If she can’t say no, she also can’t say yes

4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does 1 Corinthians 7:4 (NRSV).

This is a popular verse for angry men to use, only they usually only quote the first phrase. They use it as a “gotcha” moment and insist that the wife can’t ever refuse her husband.

Many in the complementarian camp also insist that this is a primary reason for pornography among men. The wife won’t give him relief, so he has no option but to seek it outside the marriage.

In the complementarian scheme of things, made popular by MacArthur, Piper, Sproul Jr, Wilson and so many others, a woman is to submit at all times, including in the bedroom. The husband is the aggressor, the conqueror, the invader (in the words of the degenerate Doug Wilson), and the wife is the conquered and the invaded. May he reap what he has sown.

This theology creates a power imbalance in the marriage. The wife cannot say “no” without saying no to God. She is obligated, according to this scheme, to take whatever the husband wants to dish out or risk living in sin.

(The longer I am away from these circles, the weirder all of it sounds. Pick up a copy of “The Great Sex Rescue” by Sheila Wray Gregoire for thorough documentation. And pick up “The Well-Trained Wife” by Tia Levings for a first person account.)

To the uninitiated, this might sound fringe. But it is preached from thousands of pulpits across the country and has made it to the president’s cabinet as they seek to impose Project 2025. We need to pay attention. There are many in the highest offices of the country who believe that the 19th amendment should be repealed.

There are problems here. The first is that it is very bad exegesis. God did not create men and women in a hierarchy. He created them after his image. In the Holy Trinity, regardless of the spewing of Wayne Grudem and his complementarian theology, there is not a hierarchy of authority and submission, but a mutual love and unity. This is classical trinitarian theology. The church has always rejected subordination in the Trinity.

So also in marriage. Even in the passage above, where Paul is addressing redeemed men and women, he is not putting one in authority over the other. He is re-enforcing their humanity. Their bodies are their own, and in mutual authority and submission with one another. Practically speaking, this doesn’t work in an authority/submission scheme. The only way this works is through mutual love and unity – which is Paul’s point.

This is also the point of the whole of the Song of Songs. First the woman is the aggressor, then the man; The sexual relationship is instigated by the woman, and by the man in a holy, all-consuming, intimate joining of two bodies in perfect love and unity without a hint of any “roles” of subordination or authority. This pictures the relationship of Jesus and the church.

This is also Paul’s point in the entire book of Ephesians. We are one flesh with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, pictured by the intercourse of a husband and wife “and they two shall become one flesh”. The sexual relationship is a mutual consenting agreement between two loving adults who give each other a holy Yes, just as the church gives Jesus a holy Yes, and Jesus responds in kind.

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” the bride sings.

In the complementarian scheme, the wife cannot consent because she cannot say no. Her consent is unnecessary or “given when they got married”. She is simply the receptacle of his lust and his seed. She is merely a “penis home” in the revolting words of Mark Driscoll.

Because her personhood, her choice, and her voice are all but denied even in the “best” of complementarian churches, complementarianism is nothing less than an attack on the image of God in the woman. She is reduces to simply a body, rather than a fitting helper (ezer kenegdo).

It is the image of God in the daughters of Eve that made her the fitting helper. It is what separated her from the animals. She was like Adam in every way, except female.

When she is relegated to eternal subordination, her voice and her will are permanently silenced, which is what Satan seeks to do to God’s people.

The only sexual relationship she knows is assault, for since she cannot withdraw consent, she also cannot consent. Her voice doesn’t matter.

This is far more serious than we understand. The damage is immense. There are millions of women living in perpetual trauma because of this false teaching. The are commanded by unscrupulous church leaders to live in the same house as their rapist, and let him do whatever he wants.

This isn’t Christianity and it doesn’t represent Christ.

Husbands are to love their wives and Christ loved the church, and Jesus is not a rapist. Women were safe in his presence.

Husband, is your wife safe with you? Could she tell you if she wasn’t?

Look at it this way. If all social and religious stigma against divorce were removed, and she was independently wealthy, would she leave your sorry ass?

If the only reason she stays is because she would be destitute, or cast out of her church, or believed God would hate her – then you do not have a marriage. You have a hostage crisis.

Malachi 3:16 – If you hate her that much, let her go, says the Lord God of Israel. (Yes, that is the correct translation).

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

SNAP, Poverty and Jesus

What the religious right gets so wrong

Nov 04, 2025


I did not do a poll of every single person who identifies as the religious right, but I grew up with it. I can read blogs. I see the comment section.

And this is what we hear from people who have “I love Jesus” in the biographies. I’ve heard this in countless fellowship meals in countless conservative churches.

“If they don’t work, they shouldn’t eat.”

“They can lift themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else”

“I work hard for my money, and I’m not paying for junk food for some single mom”

“Immigrants shouldn’t be coming to take welfare from us, anyway…”

And they get the heart of Christianity so damnably wrong.

First, Jesus himself said that feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty was an activity that separated his sheep from the goats of the world. Because he is speaking of the entire human race, his precepts here are universally binding.

Paul, however, who was writing to the Thessalonians stated that if one doesn’t work, he shouldn’t eat. Is he contradicting Jesus? Of course not. He is speaking of a specific situation in a specific time in a specific place. We don’t know the exact situation here, but he certainly isn’t talking about feeding the poor. Perhaps he is speaking of the idle rich class who were using the charities of the church to fill their bellies while contributing nothing. Every age has seen that type, and it seems to fit the context.

Whatever the specifics were, he doesn’t contradict the universal precept that if we wish to follow Jesus, we give our food to the hungry, clean water to the thirsty, help to the sick, and companionship and connection to the prisoner.

It isn’t an option.

So the next argument would be “Yes. But it is private charity. Not the government’s job to take from the rich to give to the poor.”

I used to buy that argument as well. We perhaps might see if they actually mean it this month, but I believe that they do not. I don’t see the rich giving food to the hungry without a lot of strings attached. Jesus himself said, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven!” And we want to entrust the care of the poor to the rich and their goodwill?

It is the government’s duty to promote the good and punish evil. If the rich do not volunteer to open their wallets to care for the poor, then I have no problem with the government coercing them to do so with taxes. I also believe that the government should prevent every sort of theft and every sort of violence and every sort of covenant breaking as well. It is, actually, their job.

The righteous king in Psalm 72 cares for the needy.

Let’s take another one: I work hard for my money and don’t want to give it to deadbeats.

This one I am writing to a specific audience – those who believe, as I do, that the bible is God’s word and authoritative.

The Bible says, “What do you have that you did not receive?” Didn’t we used to believe that? We give thanks before our meal, and then give ourselves credit for having enough to eat? Do you see the contradiction?

Did you receive it from the hand of God? Or did you not?

Who was it that gave you the ability to do your job well enough that you can live on your salary?

Who gave you your health?

Who gave you your privilege to attend school? To own a bank account?

Who caused the crops to grow and who brought the workers to the field and harvested those crops? Who gave the truck driver his eyes and ears to bring the food to the grocery? Who gave the dock worker his hands to unload that truck?

And who can take all of it away in a moment?

How many have had to flee from an abusive spouse? How many have children by a man who promised the moon and then fled? How many lost their health and then their jobs?

How many lost their job because they had a heart attack?

How many have had to flee with their children to get to somewhere safe?

How many are working the fields every day to bring in the food that you take credit for?

Do you see my point? If you claim to belong to Jesus, you used to confess this.

You might work hard, but it has nothing to do with whether you are rich or poor. Your riches and your poverty don’t come by your efforts. They come from the hand of God.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

11 I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift

or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant

or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all.

And here is the thing that will make you really uncomfortable.

If God has made you poor, he will exalt you and give you riches you cannot imagine.

If God has made you rich, he will hold you accountable for how you use those riches.

1 Timothy 6:17–18 (NIV)

17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

He expects wide open hands and wide open pocketbooks. Give, with the measure tamped down and overflowing, because it isn’t yours. He has just made you the caretaker for a little while, and he will check over the accounts when he comes for his vineyard.

That is the theology of scripture. You don’t have a choice and as a community we don’t have a choice. We must feed the hungry because what we have is loaned to us for a small time.

The single mom with kids? You have no idea what her story is. It doesn’t matter.

The man in line at the grocery using SNAP? You have no idea what his story is. He might be a slacker. He might be the hardest worker you have ever met. It doesn’t matter.

Muslem, Hindu, Jew, Palestinian, Christian, Atheist – makes no difference. No one should go hungry.

“What if their choices led to their poverty?” So what? Can you honestly say that your virtue has been so impeccable that you deserve every good thing you have? We all have fallen short in so many ways. That shouldn’t make us morose. It should make us laugh and sing and rejoice!

And it should make us generous. We should strive for policies that leave no one hungry or without healthcare, or without clean water. We might disagree on which policies work the best, but doing it isn’t an option. It MUST be done, Jesus requires it.

If you say, “Jesus is lord” you MUST strive to find a way to ensure that no one is hungry.

Jesus said, “What measure you use will be measured back to you.”

He is speaking in the context of judgment. If you are judging someone for being an evildoer, God will use that same judgment on you. This is what “judge not” means. If you are quick to point out flaws, God will be quick to point out yours.

To the subject at hand – if you are looking in the cart of that single mom with three crying kids and sneering at her cake mix, cookies and chips, think about God also looking at YOUR cart and using that same judgment…that’s the point.

It should make us thankful and filled with peace. It’s the path to loving your neighbor as yourself.

I want to be seen as someone with inherent dignity and honor; so I will choose to see my neighbor that way.

I want to have healthcare when I or my family are sick. I want to have enough to eat. I don’t want my neighbors judging me for what I choose to eat or not eat. I want to be seen and accepted.

The measure you use will be measured back to you. Do you want those things? Then also strive for them for your neighbor.

You should be happy that you have enough wealth to pay your taxes, so that your neighbor can also go to the doctor when they are sick. So that they can also eat when they are hungry and have clean water when they are thirsty.

And they should be able to have those things without judgment, without criticism, while being accepted as worthy of honor and dignity.

Why?

Because that is exactly what Jesus has done for you, when you didn’t deserve it. And he expects you to shine that same light on the world.

And just to clarify one of my pet peeves:

When you say, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” you are using a proverb that has the opposite meaning than what you intend. It is usually used to promote “rugged individualism”, but it actually means that we all need help and community.

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is actually impossible, which thinking people get. You don’t have the leverage, no matter how strong you are or how clever. It is against the laws of physics.

So also is the fiction that we can do it alone and don’t need any “charity”. Our next breath is because of the goodness of God. We all need community or we will all perish.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

The white light and a STEMI

I finally pieced together what happened to me.
My office is secure, so I was in there alone and the door was locked. I had just picked up a sandwich from Jimmy Johns and it was on my desk. I hadn’t even opened it.

I remember an immense pain in my chest and an inability to get off the floor. I remember dreaming that I was home in bed with my wife, and then I woke up again. I couldn’t get my breath. The pain was unimaginable. I couldn’t get up, so I started kicking my door from the floor. A co-worker heard me. I passed out again.

When I came to again, the school nursing staff was there with me and the ambulance was on the way. At this point I was in and out of it. I remember unlocking my phone so the nurse could call Susan.

Susan met us at the ER in Faribault. I was in and out, but I woke up for a second and told her that she could have my sandwich. I didn’t get around to it.

They needed to get me to Abbot Northwestern – which is one of the top four heart hospitals in the country. But the storm coming in was too dangerous for the helicopters. So they loaded me into another ambulance. I remember the drivers being very kind but somewhere along the way, I lost consciousness and didn’t regain it again for over 24 hours. I woke with a tube in my throat, and Susan telling me I was going to be OK.

Very soon after that, my pastor came in and read Psalm 27 and prayed with me.

Much later, I found out what had happened. I had a STEMI, (Acute ST elevation myocardial infarction of the inferior wall) which is nicknamed the widow-maker because of the horrible mortality rate. This kind doesn’t sneak up and take you from behind, It is a full assault. When I was 8, my grandpa died of this kind of heart attack. He was only 55.

The doctor told me that often the first symptom is death.

While I was under, I was told that I flat-lined and had to be put on life support. I was on two machines – an ecmo and an impella for something less than 24 hours keeping me alive and the blood oxygenated and flowing. At this point, the doctor told Susan to be prepared for palliative care.

Technically, it is called cardiogenic shock. When they heart goes into cardiogenic shock because of a STEMI, the mortality rate is around 80 percent.

But God had other plans. Because there were so many hundreds of you praying, my heart was ready to go on its own. Yes, I believe that God used the skill of the surgeons and the EMTs and the nursing staff and so many other things to spare my life. God wasn’t ready for me to go yet. The surgeon was pretty astounded and took me off the machines.

I have no memory of any of that.

I have had questions about what I saw. The simple answer is nothing. I have no memories of that whole time.

After I woke, I had hallucinations behind by eyelids whenever I closed my eyes, but for the most part they were ugly and hateful.

I had one horribly ugly nightmare, so bad I talked to several doctors about it. The psychiatrist admits there is mystery, but told me it is most likely the mind trying to formulate and make sense of what the body has been through. That sounds good to me.

As for my view of the afterlife, yes, I believe that when I die I will see Jesus and be with him. But I don’t get my faith from dreams and visions, but from faith in his promises.

My dreams and visions during that time were mostly ugly and frightening.
My moments of calm and peace were from holding my wife’s hand; listening to my pastor read and pray, reading the notes from all of you

I will have some PTSD to work through. I’ll have some PT to do and heart rehab to do.

For those who believe they saw something of the afterlife having the same experience, I don’t judge. People are different. I can only say what my experience was.

I don’t find peace and joy through dreams, but through sitting with the ones who love me and whom I love, reminding each other of God’s promises and resting in our Savior, who promised to never let go of our hands, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

I don’t know what happened to my sandwich. Susan tells me I might have to eventually let it go.

5 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

On being woke

I’ve mostly blocked all those who cause me unrest or threaten me. But every once in a while I hear something like, “All my friends say you went woke.”

To me, that’s the strangest insult a professing believer can hurl at someone since “a friend of sinners”.

To be woke is to be awake. And it is the best thing that has happened to me, even though it often makes me want to rise with the roosters and scream at the new day.

I used to sleep through the abuse, the degradation, the sexual harassment, the racism, the horrors of American History –

Is it better being awake? I see the horrors. I feel deeply the hundreds of years of hopelessness degradation and pain inflicted on image-bearers of God in the cotton fields. I can’t even imagine the trauma. I can’t imagine being forced at gunpoint in the middle of the night to cross a river with your small children, watching them drown behind you with nothing you can do about it.

I can’t imagine watching drunken white men with rifles rape your wives and daughters and then kill them in front of you for fun.

And I can’t imagine whitewashing it, as if it didn’t happen. To repent means to fully acknowledge the pain you have caused and turn from it.

So yes, being awake hurts. It feels deep and cutting.

But I can’t sleep again. To be asleep to it is to be dead. To be alive and to love, and to feel brings pain, but also brings longing and hope and the eyes to look for a new day when justice rains down like water on a dusty land. How do you long for justice when you are dead?

I wish that everyone would wake up. I pray that the light of Christ would fill the soul with the same tears that fall over Jerusalem.

O, Evangelical Church in America! How often would Jesus have lifted you up in his loving arms and taught you love and mercy and grace and peace! How often would he have exchanged your nuclear weapons for joy! How often would he have torn down your walls and given you goodness and faith and love! But you would not. You exchanged it for pride and money and sex and entitlement and power. You found another way to break your own heart.

My tears are falling, but I’ll never be asleep again.

Arise, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light (Paul the apostle, from his letter to the Ephesians.)

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Zero Tolerance

When Dear Leader bemoaned domestic assault as a little fight that is bringing down his crime statistics, most of the world was appalled.

But I’ve been hearing that for decades in the church. I’ve heard the same sentiment from so many pastors and elders I’ve lost track. Here are just a few:

“He just knocked her around a little. It wasn’t real abuse.”

“He just gets frustrated sometimes and mouths off. Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sometimes she just pushes his buttons and he loses control.”

Most of you have heard all of this before.

My view hasn’t changed. I’ve been speaking against the epidemic of abuse in the church since 2012. I’ve heard so many pastors and elders tell me that they hate abuse, they are against abuse, they appreciate abuse – they’ve just never seen abuse.

One man (an elder) told me that “everyone knew that she would wear long sleeves to cover the bruises, and sometimes her eyes would be black. But what can you do? We spoke to him and he apologized. Eventually we had to excommunicate her because she wouldn’t forgive.”

So in the Reformed and Evangelical churches it isn’t that they don’t believe the women. They just don’t care.

When Donald Tr#mp won the primary in 2016, I changed my political party. It was a very difficult thing to get used to. Up until then, I thought abuse, degradation, racism, misogyny and rape were fringe and we stood a chance fighting against it.

When he won, my heart sank and all the spirit went out of me. The spirit of abuse and assault that I had been speaking out against for years became incarnate in an ugly, despicable orange ball of sleaze and won the votes of millions. Even those who had been allies and friends in standing against abuse – they turned their backs on everything they stood for, knowing full well what a troll they were putting in office.

It was as if every child rapist, and every abusive husband, and every covenant-breaking cheat, and every thief and con man became one man – and he painted himself orange and hated everyone.

And all of my friends ate it up. I’ve spent more nights awake than I care to remember.

And it didn’t stop. He stopped even pretending to be anything remotely moral in 2024 and ran on a platform of revenge and spite – and everyone still voted for him.

And now, even if he dies tomorrow, we have a far larger problem in America. The millions that knowingly drank the orange Kool-Aid are still there.

But I think that even worse than Donald being Donald is the spirit that just refuses to see it, refuses to stand up, refuses to say enough.

I don’t want war. I don’t want tanks in the cities. I don’t want violence. Becoming like the Religious Right isn’t the solution.

So how can we, who are disgusted by the whole thing, fight back in a way that is honoring to God?

And I think it is here: Zero tolerance.

We have sat too long in sermons where teenage girls are portrayed as sex object, and didn’t object. Where women are objectified. Where foreigners are mocked.

We have spent too much money on the big evangelical machine that put that same money into electing an evil, twisted human.

We have put too much money in the pockets of James Dobson and followers of Wilson. We have tolerated racial slurs, degradation of humans. We have sat quietly while members of our church talk loudly about F*gg*ts, libtards, feminazis.

We have tolerated Doug Wilson’s books in our book tables. We have filled conferences with the worst sort of people.

We allowed MacArthur and Piper to thrive while our wives and daughters shriveled and died. We gave our money to the worst sorts of humans because they pretended to have a holy calling. We were duped. No more.

We listened to our friends tell us how George Floyd and Emmitt Till should have listened to their betters. We have forgotten about Central Park, Oscarville, Tulsa, Clearlake, Trail of Tears, so many others.

We quit talking about justice for black and brown neighbors. We listen to our friends do their locker talk and pretend it is normal.

We listen quietly disapproving while our colleagues mock the disabled, mock the weak, mock the poor. We listen to the blowhard gripe about the women using SNAP to buy a birthday cake while pouring the concrete for his new summer patio.

I think enough is enough, don’t you?

Zero tolerance. Write your checks to women’s shelters instead of big ticket conference tickets. Let’s put an end to the big evangelical machine. Enough is enough and it isn’t even Christian anyway. Give your money to food banks, sexual assault advocates, domestic violence advocates – but not if they have a fish on their advertisements. Only give if they serve all humans as humans.

When your pastor objectifies his wife, or speaks of teenage girls showing shoulders, walk out. Any mention of hemlines, or clavicles, or purity rings, or tempting men…walk out. We know where it leads now. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Purge it out.

When he talks about “leadership roles for men” get up and leave. We know where it leads now.

When he values women only because of their ability to make babies, walk out.

If you are able, bring a charge. It won’t go anywhere. Patriarchy is too enmeshed. But don’t tolerate that leaven for another second. It leavens everything.

Remember Phillies Karen? I wish we had the same energy when it came to alienating and exposing the worst men among us. The CEO at the Coldplay concert? That’s what I’m talking about. Zero tolerance.

Expose the darkness. The crude, racist jokes; the sexual innuendo; the misogynistic banter; the “boys will be boys” talk. The ridicule of the poor; the rounding up of the foreigner, the chaining of the Asians – if you are going to support that, I’m going to call you on it. I’m done.

Say out loud – Enough. You won’t talk like that around me. You won’t call your wife that around me. You won’t joke about how that black man deserved what he got around me. You won’t degrade or contemn someone’s humanity around me. You won’t involve yourself in their sexual or gender choices. You won’t use slurs in the line and the grocery store. I’m done. If you want to act like a horrible person, I’m going to call you on it. You can call me woke, SJW, or whatever you want. I’ve been called worse.

But it ends here. No more.

If you want to fight back with whatever power you have, join me. Make it really uncomfortable for people

to be horrible around you.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Leave a comment

Filed under Abuse, Anxiety, assault

When it bursts, then what?

I have to admit something. I struggle, as you have probably guessed. The Angry Orange Lunatic and his sycophants have cost me tremendously over the years in real life. And he hasn’t cost me near as much as he has cost our brown brothers and sisters, our trans friends, our gay friends – those who live in fear every day.

I watch men dragged away from their wives in tears. I hear the unfounded accusations, the blatant lies and false witness. I weep with all of the young women who have been raped by white men in power without any recourse, crying out for justice on this earth and seeing none.

I see beautiful cities run over by humvees and SS troops dragging homeless men and women out to die.

And worst of all, I see the evangelical and Reformed churches cheering and celebrating cruelty, lies, assault, groping, concentration camps…

And honestly, I struggle with hatred. I pray for the destruction of the enemies of humanity.

And it bothers me, because I really don’t want to become like them. I want beauty and harmony and peace. I want love and gentleness and safety – not just for me, but for all of God’s creatures.

Even the mouse that I told you about yesterday broke my heart and I couldn’t put out another glue strip since.

And I think of humans in God’s image locked in cages, fed almost nothing, no privacy, no dignity, no safety – and I see former friends and family that cheer on this administration, not in spite of the atrocities, but BECAUSE of the atrocities.

See. My blood starts to boil again. What do I do? I don’t want to live with rage. But I don’t want what is happening in the country to keep happening.

But what is even worse is this – it isn’t one man. It isn’t one group of men. It is the whole history of this country that this country is trying so desperately to whitewash.
It is the millions of Africans that we enslaved without hope, picking cotton year after year, generation after generation, without any agency, free will, value, dignity – and still lifting their heads up through it all and crying out for freedom. The image of God in them still bursting through the hell that the white church put them through.

It is millions of natives slaughtered, lands stolen, massacred – men, women and children. All of them living through trauma I will never know.

It millions of Latinos and Latinas fleeing death sentences working hunched over melon fields and lettuce fields to scrape a living, and now fleeing for their lives, hated and pursued like animals.

And it is knowing that I will be crucified online for being “woke” for saying it.

Fred Rogers was too soft for the adults in my childhood. They hated him, Bob Ross and men like him for being weak, and called out for “men to rise up and lead!!” The fruits of the spirit were never seen. Only strength, domination, control. Anything else was giving in to the hippies.

Orange Taco isn’t an anomaly. He’s the pustulous cancer that the rot of white supremacy pushed to a head. The pus started about the time of the first slave ship was brought over by the puritan and congregational landowners who couldn’t be assed to pick their own damn cotton. That pus has grown and grown, and now he’s about to burst, and then what? His followers will crawl into obscurity like every single other one of his sycophants, dressing like a chicken and singing for a few bucks like Rudy Giuliani. Selling one’s soul is never cheap, but there are still takers.
And when that pustule has burst, then what?

Will we see national repentance? Will we finally admit that people with melanin, and non-hetero or non-cis people, or people from other nations or other genders or other histories or other cultures or other religions are human beings in God’s image, loved as his creatures, redeemed as his creation and worthy of dignity, honor, freedom and love as much as we are?

Will we finally embrace the catholicity of God? Beyond race, beyond color, beyond culture, the creator and sustainer of all life, not just white males?

Or will we continue to shrivel up into ourselves like C S Lewis’s dwarves – “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves!” – refusing redemption, refusing beauty, refusing love and holding our damnable pride. Mowing over roses of hope and joy to erect concrete structures to beat the wicked heads against? Softness and beauty and subtlety gives way to power, and the rot that is left continues to destroy the soul.

I can’t make that choice for you. I know what I will do. I will take the rose that God gives as his gift to men. I will take beauty and gentleness. I will take courage and color and truth – and I will humbly leave God to judge the world, for he knows far better than I do how to go about it without destroying it.

I will try to deal with my anger the best I know how, and long for a better day when love prevails and I no longer have to watch such gleeful cruelty on my screen every day.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. How we need you.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

They believe the women,

They just don’t care.

I saw a poll yesterday that said 47 percent of republicans would not change their support of Trump even if his name IS in the Epstein files.

It confirmed what I suspected in the evangelical church for years. It isn’t that they don’t believe women. It’s that they don’t care.

Once we understand that, our approach changes. Instead of trying to convince them that the women are telling the truth, we need to understand that they are not Christian and don’t have an ethical system that has any point of connection with us.

Any ethical system built upon hate is at the root no different than Nazi Germany. They don’t care who their leaders destroy, as long as they hate the same people.

For all of those who are still trying to convince your Right Wing church that you were sexually assaulted, abused, raped or hurt in any other way, or that you have a right to divorce, I hope you will find peace in knowing that the proof won’t matter. It isn’t you.

They just don’t care.

It is like trying to convince a Baal-worshiper not to offer their firstborn child to the Iron Furnace of Molech.

Once you know that, you can do what you need to do to survive and heal and not give a fig what they think. They’ve lost the right to have an opinion about your divorce, your therapist, your choice to have children, your lifestyle, your dress or especially your relationship with Jesus.

To put it very practically in my life, they’ve lost the right to have an opinion about where I go to church, how I handled my “trial”, what I do for a living, what I believe about love and freedom, or what I do with my family.

Once you say that raping a child isn’t a deal-breaker, there is nothing that you have of value to say to me.

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

On learning to love myself

Healing takes place when stories are told in safe places. I don’t know who said that, but I think it is time to take it seriously.

My mom passed away. Her funeral was the day after my heart attack so I couldn’t attend. I had already said goodbye and wasn’t planning on going anyway. I had already made peace with it.

I can’t carry this shame anymore and I need to speak.

Saying things in a family where saying things is never done takes a lot out of me. But I’m tired of carrying it.

Mom, I’m sad that you couldn’t love me.

I’m sad that I don’t know what a gentle hug or loving caress from a mother feels like. I’m sad that I knew your fists and your paddle more intimately than words of love. I’m sad that I knew your words of contempt or anger and never knew words of intimacy or love.

I know I was a child, and lots of parents wish they had done differently. But I wish that when I was an adult you would have loved me enough to listen. I wish that you could have loved (or at least, liked) the man I became. But I was always a little bit short of whatever made people acceptable. I never knew what that was. And even into my senior years, you carried your belief that I was weird, unacceptable, unlikeable.

I love you, but I wish you had loved me. I’m sad that I wasn’t able to be whatever you were looking for. I’m sad that I was a disappointment to you.

I’m sad of hearing all the stories from friends and relatives that were told about me and how weird I was and how I was just “funny” and not quite up to whatever standard you had for me.

I’m sad that your rejection had ripple effects that I couldn’t foresee, and couldn’t fix. I was just…different. I was just…weird….

I’m sad that your friends gave me a wide berth when I visited and treated me like something was wrong with me. But that is what you believed. I just never knew what that was.

I was just “Well, you know how Sam is…”

I’m sad that you called my mother in law before I got married and told her that my wife should rethink things because I am so weird.

I’m sad that you told me that any girl I might be interested in college couldn’t possibly be interested in me. And that I still didn’t know why. It was such a heavy burden to carry.

I’m sad that I had no one to turn to when I was a child, that the little boy that was me had to try to figure out life by himself. He did it mostly by trying to imitate those who were acceptable.

The little boy didn’t know why mom didn’t love him. He just knew that maybe if he was more like the twins or more like his older brother, she might like him more. So that’s what he tried.

And it was exhausting. I quit trying to be someone else years ago, and had to just settle for never being enough. But I never really learned how to ask for help. I just learned that family didn’t have my back.

My kids weren’t enough. My wife wasn’t enough. I’m sorry that deep down you really believed that we just made up health issues for some reason or another. And I’m really sad that you told all your friends that. And I was really tired of trying to prove to you that we were struggling with severe health issues. So I quit talking about it.

I’m sad that you believed that I wasn’t qualified to be a minister because of….something lacking, I guess.

And I’m sad that you couldn’t love me. I’m sad that you couldn’t like me. And I’m sad that you taught me not to like myself.

So here is what I’m going to start doing, and wish I had done it years ago. I am going to try to give that little boy that you taught me to hate a little love.

He wasn’t weird. He was just trying to figure things out. He was just trying to be loved, safe, and protected.

I’m going to be who I am and stop carrying those things that don’t belong to me. I’m going to try to give myself a break. I’m not going to carry shame and guilt anymore.

I’m not going to listen to that voice that tells me that if I only had more…something…then maybe I’ll be worth loving, and maybe even worth liking a little bit.

But I will still be sad about it. I wish we could have had a relationship that wasn’t based on how much I’ve disappointed you, or disappointed the family, or disappointed people I haven’t even met.

I wish I knew what unconditional love from a mom looked like.

And so I will spend my life giving and receiving love, where I didn’t have it. I will love the little boy that was me (at least try to). And I will try to learn that there are a lot of pretty good things about me.

And I’m sorry that you didn’t see me. Some people say I’m a pretty lovable guy.

And I’m saying this because I love you. But I’m also very tired of living a lie. It isn’t good for anyone.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

6 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

On Getting Old

I don’t understand what happened. Yesterday, I was doing the Bird with Morris Day and the Time and all of the sudden I got old.

Thank you all for the birthday greetings. I truly love my birthday because of the greetings. There are some that I am like “Hey, they haven’t unfriended me yet!” and that makes me smile a little.

And then a lot of new faces. I love my new friends, my new community. I feel safe for the first time. I love my new church family. I can’t describe to you what it feels like to be safe to grow, to examine theology, to have deep thoughts without fear.

I never had that. Ridicule or anger from my father, or contempt, plotting and hatred from those who vowed to partner with me in ministry. Safety is a new feeling – psychological safety to question, to wonder, to learn and to grow.

And meeting new friends! It is so wonderful to see things from new perspectives and meet people from new backgrounds. I am beginning to understand the holy, catholic church in new ways, and it is truly liberating.

But now I get tired when I do the Bird and my joints ache.

My memories collide with my shame and all of the things I tried to use to hide behind.

I figured that if I acted a certain way, maybe then I can hide from the faces of people and try to pretend that their judgment doesn’t bother me. Maybe then my family of origin would welcome me into their circle. I got so tired of being on the outside wondering what it was like to be acceptable.

But that just dug the hole deeper and deeper

And I am so glad to be learning to be free from the shame of my existence. I won’t go back. I’m tired of hiding who I am.

I have anxiety. I am not at all sure of myself in most situations. I spend a lot of time wondering about things.

Today I wondered what would happen if I tried to play a digeridoo at my cat. My cat did not approve, but it was pretty funny.

I know, this is not appropriate behavior for a man over sixty.

Sigh.

I don’t want to be elderly. I want to listen to 21 pilots with my grandkids, smile at all the ways they want to make the world a little better. I want new legislation, I want everyone to be able to access healthcare; I want everyone in my community to be able to eat healthy food if they want to. And I want them to be able to afford cake and ice cream if they want to.

I don’t ever want to fall into the trap of saying, “Back when I was a kid, things we a ton better” – because they weren’t.

Abuse was rampant, racism wasn’t even hidden, women couldn’t buy houses or have credit cards, and if you had nothing, you starved outside.

I thank God for all of those who had the courage to say “Enough” – And I want to always have that courage. The courage to look at the world and say, “NO. I’m not happy with how we turned out. I’m not happy with our kids being addicted to drugs and violence and porn and alcohol. I’m NOT happy with turning our backs on people with disabilities. I’m not happy with unequal pay and gender bias. I am not happy when LGBTQ kids are kicked out of homes and schools and workplaces. We can do better.”

I’m old. But I’m not dead. And I’m not deceived into thinking that “we had it made back in our day.”

We are better than this. To my kids, I am so ashamed that my generation left you with this. Be better.

As for me, I still love to learn. I still love new ideas. I love listening to Taylor Swift’s new albums and don’t ever think that back in my day we had real music. Get real. We had “Abracadbra. I want to reach out and grab ya.”

Every generation had things that were horrible, and things that we good. Hold fast to the good. Throw out the horrible.

Throw out the racism, misogyny, lust for power and control. Throw out Reaganomics. It’s a bust and a lie. Throw out the garbage you inherited.

Learn to love and to laugh and to stand up to masked thugs.

Let’s have a few more years on this earth.

But seriously, thanks for the Birthday greeting.
I feel like I’ve had to put up with myself for over 60 years now, so I’m going to need some pie.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Why I changed my mind…

This could also be called “more ammunition for my enemies to use against me…” if I cared, that is.

Interesting thing. When they have taken away everything that you thought you couldn’t live without, and you survived and are thriving, you no longer really care about their threats. Plus, I make liberal use of the block key, which is wonderful.

I changed my mind on the LGBTQ community. Most of you probably suspected that I was leaning that way. And, no, it isn’t because I suddenly abandoned the scripture. It is actually my love of God’s word that has led me to be gay affirming.

First, I don’t think that the handful of scripture used to condemn same sex attraction are about that at all. I changed my mind on that one. As I look at those passages, they are about abuse, degradation and idolatry.

Second, I also affirm that God created one man and one woman and brought them together. Before the fall. After the fall, everything got twisted around and men and women fled from God and tried to find their way home without him..

But the only hope of salvation is that God came looking for us. In fact, the heart of the gospel is that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. You, me, the whole world.

And salvation never came through the law. All that the law can do is bring death. When you say, “Stop that behavior”, all that you are doing is increasing shame. And shame triggers hiding (what we call trauma response), and you cannot grow in love and peace and joy when you are hiding in terror from the face of God.

Nothing new here. I’ve been preaching that forever.

But the religious right is far more interested in the law. For some reason, they think that shouting at gay people will bring about peace on earth…

But I digress.

The only thing that will change a heart is love. Love without “yes, but I also find you repugnant.”

Or “Yes, but I’m going to need you to change”.

Or, “Yes, I love you, but hate your sin.”

You see, all of those responses are shame-based. Which bring guilt, fear, hiding and (you guessed it,) trauma.

Only when the brain is completely safe can it change and grow. But if you tell the brain to change and grow, it backfires, and you don’t get what you think you will get.

Paul calls that the “works of the flesh” and then he describes a whole list of things that we use to try to hide our shame from ourselves and from the world.

He could be describing the behavior of the religious right there.

So how can the brain grow and learn and bring the fruits of love?

Only by being implanted into Christ and his love, which absolutely MUST be free, unconditional, and without reproach, or it backfires.

And the love of Christ never, ever backfires.

Here’s what got me thinking:

I know personally, and I have heard the stories of others, many many times, of teenagers begging God to take away their gayness.

Every day new stories come. They have been told that they are going to hell. They know that their parents will abandon them if they “come out”.

And they are on their knees night after night begging God to take their gay away.

That leaves me with a problem theologically.

Either God doesn’t hear prayer.

OR God doesn’t hear prayer unless we muster up enough will-power to change our hearts.

OR God turns his back on people who truly and desperately are begging for help.

All of these scenarios are repugnant to me, not because I am suddenly “liberal”, but because I read the gospels.

Imagine a young man pursuing Jesus night after night. He finally gets up the courage to say, “Please, Jesus – take away my sin”

Or “make me clean”

Or “Love me, Lord. Please welcome me and help me.”

And Jesus saying, “Nah. I’m not going to help you. I hate your sin too much. But if you fix yourself up enough and save yourself, then I might not throw you into hell.”

This is not the Jesus who bore my sin and shame on the cross.

Does Jesus have the power to change “gayness”. He certainly does, if he desires.

Does Jesus ever send anyone away who comes to him for mercy? Never. “Whosoever comes to me, I will never, ever cast out.”

Do gay men and women beg Jesus for help? They do.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that Jesus doesn’t think about them the same way that the religious right thinks about them.

And that is why I changed my mind. Because I am really tired of young men and women killing themselves because all they have known is hatred for something they can do nothing about.

And now, the self-righteous among my readership are saying, “They CAN do something about it. They can choose not to act on it!”

So now Christianity is salvation by law?

Did you forget what the Bible says, “If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.”?

If any of us could “choose not to act on it” or “choose to be better people” or “just stop…”

Then Christ came in vain.

But if Christ did not come in vain, but came in power, then he is powerful enough to have mercy to all who call upon him. And he will.

And he will change us into his glorious likeness.

But he will do it in such a way that we don’t lose the beautiful color, beautiful personhood, beautiful diversity of our wonderful, rainbow-filled humanity.

What does that look like? I have no idea. I live now in a world of death and misery. But how I long for that day.

Until then, I will let the Holy Spirit work on my AND work on my brothers and sisters and whatever other gender of those who walk this earth with me, all searching for their way home.

And you will now say, “Jesus loves us as we are, but he doesn’t leave us as we are.”

That is true. And yet when will we be like him? When will we be free of this body of death? What does that even look like?

Is it possible to rest in that love of Jesus if you are convinced that he hates you because you are still unclean in his eyes? How can you come to the Father’s embrace if you are sure that he will hate and reject you the minute you do?

No. It is the love that changes us in HIS time to be like HIM. Pure and holy, clean and beautiful in all of our glorious color and breadth of our beauty!

Through that love, which Jesus has promised he will never take away, we are safe. Safe in his arms, safe from rejection and death. Safe from being cast away forever.

And when we have psychological safety, the self is free to love and to grow and to change. And I will let the Holy Spirit decide what that looks like.

I promise you, though, that it won’t look like the abusive, power-hungry man that fills most of the pulpits of the religious right.

I will always reject covenant breakers, abusers, the unjust, the arrogant, the proud – those who cast the stones and then go home to hit their wives and abuse their slaves. Those who make and believe a lie. Those who trample the poor for new shoes and rob the houses of the widows. Those who make millions endorsing bibles and those who enrich themselves off the death of the poor.

That is a far different thing.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Leave a comment

Filed under Gospel