Social Observations
Volunteering
I am taking a break from my abstract pontifications about God, life, and reality, and am turning my attention to a practical matter of service: VolunteeringMany churches and ministry organizations depend entirely on volunteer humanpower. This is, I think, a wonderful approach to ministry, as it enables the lay person to be a valuable and…
Read More“An Honest Question to Difficult Answers”
Last summer, I was given the opportunity to write an article on music, worship, and anti-racism for the journal Liturgy. My task was to explore what it is to work towards racial reconciliation through church music in non-multicultural congregations. That article was published online on Tuesday and will be out in print next month! The…
Read MoreBeliefs and Art: Kickstarters and Startkickers.
After a few months in the cocoon of creative angst, I am emerging with a new album and the chance to promote it! The album is entitled “Believable Lies.” It is a short album, comprised of seven songs, all wrestling with the ideas of belief and lies and their conflict with reality at the intersection…
Read MoreConservative vs. Liberal pt II: A Better Way of Thinking
My last post attempted to illustrate the semantic and philosophical disconnect between the terms conservative and liberal. This post is an attempt to provide a better way of thinking and talking about the issue of social change. Here’s by basic assumption: the problems conservative people have with liberal people and vice versa are not in…
Read MoreConservative vs. Liberal: Thoughts on Why These Positions are Unhelpful
There are always words that get thrown around as if they have the weight of the world in their meanings. Conservative and Liberal are two of those words. In the banter that has become Western Christianity in America, these words are the razor’s edge in a knife fight, the trump card that within any circle…
Read MoreWho’s the most irreligious?
Not too many years ago I found myself uttering these incredibly cliched words: “I’m not religious, I just have a relationship with Jesus.” This was an echo of the words that I had heard time and again from my church leaders-“We’re not into religion, we’re into relationship.” So, what is “religion?” Over the years, I’ve…
Read MoreIt isn’t the Guns, it isn’t the Knives
Today I’ve read two completely separate and yet quite related stories, and both fill my heart with overwhelming sadness, grief upon grief. In Sandy Hook, CT today, someone shot and killed 27 people. 18 of them were elementary school children. Words cannot express the horro, the tragedy of this episode, which, as detail emerge, is…
Read MoreWhat a World
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on this little blog of mine. I’d like to say that I’ve been busy doing cool things like playing shows or taking in some serious culture, but the truth is that I have been buried in course work for the classes I’m taking this quarter, and…
Read MoreContinuing Thoughts on Gender and the Semantic Breakdown of Communication
What has become obvious from my previous post on Gender is the frustrating lack of clarity in the English language. Words seem to carry different weight depending on the person reading/hearing them and the person writing/speaking them. This is due, I think, to two things. First and foremost, I believe that for Christians words have…
Read MoreThoughts on Gender
The whole issue of Gender and Gender Roles is so inextricably tied to self identity that there is no wonder that it is a sensitive topic. At some point close to our existential core we feel the need to identify with a Gender. This becomes problematic when we identify with a Gender that is not…
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