During my presentation at CityLights today, members shared some of their experiences working under the order of Pharaoh: the insatiable, grasping, perfectionist, reductive, and never-satisfied energy of imperialism. Sometimes, I said, it’s not that we’re working for Pharaoh; it’s that we’ve become so accustomed the culture of Pharaoh that we enact its ideology on others […]
The good news of solidarity
Part of my do list this week has been to develop materials for an organizational partner. When an organization is learning how to offer substantive support to LGBTQ employees and their families, it may need some guidance on identifying what “support” actually means. Who defines the terms of support also matters: so much can go awry when programs […]
Getting the ideal right
The ideals we reach for shape us in ways we don’t always recognize ourselves. But others around us can recognize our evolution, just as easily as we notice a house plant warping its stalk to reach for oblique sunlight. This weekend’s conference on nonviolence and atonement is almost here, and Pacific Union College professor Dr. Jean Sheldon speaks on […]
Event: Non-violence and the Atonement
I’m speaking at the 2016 Spectrum Conference next week. The theme is Non-violence and the Atonement, and we’ll be joined by Greg Boyd, author of The Myth of a Christian Religion and proponent of the Christus Victor atonement theory. Check out the schedule and read an interview Spectrum conducted with me.
Being connected means… being connected.
One of my favorite concepts from Martin Luther King’s last few years is the concept of interdependence. King wrote and spoke about it in both his letter from Birmingham’s city jail (1963) and the Christmas sermon he delivered to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1967. In the Birmingham letter he responded to criticisms of his multi-state activism. “We are caught in […]
Building resilience
I’m speaking about resilience toward the end of this week at a conference in Maryland and have been completing my talk and presentation for the group. I’ve integrated several sources into my plans for the session and can’t wait to share it. Sources include womanist theology, critiques of conventional “death-surrogate” atonement, personal narratives, self- and community-care strategies, and a wellness […]