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Tylenol Christianity: Offering Hope and Healing, Instead of Easy Answers and Trite Advice

Sometimes, I feel like the church has a hard time lingering in places of pain. Abuse. Homosexuality. Bullying. Singleness. Disability. Abortion. Illness.  Addiction. Grief. We tend to skim right over these topics, offering quick, carefully-crafted statements about our stance on the issue. It winds up feeling more like a presidential candidate’s stump speech than a […]

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We Are the Pharisees

Pharisees get a bad rap. I know, I know–there’s that whole “brood of vipers,” “conspiring to kill Jesus” thing. Not their brightest moments. But did you know that several of Jesus’ followers, and many, many members of the early church, were Pharisees? At the crucifixion, all but one of Jesus’ male disciples ran off–it was […]

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Oppressors, Activists, and Spiritual Stinginess: St. Paul’s Guide to Praying Better Prayers

“And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ.” -Philemon 1:6 I was reading Philemon this weekend, and many things stood out to me. Paul’s tone with Philemon, acknowledging Philemon’s friendship, fidelity, and good […]

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Patriarchy, Pop Culture, and Pornography, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1) What it comes down to is that in many ways, society ascribes value to women based on how attractive they are to men. (This is only exacerbated by women’s idolatrous tendency to base their identity on who they are in relationship with others, rather than on who they are in Christ. […]

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Patriarchy, Pop Culture, and Pornography, Part 1

Several years ago, I read “The DaVinci Code” to see what all the fuss was about. It was nothing special—a fast-paced novel with interesting, if inaccurate, historical details woven in—but one line still stands out to me. The leading lady recalls a conversation she had with her grandfather as a child, about the film “The […]

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Lenten Sausages, Spiritual Chia Pets, and the Practice of Being “Put Out”

In 1522, Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli was involved with the scandalous consumption of sausage during Lent, an event that sparked the Reformation in Switzerland. (Given that some of my ancestors were Mennonites who immigrated to America from Switzerland, I can’t help but wonder if the sausage gave Zwingli and his crew a bad case of […]

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Changing the World is Overwhelming. Start Where You Are, and Smile More!

We’re on the second week of the study I’m facilitating on “Half the Church,” and I’m loving the discussions we’re been having. I’ve been so blessed by the insights the women in my community have, and the stories they share. However, this has been a crazy week for me with deadlines, workshops, and the crud taking over […]

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Living in the Mess: The Problem With Outcome-Based Christianity

My post about the orphan crisis and world missions is up at Red Letter Christians today. I’ve always struggled a little with that post, feeling that it didn’t quite express what I wanted to get across, so imagine my delight when a commentor said something that clarified the issue for me. “I think something else […]

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Toxic Christianity: When Our Public Face Poisons Faith

If there’s one thing that leaves me completely aghast, it’s Christians hurting one another and using religion to justify their behavior, or citing it as the reason that they didn’t step in to defend the hurting, vulnerable party. It’s the child who is abused on the mission field or in the church, but no one […]

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Junia Is Not Alone

Anabaptist or not, Scot McKnight comes out swinging in his bite-sized eBook defending women in ministry, “Junia is Not Alone.” I. Loved. It. Of course it contained the solid, thoughtful scholarship we’ve come to expect from McKnight. But what blessed me about this book was his passion. Women have not only been silenced, our heroines […]

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How Does God REALLY Feel About Interracial Marriages? (Or, what year is it, people?)

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, Tim’s depthy, well-articulated insights are probably as familiar as my posts themselves. So when he forwarded me this article about a church that voted (recently!) to ban people in interracial marriages from membership, suggesting I might want to write something up about it, I had no […]

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The Name That Grace Bestows

  This article is incredible. A district in central India held a renaming ceremony for girls who had been named Nakusa or Nakushi–Hindi for “unwanted.” In that district, there are currently only 883 girls for every 1,000 boys, due to gender-selective abortion, infanticide, and neglect. Obviously, life has not been a bed of roses for […]

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Occupy Your Wallet

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” First, a disclaimer: I haven’t really been following the whole Occupy Wall Street thing, any more than I followed the Tea Parties in 2010. SO not into it a bunch of people screaming about how everyone who disagrees with them is a […]

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Spiritual Blind Spots: How Do You Topple Invisible Idols?

We all have them–those areas in our lives that we need to give over to God, but aren’t even aware of, much less able to address effectively. Oh, we might know something isn’t right–our spiritual “Spidey-senses” tingle uncomfortably, or we become aware of negative consequences our actions are bringing about. Or, we might be completely […]

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Sesame Street and the Kingdom of God

I just stumbled across this old-school Sesame Street skit (back from when Grover was GREEN!), and thought it was strangely profound. Enjoy!

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