Alone time with God.  We know we need it, and it seems simple enough, but we don’t do it.  We fail at it and become frustrated.  Enough time goes by, and we feel like a fraud:  “He doesn’t want to hear from me anyway.” Here are a few thoughts on how to rekindle your time […]

Read More How to rekindle your time alone with God in 2017

“I have come to bring fire on the earth.” So said Jesus. Bluntly. And unapologetically. No less unsettling is what he says–or asks–next: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth?” How many of us, especially at this time of year, would take Jesus’ question as a no-brainer:  with carols ringing in our ears, we reply, “Yes, of […]

Read More An Advent meditation: why real Love gets angry–and divisive

Jesus of Nazareth was not a man. That is, though male, he was not really a man–at least not by the criteria of his culture. To use today’s (imprecise and still evolving) terminology, Jesus was not cisgender.  This is so, for at least two interrelated reasons, but we’ll explore only one, because it has to do with […]

Read More An Advent meditation: Jesus and gender

Aside from the letters in their names, Santa and Satan, it would seem, have little in common. Residing in radically different climates, while both like to give, Santa prefers to give people gifts (but only at Christmas), while Satan prefers to give them hell (all year round). Both also share an impressive list of aliases: Santa is a.k.a. (Jolly) […]

Read More An Advent meditation: Santa, Satan and secularization theory

Critics of religion often dismiss it as “extremist.”  I’ve come to concede that, in the case of Christianity at least, they are right. And nowhere is this extremism more blatant and offensive than during the seemingly benign season of Christmas.  And it should repel us–at least those of us who are truly sophisticated, whether conservative or […]

Read More An Advent meditation: extremism & privilege in the bleak midwinter