Lots of Christian theologians use the miracles of scripture to “prove” the claims of the Christian Church, but no theologian I know would accept that principle as proof for other religions. No Christian apologist I know would concede that the witnesses in Virgil’s Aeneid prove the existence of the Trojan Horse.
Even if the miracles of the Bible could be proven they would teach us to believe in power, not love. If Hitler rose from the dead it would not prove that his claims were true, only that his evil had somehow gained magical power.
Faith in our day does not mean believing in old understandings regardless of new discoveries. This fear based dishonesty is hurting the church and also making the church hurtful when modern realities do not match our ancient understandings.
Sometimes, the way to truth is not orthodox belief but radically honest doubt. Being faithful in our day means trusting love over power and honest doubt over past certainties. But, to use scripture to “prove” God is like using nursery rhythms to prove Mother Goose.
It is a strange time to be liberal in America. After Charlie Kirk was shot, before they even knew who the shooter was, some people in this nation were accusing liberals of being a deadly threat to America. Even after the shooter turned out NOT to be someone from “the radical left,” the fear and anger did not dissipate.
Today I am giving the prayer of the people in our Sunday Service. This is what I will say. Perhaps it will be helpful to other liberal people of faith who are struggling to navigate this painful time.
Source of our life and being, help us in this painful time to draw closer to one another. Help us not to isolate in our fear but reach out that we might remind each other what it means to be courageous in an age of fear, and to be loving in a time of cruelty.
Give us an inner peace no storm can overwhelm. Give us hearts of ferocious compassion that we might minister even in the cruelest of times. Help us to remember when we are hated for those we love, we stand in the spirit of saints through the ages who have chosen humanity over nation, love over religion and nature over industry.
In this strange time, give us courage to be joyful, peaceful and truly human.
We pray in all the sacred names of love.
As we look at the storm of divisiveness and violence tearing our nation apart, it is tempting to try to heal our divisions by ignoring controversial topics like race, abortion, LGBTQ rights, health care or climate change.
It is understandable that people of privilege would try to “reach across the aisle,” “to meet in the middle,” or “to just get along.” The problem with “peace” between privileged conservatives and privileged liberals is that it risks ignoring the fate of those left out of the power equation all together.
A democratic republic is not held together by political compromises. It is held together by the principles of human rights. The prophet Isaiah said of the false prophets of his day, “They heal the wounds of my people superficially.” and “They cry ‘peace,’ ‘peace’ when there is no true peace.” It is a false peace for a minority population of privileged white male Americans to want to get along with each other by silencing the cries of those outside the consensus of the comfortable. The problem is, while privileged white liberals and conservatives are meeting in the middle people on the margins are perishing.
The prophets cry out a warning from across the ages. Peace is not found in compromises between the comfortably powerful. Peace is found by radical and universal principles that honor the humanity of every person.
We must never forget that, when it comes to justice, we aren’t talking about issues we are talking about human beings. None of us can find true peace until there is justice for the rest of our human family. Until all of us can cross over into the promised land of justice, none of us will.
If your preachers say they don’t believe felons should vote, don’t believe them when they tell you they believe in forgiveness.
If your preachers say they don’t want any restrictions on guns, don’t believe them when they tell you they are pro-life.
If your preachers say they oppose LGBTQIA+ rights, don’t believe them when they tell you they believe in Galatians 3:28 where it says that in Christ there is neither male nor female.
If your preachers oppose abortion under any condition, do not believe them when they tell you they believe it when the Bible says “there is a time for every purpose under heaven.”
If your preachers wants to control education, don’t believe them when they tell you they believe it is truth that sets us free.
Ant bridges are a lesson in the miracle of solidarity. When ants reach chasms they cannot cross, they link their bodies together to form a bridge. An ant’s brain is very small, but if they looked at their problems as many humans do (as logical individuals) their obstacles might seem hopeless.
An ant’s sense of solidarity creates new possibilities that would be impossible for individualist thinkers. Many of humankind’s most insurmountable problems might melt if we simply lived in solidarity and mutual aid.
Ant bridges are also a parable about the dangers of abstraction. We humans come together to create bridges we call “government” or “religion” or the “economy”. Unlike ants, our brains are very large and we can come to imagine that these bridges are more real than ourselves.
When we surrender responsibility to any system we are like ants who have made the bridges more real than ourselves. Whenever someone says “trust the market,” or, “we must not question scripture,” or, “we must support the troops,” it is possible they have surrendered their own responsibility for being human. When we look at the institutions of our culture as static forms we can forget that we are building those structures with our words and deeds. There is a basic sanity in not believing that the categories of our culture are concrete realities to which we must conform.
WE are responsible for how we treat each other. In the end, It’s just we ants, but our lives fit together to create new possibilities that would be impossible so long as we think of ourselves only as separate individuals.
There was a sign at the former Austin Battered Women’s Center which read:
“Love is when I want you to be who you are. Abuse is when I want you to be who I want you to be.”
I often think of that little sign when I hear people trying to force their religion on others and calling it “God’s love.”
My own Christian tradition says, “Love is patient, love is kind… it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
Evangelism that does not seek consent is not an expression of spiritual love but of religious abuse. If your religion does not feel like love to the people you would help, it is not love at all.
It seems to me a lot of Christians are so focused on the Christ of the second coming because they aren’t really that impressed with the Jesus of the first coming.
Would so many Christians appoint themselves as morality police if they really agreed with Jesus’ constant insistence on not judging? Would so many Christians defend “stand your ground” gun laws if they really agreed with Jesus’ teaching on turning the other cheek?
When my religious friends tell me only Christians can be saved, I ask them why on earth would anyone want to go to that heaven? If heaven does not have scientists, Buddhists and rock and roll, it would not be heaven to me any way.
I will not spend eternity in a gated community. I will not limit my singing to hymns, nor imprison my mind in a golden cage of dogma. As Ludwig Feuerbach said of religious dogma long ago, “I will not pluck out my eyes that I might believe better.”
Christianity has been my own personal life’s bridge into radical and universal love, but I know countless others have crossed over by other means. And, if heaven is an eternity spent with pious self-absorbed sectarians, book my reservation in hell. I will not adopt any aspect of any religion that does not make room for outsiders and unpleasant truths. I have no interest in any religion that does not blossom into a love of flowers, mathematics and people of every sort.
It seems to me religious symbols aren’t really about objective reality any way. It seems to me they are about our deepest intuitions. Some of the ties that bind us to each other are more in our sinews, than in our heads. I believe heaven is actually a symbol of what the world looks and feels like when we love radically and universally. I believe angels are symbols of all those real world messengers who sing a hymn to a love that knows no outcasts. Even if there are celestial beings, why would we need supernatural winged messengers when we already have frogs and cicadas serenading us with the Hymn of the Cosmos?
Real love would not seek a fire escape to heaven while the wretched of the earth live in hellish oppression. I believe the prayer of love is not that we should be rescued for heaven but that we can find the courage to descend into the hell of those convinced they are eternally damned, and sing of a love that knows no outcastes.
The bathroom bill has finally passed in Texas, so I’m sending out love to people who are transgender and to the friends and families who may be grieving right now.
MAGA Republicans should be ashamed for talking about small government when they usurp women’s constitutional rights over their own bodies, send national troops to override democratically elected city councils and, now, even tell people where they can and cannot pee. What kind of small government is that?
It is obvious that these politicians are no lovers of democracy but, as a Christian pastor, I want to make clear that these anti-trans clergy are no lovers of the Christian message either.
In John 8, Jesus admonished the religious fundamentalists of his day for judging people beings by their fleshly condition. In Galatians 5 Paul separates false ethical standards based on conditions of the flesh and what he called “fruits of the spirit.”
In other words, matters like race and gender are superficial and should have no bearing an ethics of love. An ethics of love should seek virtues of character, not conformity to rules based on human physical traits.
As a Christian and a Texan, I just want to apologize to the entire transgender community for our state leaders using you as a scapegoat. No Christian should be silent when the name of Christ is lifted as a cudgel against anyone. This is just a reminder that Jesus said nothing against people who are transgender, but MANY things condemning judgmental religious bullying.
There is no such thing as love that does not seek justice.
It is almost impossible love other people and participate in their oppression.
The world is crying for people who realize we are cells in a common body and who rally to protect our planet, the web of life and the wretched of the earth.
If you are just using religion to feel good,
if you want inspiration without ethical content…
Please have a margarita instead.
It’s easier and won’t take up the oxygen in the room from people who are struggling for human dignity.
Why it is so hard for people of privilege to understand what people without those privileges are trying to say?
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who argued famously that you cannot argue from “is” to “ought.” In other words, there is no set of natural facts that will move a neutral observer to ethical action. Values are not only thought, they must also be felt.
Another philosopher, G.E. Moore, also rejected the idea we can look objectively around us and deduce what we should do. He called the assumption we can reason from some self-evident set of facts the “naturalistic fallacy.”
We see examples of this fallacy every day. A few years back, Jimmy Kimmel made a tearful plea for affordable health care by talking about his newborn baby needing heart surgery. Kimmel had been moved by the poor parents he saw at the hospital and wondered what would happen to them if they lost health insurance.
At one point, Kimmel basically said that taking care of sick children is something we can all agree upon regardless of our political stance. In response Republican Joe Walsh, tweeted, “Sorry Jimmy Kimmel: your sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care.”
I can’t remember the exact quote but Hume somewhere said in so many words, “There is no logical reason I should care about the pain of the whole world more than the pain from my own hangnail.”
So it should be no mystery that so many white people hear the cries of “Black Lives Matter!” and find no logical reason to care. It should be no mystery that so many males hear women’s cries for reproductive healthcare and just shrug. It should be no mystery that so many American citizens are indifferent to the cries of undocumented people in terror of deportation.
Ethics are not something we can reach by reason alone. The empathy necessary for a sense of justice must also be FELT.