Desecration and Sacred Conversations
Many commentators have described the assault on our nation’s Capitol as a “desecration,” and indeed it was. We feel violated. We feel waves pounding at the foundation of our fundamental …
Grief and Love
An ocean of grief has overwhelmed us. It comes as an enveloping cloud, a flood, an avalanche, burying us, immobilizing us. We sit dazed each night before the television, trying …
Race, Remembrance, and Forgiveness
I am presently engaged in a lengthy course at our church (via Zoom, naturally) entitled “Struggling with Race, Remembrance, and Reparations.” Over forty of us are gathering every week to …
Living in God’s Image: Despotism or Republican Democracy?
My thoughts about the despotism that is infecting our virus-plagued lives have gained a new articulation in The Christian Citizen, an American Baptist journal stimulating reflection on the church’s involvement …
Masks, Rights, and Covenants
Some people around us claim they have a right to refuse to wear a mask during the Covid pandemic. For some it is an appeal to a vague penumbra of …
Bursting Fourth
America begins again each year with a Big Bang so loud we cannot hear, the smoke so dense we cannot breathe, the light so bright we cannot see the dead, …
Religion and Our Constitutional Crisis
Last Sunday I made a Zoom presentation of a talk that had been scheduled BP (Before the Pandemic) with the Ethical Humanist Society of Asheville. In the talk, I returned …
Breathing Together
I was just slipping into my nighttime ritual of reading in bed before lights out when I heard a commotion out on the street and the cry, “I can’t breathe!” …
Memorial Day—A Day of Reconciliation?
It is Memorial Day in America—a time to grieve and honor those who have died in all America’s wars, including those who fought on both sides in our Civil War. …
Virtual Communion
In this time of self-isolation we are increasingly starved for face-to-face meetings with others. No internet connection can replace the rich encounter of the club, the church, the tavern, or …