Awkward Christian
For twenty years after I graduated, I told people I’d had a good experience in my high school youth group. It was my first church experience, I’d formed my first faith community there, played an active role in leadership, met friends I still have connections to, and learned how to live out my faith. Then, …
4 Things I’ve Learned from My Own #MeToo Story: for iBelieveRead More
One of the main reasons I stay at my church is also one of the things I dislike most about it. This is it: it’s a large institution. I go to a biggish Presbyterian church. A “Presbyterian” church is literally a church governed by “presbyters”—Greek for elders, or leaders. That’s one of the big reasons …
[Trigger warning: Conversation about abuse. ] Can we talk about a big clobber word? Abuse. Also, its derivatives: abusive and abuser. They’re ugly words, kind of like the word racist or rape. Be an abusive parent, and you might get your kids taken away, or, at the very least, be shamed and ostracized. Abuse is horrible, horrifying, beyond the pale. I’ve experienced abuse a few …
The day I realized my anxiety about the Bible wasn’t going away, I thought I’d completely placed my fretting in God’s hands. After settling in my green easy chair, I found the passage in Matthew for my new reading plan—the plan I saw as a new leaf in my spotty devotionals. I wanted to finally …
It was a shock when I realized I was imitating a Biblical villain. I’d been married for about eight years when I studied the book of Esther with Beth Moore’s curriculum. A few weeks in, Moore talked about the story’s enraged anti-hero, Haman, identifying his meanness as the “spirit of Haman.” “As Christians,” Moore said, …
I wrote two posts a few weeks back about healing generational sin. One of the commenters said she feels stuck and despairing of the actual healing part. Which is exactly what I was afraid of when I wrote that post. If you read my blog and come away with the idea that you’d better roll up your sleeves …
[trigger warning: rape and sexual assault] Let’s not be to quick to dismiss Bill Cosby as an evil person, or shove him, eyes averted, in a box labeled ‘psychopath’. Instead of casting him into the outer darkness, let’s take a deep look in his eyes and see if there’s not a mirror there. Not reflecting …
Bill Cosby, Needles, Haystacks and Why Rape Culture Is Old NewsRead More
