Sunday, March 17, 2024

Crossing Over For Ramadan

I am connecting with a couple dozen folks of faith and conscience who are crossing over and committing to some form of fast during the daylight hours of Ramadan. It’s a small step towards strengthening our solidarity with Muslims in Gaza, the West Bank and around the world. We are giving up food or caffeine or alcohol or sex or something else - or all of the above. I am abstaining from eating food and scrolling on espn.com and social media.
Our goal is simply to deepen our spiritual and political commitments to collective liberation.

A week before Ramadan, we joined a protest for Palestine in Orange County. There were probably five hundred "protestors" taking up the four corners of a suburban intersection, filled with flags and beautiful signs. When I parked and started walking over, a teenage boy walked beside me with a huge smile on his face. He told me he just left his mosque and he drove by the protest and just had to stop and join in. He said he did not know it was happening and he could not believe how big it was. That young Muslim man melted my heart - so did many of the other people, mostly Arab-Americans, in the small crowds on each corner. 

We are one week into Ramadan. In the waves of early afternoon weakness, I have consistently been washed over with feelings of deep respect and reverence for the fact that Muslims fast during the daylight hours for an entire month every single year. I continue to hear about this Palestinian virtue they call “sumud.” It means something like steadfastness or resilience. Ramadan must play a crucial role in cultivating their capacity to creatively resist what the Western world has done to them for the past century.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Lifting Up Our Gaze to Gaza

Over the next three weeks, the Christian season of Lent will overlap with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started yesterday at sundown. Yesterday. When a billion Christians read the Gospel text where the radical rabbi Jesus tells the wealthy and powerful Nicodemus that Jesus himself must be lifted up on a cross – just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. 

Jesus was giving a little sermon on the story in the Hebrew bible about the post-exodus Israelites getting bit by poisonous snakes. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole and raise it up whenever someone gets bit – so they can look up at the snake and be healed. Jesus says that he is now playing the role of the bronze snake. 

In the Gospel story, Jesus will inevitably be lifted up on a cross. Because he paved a path that threatened those who clung to their privilege, power and wealth. Radical Christian spirituality roots salvation in gazing at Jesus up on that imperial cross. 

Sunday, February 18, 2024

All It Takes

What you’ve been doing for decades has not worked. If you really want to make your world safe and secure, all you need to do is stop excluding, exploiting, imprisoning, bullying, bombing, terrorizing, torturing, starving, scapegoating and stealing from your neighbors. Just shift your posture. Give them dignity. Honor their humanity. Invest in their future. That’s all it takes

Thursday, February 8, 2024

A Different Definition of Power

Back in 2016, I met up with an old friend in Orange County for a breakfast burrito. I was wearing a Black Lives Matter button on my hoodie. He was obviously disturbed by it - and he told me so. He said, “When you say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ it means that white lives don’t.” I’ve heard a lot of white folks say the same thing since. Over the past few months, some of the same people have extended this peculiar moral logic, saying that social media posts advocating for a free Palestine are antisemitic. They claim that chanting “From the River to the Sea” means that I want to wipe the state of Israel and Jewish people off the map. 

Our world is divided over different ways we define “power.” Leaders of liberation struggles are not interested in obtaining the kind of power that has been used against them, that has been used to put other people in their place, or to violently force someone else into submission. They are fueled by an empowerment framework. They want a world where power is equally distributed. Where decisions are made for the dignity and well-being of everyone. Where the common welfare comes first, as we say in my 12-step program. Only this kind of power leads to collective liberation. Our only hope for survival on this planet.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Let Us Descend

My friend Bill Boyle inspired me to start reading 10-15 pages of fiction every night this year. I finished my first book last week. It took Jesmyn Ward six years to write this masterpiece. Her partner died suddenly right in the middle of the whole process. Grief penetrates every page. The main character is a young women, enslaved and surviving the terror of the plantation. Like every historical novel, this book is not just about back then. It is about right now too. Because our world – from the Gaza strip to Detroit - is still possessed by a plantation perspective. 

The beauty of this book, however, is that hope, healing and liberation - for ourselves and our society - come when Something Else is centered and summoned. Something other than white skin and the profit motive. This story descends with the power of Black women moving together, accompanied by the more-than-human world of bees, trees, water, wind, soil and ancestors. The lone ranger and superhero are left out. Let Us Descend is a 300-page invitation to seek and find companions who have historically been held in low esteem. This is the only way we’ll rise.

Monday, January 22, 2024

Nineteen

We turn nineteen today and I am finding it hard to even fathom how much we’ve transformed together – which sure as hell does not mean that we see or feel the world the same way. 
 
The good thing is that the divine design is drawn up with a box of crayons that have colored our life way outside the borders and binaries we used to believe in. 
 
You steer our wabi sabi balancing act away from a watered-down compromise towards a more radical collaboration that engages the roots of everything we see and feel. 

 I get wide and you go deep. I push through and you drop down. I tell the overstory while you tend the source where no one has the time or energy to go digging, all the way to things in the dark that are deliberately silenced and preferably unheard. 

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Five Reasons Why

The upcoming MLK holiday will mark the 100th day of a full-fledged genocide in Gaza. Here are five reasons why I believe that white progressive Christians in the US should break our painful collective silence and publicly advocate for a permanent ceasefire – and the full protection and liberation of Palestinian people going forward: 

1. Jesus told his disciples that God is partial to the poor, the persecuted and those who mourn. 11 Palestinians have been murdered every hour since October 7. Every single one of these lives was created in the image of God – an image that literally looks a lot more like Jesus than the white savior that American churches have stamped into our imaginations. 

2. Jesus told his disciples to stop focusing on the splinter in other people’s eyes and to take the plank out of our own. Remember how we felt for four years when Trump lied every time he opened his mouth? We were horrified by our white cousins and co-workers who justified it all. Well, that’s what’s happening now with Biden and most Democrats in Congress. For 100 days, they've repeated Israel’s lies – while tens of thousands of Palestinians have died. 

Saturday, January 6, 2024

A Threat to Democracy

It’s the third anniversary of the Jan 6 insurrection. We were hiking with our young nephews that afternoon. I checked my phone frequently. These days, there’s a lot of talk about how democracy is threatened by Trump, white male militias and all sorts of other supremacist nonsense coming from conservative homes, churches and media outlets. I take all of this seriously. But I am also super jaded by the whole “you gotta vote for Joe Biden or else” script. 

Biden is polling horrifically with young people, Arab-Americans and anyone else who genuinely cares about Palestine, the poor and other oppressed people. His unpopularity makes perfect sense. Among other things, Biden is supporting a genocide in broad daylight. He’s even bypassing Congress to send weapons to Israel - which is a threat to democracy. Also, the Democratic Party refuses to host primary debates. This is a threat to democracy too. 

The Dems desperately need a new strategy. Biden should drop out. Not because he’s too old. But because he’s a totally uncompelling candidate. My nephews (and democracy itself) deserve someone far better. The good news is that we’ve got 304 days until the election. The Democratic Party can still pivot. But if they don’t do something different, Trump will probably win - and they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

The Entire Journey

Munther Isaac’s penetrating Christmas sermon from Bethlehem has gone viral. In it, he proclaims that Jesus is found under the rubble in Gaza. I am magnetically drawn to how his message subverts the atonement theology of empire that hyper-focuses on the death of Jesus as the means for a future salvation in heaven. 

There is a dissenting opinion! The point of the cross is not that it atones for sin. The cross points to a God who is at-one with the marginalized, suffering, oppressed and displaced. But God never works alone. Jesus called his followers to “take up the cross” and be at-one with them too. No matter what it costs. 

This is just the start of the story. There is hope. Not in heaven, but right here. Because God is all about composting what empire is crucifying. Like Rev. Isaac promises in the sermon, the Palestinian people will rise again. The cross calls us to join them for the entire journey. Not just after they win.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

The Real Antisemites

Antisemitism is real and every single one of us should take it seriously. The painful irony, for me, is that the most antisemitic people I know are unconditionally pro-Israel. White Evangelical Christian Zionists. Many of these people believe, based on a ridiculous interpretation of the last book of the bible, that God will restore the nation of Israel before Jesus comes back to bring all of his true believers home to heaven. 

I grew up in this subculture. I was taught that Jewish people were not “saved” – but because they were God’s chosen people, they would get one final opportunity to accept Jesus as the Messiah and their personal lord and savior. But if they don’t, they will go straight to hell. Does it get any more antisemitic and genocidal than this? 

Here’s what I know: when white Christian Zionists say that Israel Matters, it really does mean that Palestinian lives do not – and it does not even mean that Jewish lives matter either. This is what I believed back then – and it is what white Christian Zionists really believe right now. I followed Jesus out of white evangelical Christianity when I finally realized how destructive and dehumanizing this supremacist belief system actually is. 

Saturday, December 9, 2023

These People Have Paid the Price

It’s been nine weeks since October 7. During this season, I am deeply grateful to have spent significant time studying what’s going on in the occupied Palestinian territories. I do not trust corporate media outlets. Because they rarely scrutinize US and Israeli agendas. I’ve seen clips. There’s so much propaganda out there right now. It just feels like a big power game that serves the status quo, seeking to comfort the conscience of mostly white people who absolutely do not want to be troubled with any serious reporting of a genocide. 

I am far more interested in books and longer articles and listening to interviews with scholars and journalists who have immersed themselves in this issue. I bear witness: these leaders carry themselves with integrity and possess a passion for justice. They have studied every side, but they also take a clear, unequivocal stance. Because this is what love demands. Many of these people have paid the price, in one way or another, for speaking up for Palestinian people. 

I am talking about Noura Erakat, Rashid Khalidi, Zachary Foster, Norman Finkelstein, Miko Peled, Ali Abunimah, Marc Lamont Hill, Nick Estes, Dylan Rodriguez, Steven Thrasher, Amanda Gelender, Gabor Mate and Gazans on the ground like Bayan, Bisan, Motaz and Mosab Abu-Toha. Amy Goodman, Briahna Joy Gray and Chris Hedges have been brilliant. None of these leaders are perfect. But it is clear to me that each of them actually cares about the truth - and they are willing to put their careers on the line for it. They have had a profound impact on my spiritual life.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

A Mass Movement Christians?

Jewish orgs like JVP and If Not Now have been doing a brilliant job of organizing North Americans of conscience to rally, march and protest for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation in Gaza. Some people are asking why there is not a mass movement of Christians actively resisting the Zionist policies and pathologies of Israel and the US. It’s a great question and I’d love to hear what other Christians are thinking and feeling about this right now. Here’s my short explanation – and I am specifically speaking about predominantly white middle-class American expressions of Christianity. 

Evangelical and conservative Catholic Christians have notoriously bought into Zionist theology. This is the tradition that I have been resisting, recovering from and reconstructing for the past two decades. Unfortunately, most liberal Catholics and those in Protestant denominations stay silent about Palestine. As far as I can tell, guilt and fear are strong motivations. Guilt for what American Christians failed to do for Jewish people in Europe in the 1930’s and 40’s. Fear that speaking up for Palestinians will offend their Jewish friends and colleagues – and white folks in their congregation. 

There’s also this. A multitude of middle-class people who were raised in either conservative or liberal Christian homes have left the church. They just stop being “Christian.” I am seeing a lot of secular, atheist and agnostic Jews organizing for Palestine right now. They do not attend synagogue, but being Jewish still matters. It is still a crucial part of their identity. Not so for many post-evangelicals and recovering Catholics and those who were confirmed, a long time ago, as Lutherans or Methodists or Presbyterians or Episcopalians. 

Sunday, November 19, 2023

A Vigil

A few nights ago, there was a vigil in downtown Detroit to honor those who have been murdered in Palestine since early October. People were invited to step up to the mic and share about their family members back home. 

A guy about my age said that he could not get a hold of his sisters and nieces for the past week. 

Another talked about his uncle, a dentist and a father of young children, who was found dead under the rubble. 

One young woman named her dad, her mom, her sisters, her cousins. All of them murdered by Israeli missiles. 

A big screen scrolled the names and ages of children. Now gone. The screen kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. 

There is no legitimate justification for the loss of these precious lives. There is only a gigantic deficit of love and justice. A deficit dug by the distortions and lies of Israeli and US leaders. I left that night feeling the grief and heaviness. I left that night knowing that Gaza would serve as a spiritual and political litmus test for the rest of my life.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Just One Day

Yesterday in Detroit. On the street in front of Rep. Thanedar’s office. A rally and vigil organized by Jewish Voice for Peace. We prayed and sang and demanded a ceasefire and an end to the occupation. A woman read the names and ages of 101 Palestinian children murdered by IDF bombs. She said her list represented one day of deaths. Just one day out of thirty. There are many adjectives I would use to describe what is happening in Gaza. “Complicated” is not one of them.

Sunday, November 5, 2023

There's a Huge Difference!

300,000 people marched for a free Palestine yesterday in D.C. Millions more marched in cities all over the world. We joined the masses in Hamtramck, Michigan. Unfortunately, there are still folks (mis)characterizing this pro-Palestinian movement as some sort of antisemitic side hustle celebrating Hamas. It’s just the opposite. In fact, right now, so many Jewish people are calling for a ceasefire and an end to the decades-long occupation. They know, better than anyone, the difference between Judaism and Zionism. There’s a huge difference! 

I heard one young Jewish-American say, just the other day, that they are afraid of the rising antisemitism in the U.S. It’s real! They also lamented that the rise in antisemitism is being weaponized to mute every critique of Israel. They said that chanting “from the river to the sea” at a protest is not stoking antisemitism. They said that the real cause of the rise in hate is what the state of Israel did to the people of Gaza before October 7 – and what the state of Israel has done to the people of Gaza since October 7.

Unfortunately, far too many folks, on both sides of the aisle, struggle to differentiate between Israel’s government and actual Jewish people. It would help, I think, if there was a lot more reporting in the corporate media about the surge of Jewish leaders, in North America and in Israel, who are publicly calling out the policies and pathologies of the Israeli government – and who are affirming the full humanity of Palestinian people (not just paying lip service to their “plight”). 

But instead, the “news” fuels the ghosting and the gaslighting and the mindless mischaracterizations of Palestinian-Americans like my congressional rep Rashida Tlaib. In this wildly anti-Arab and Islamophobic cancel culture, the willingness for Jewish folks to courageously stand up and speak out is incredibly inspiring. They are willing to lose everything. Everything except their integrity, dignity and humanity. I am following their lead.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Love. Compassion. Truth. Justice.

I am committed to a spirituality and politics of love, compassion, truth and justice (as opposed to something that serves the interests of my family, my nation, my race or any other tribal identity). I believe that everyone is a sacred child of God, no matter where they live, who they love, or how they worship. So I cannot support what the state of Israel has done in Gaza over the past ten days – and what the state of Israel is about to do to Gaza in the days to come. 

I cannot bear to read the news of Palestinian people being uprooted and murdered while white Christians and white liberals pledge their full support for the state of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Murdering civilians and cutting off all access to food, water and electricity has nothing whatsoever to do with defending itself. What this government and their military (with the full support of the US) have done for the last 75 years to the Palestinian people is reprehensible. 

I confess. I used to be one of these white Christians who supported Israel no matter what. Because my pastors told me that’s what the bible says we must do. But then I started studying the scriptures and the history of Palestine. I started listening to other people. I learned that what my pastors told me was totally whack. So I changed my mind. Now I stand for Something Else – even though it is unpopular. Because this is what love, compassion, truth and justice demand.

Friday, October 13, 2023

Absolutely Secure

"I want to feel completely vulnerable, completely naked, completely exposed and absolutely secure." This is what Howard Thurman said was the one thing he desired most in life. I desire this too, and I am deeply grateful for the kindreds who consistently love me into this reality.

Friday, September 22, 2023

Scrutiny

If you were raised in a conservative church (like I was) and you start to change the way you think about God, the bible, heaven and hell and homosexuality, the rapture, racism, abortion, America, social justice and gender, then you will be side-eyed by your tight circle of friends and family members. You are now the sinner, the tax collector, the leper, the liberal. Because evangelical christianity is a cancel culture, a fear-based system fixated on right belief. If we change what we believe, everything is at stake. Even eternal life! 

Scrutinizing fundamental beliefs that are destructive to ourselves, other people and the planet is socially ostracizing. But scrutiny is the seed of soul growth. We stop repressing our deepest feelings. We start trusting Something Else. We cultivate new convictions based on love, liberation, open-heartedness and genuine humility. The post-evangelical path will not look the same for everybody. Some of us will stay “Christian.” Some of us won’t. But whatever we do, we cannot walk alone. We need each other. I’m realizing it’s the only way to heal the evangelical trauma – and truly get free.

Monday, August 28, 2023

The Roots

A white dude walked into a Dollar General yesterday in Florida and murdered three Black people. He had a swastika on his rifle and posted multiple manifestos online. But at the press conference, the sheriff said that “there is absolutely no evidence the shooter is part of any larger group.” This does not make any sense to me. His supremacy was not created in a vacuum. It was shaped by a culture. Like Jesus said, a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. This white dude was not just a bad apple. He's one fruit that comes from a tree rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The only way to become Something Else is to scrutinize the roots - and replace them with love.

Friday, August 18, 2023

A Reading List for Repentance

I've been working on a book project over the past few years. It has evolved into a series of shorter reflections focused on reconstructing a biblical spirituality for those of us who have been in a process of deconstructing fundamentalist, evangelical, conservative Catholic or denominational expressions of Christian Supremacy. This reconstruction project pivots on the Power of love, the only force that can fuel us to live for Something Else. 

I believe that this Something Else is rooted in the radical act of repenting from the American Dream, the corporate-sponsored conventional wisdom that comes at the awful expense of this agonizing statistic: the US and Canada comprise about 5% of the world's population - and consume over 30% of the world's resources. I am calling the North American context The 5/30 Window, a play on what my white Evangelical pastors referred to as "The 10/40 Window," the African, Asian and Middle Eastern regions of "unreached" people who live between ten and forty degrees north latitude. I am flipping the script and saying that the souls of dark-skinned Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims who live on the other side of the world do not need to get saved. We do. 

By "we" I mean those of us in the 5/30 Window who have a semblance of privilege and are more progressive than our fundamentalist and fascist friends and family members. We do everything that we are supposed to do to make life matter - college, career, marriage, maybe kids, march at the Pride parade, make donations to important causes and keep up with social justice issues - but are left feeling exhausted, lonely, unfulfilled, stressed, depressed, anxious, addicted and/or insecure. We are weighed down by a soul dissonance. Because all our supposed-tos pile up and perpetuate an oppressive system. My spouse Lindsay, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, says that if we remain in a codependent relationship with a counterfeit system like the American Dream, then the counterfeit will inevitably come out sideways. 

When Jesus beckoned his disciples to repent, he was borrowing language from the battlefield. In the first century Roman empire, the soldier who repented was a traitor. He switched sides. He spoke treason. I believe that for people with a semblance of privilege (like me)  living in the 5/30 Window, repentance is a call to break rank with the aspirational goals of achievement and upward mobility. Because our success and social respectability are "earned" in a system addicted to the antithesis of love: supremacy. By this, I mean that it has a built-in pecking order, a kind of caste code that says that certain people are more deserving than others. This stubborn supremacy still reigns in systems dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Repentance slowly erodes our obliviousness. When we switch sides, we see how the Dream excludes, exploits and extracts from the 10/40 Window and those Dr. King called "the other America:" the poor, the essential workers, Black and Native folks and other people of color. Jesus prescribed repentance because he knew the spiritual secret. If we do not openly oppose supremacy around every corner, then supremacy becomes a part of who we are wrapping itself around our souls like the arms of an octopus (as Anne Braden once wrote). If we do not break rank, we drown in denial, dysfunction and/or drink. 

The American Dream is a nightmare and those of us playing by its rules in the 5/30 Window are paying the price spiritually and emotionally. Because our lives are embedded in an interrelated structure of reality. The soul is not locked inside autonomous individuals. It is a web of Being that binds everyone to everything else. We are caught in what Dr. King called "the inescapable network of mutuality." Whatever affects anyone directly, affects everyone else indirectly. The excluding, exploiting and extracting of disproportionately dark-skinned bodies is inextricably connected to the excluding, exploiting and extracting of the souls of white folks and middle-class people. 

Repentance is not fueled so much by what we are against, but who we are for. We can live for Something Else, a Power of love that compels people of faith and conscience to promote an alternative spiritual paradigm. It's not about aspiring for greatness, but conspiring with the critical mass of people - disproportionately dark-skinned - who are being excluded, exploited and extracted. The word "conspire" literally means "to breathe with" (by the way, "aspire" means to breathe on, which brings up a whole cringeworthy history of diseases that white settlers have passed along to Native people, from 1492 to our present-day pandemic). So in a nut shell, repentance is breaking rank with supremacy and breathing with Something Else.

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

A Codependent Relationship

Over the past few years, I’ve been doing a lot of 12-step recovery work as I wrestle with codependency, the curious ways I set-up, serve, prop-up, people-please and enable bad behavior in my relationships with individuals and institutions. I get stuck saying “yes” – even when everything in me wants to say “no” - because I believe I am supposed to, because I believe that things will be better. This time. 

In recent days, I’ve been thinking about how many Americans (myself included) are caught in a codependent relationship with electoral politics. I am positioned to the left of Bernie Sanders on the political spectrum. Like Dr. King, I am absolutely convinced that without a radical revolution of values, the US will never heal and real justice will never become a reality. One major obstacle to MLK’s radical revolution is that both major political parties promote profit motives and property rights over the needs of people. 

I live in a swing state. So liberals tell me that I have to vote blue no matter who. I, of course, agree with my liberal-moderate friends: Republican policies are extremely destructive. But I’ve been paying attention to Biden - and Obama and Clinton before him. These Democratic Presidents – despite their campaign promises - continue to sell out poor and working people, over and over and over again. 

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Her Dissent Does Not Disappoint

This morning, I finally got to read Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court affirmative action decision handed down last week. Wow. Her dissent does not disappoint. It lays out a clear, compelling case for why race should absolutely be one component that colleges use to consider in the application process. 

KBJ dispels the myth that our racist past has nothing to do with right now. “History speaks,” she writes, “In some form, it can be heard forever.” White people like me still benefit from history's handouts: the free land, the GI Bill, the low-interest loans, the access to clean air and water, the non-competitive college admissions (and much more) that my ancestors cashed in on. 

Race still matters. More than ever. Because this Supreme Court decision will inevitably widen America’s ominous racial gaps. KBJ’s dissent undoes the guilt and colorblindness, offering another way forward for people of privilege. A clear-eyed understanding of how history affects the present – and an open-hearted promotion of policies that work for everyone.

Friday, June 9, 2023

Predatory

Bernadette Atuahene moved to Detroit’s eastside for three years and interviewed residents who lost their homes to property tax foreclosures. As she listened to stories and studied the data, she discovered that between 2009 and 2019, 1/3 of all Detroit residents lost their homes because they could not afford to pay their property taxes. And get this: a huge percentage of these homes were overcharged by the city, in blatant violation to the state constitution. 

Most of these overassessments targeted the lowest income residents of Detroit, almost all of them Black. The city inflated property tax bills to make up for lost revenue – and to remake the city in another image. This is one of the (awful) ways that Detroit made its so-called “comeback.” The foreclosed homes were snapped up for cheap by wealthy developers and many were demolished by the city (to make room for more development). 

Bernadette Atuahene work is important because it calls bullshit on the racist myths that portray poor people as lazy and irresponsible. This article is long, but it’s worth reading at least the first few pages. As it turns out, these illegal antics aren’t limited to Detroit. The data reminds us that poverty is not the result of chronic laziness, but of corrupt leadership. Predatory policies grow poverty for many – so a few folks can become wealthy. This is how America’s economic system has worked for centuries. Our politics ought to reflect this truth.

Monday, May 1, 2023

Christo-Fascism

In Texas, a man shot and killed five neighbors from Honduras and he’s still on the loose. In a social media post, the Christian governor of Texas referred to the victims of the murder as “illegal immigrants.” This is the same governor who rounds up refugees and dumps them on the streets of Washington DC. It’s absolutely disgusting. A few decades ago, theologian Dorothee Soelle called this increasingly popular brand of bogus faith “Christo-Fascism.” 

These folks worship work ethic, focus on their nuclear family and promote the greatness and innocence of America. When their versions of work, family and country are undermined or challenged or questioned, they find someone to scapegoat. Dark-skinned people. Poor folk. Powerful women. Anyone who’s not straight. You already know their dirty little secret. They will never call out the real predators: the wealthy and powerful corporate elites who fund their churches. 

Christo-Fascists blatantly counterfeit the biblical tradition to secure their status in society. Just study the Gospels and you will see. Jesus did the exact opposite of what this multitude of white Christians believe and say and do. Jesus moved on mercy, compassion, humility, open-heartedness and a ruthless critique of the wealthy and powerful. His radical love of neighbor broke the boundaries of work, family and country – and he expected those who bear his name to do the same.

Friday, April 21, 2023

Ditch the Patriarchy

In the latest episode of Ted Lasso, the team has an all-nighter in Amsterdam. What’s amazing is that they shrug off the sex and drugs for something more daring. They ditch the patriarchy. Scenes depict male athletes being tender, curious and playful. They vulnerably share weakness and struggle. They show appreciation and celebrate each other in public. They make music and sing – and let the women lead. I am grateful for this show – and for the men in my life who remind me that this doesn’t only happen in Amsterdam!

Sunday, April 9, 2023

The Final Word

Easter Sunday holds a lot of significance for my spiritual journey. Because the death of Jesus means something different than it used to. I no longer believe that the cross was God’s plan to save sinful humans from hell. The cross was a weapon of the Roman empire used to intimidate rebels, like Jesus, who raised hell. When Jesus told his disciples to take up the cross, it was a call to subvert Roman supremacy with truth and self-donating love. The cross was not about going to heaven when they died, but about leaving a little heaven where they lived. No matter what it cost. 

An old friend from high school recently told me that I wasn’t saved biblically speaking. She said that my beliefs have eternal consequences. While fundamentalist Christianity condemns and crucifies, Easter is a reminder for me that the original Jesus people did not pledge allegiance to empire and its supremacy stories. They placed their faith in a higher Power determined to bring dignity to every person - no matter what they look like, who they love or where they’re from. The good news of Easter is that Love rises up and refuses to let supremacy have the final word.

Saturday, April 8, 2023

More Messy Than Miracle

Jesus didn’t tell his disciples that they had to walk on water. He told them to wash one another’s feet. Jesus modeled a way of being human that’s more messy than miracle. It is not about being perfect or heroic. It is about being humble and present to the pain of other people.

Friday, March 10, 2023

Bound

I was sipping on a beer with a friend the other day and the topic shifted to spirituality. He flipped the script on me. He told me that he was “religious not spiritual.” The Latin root of religion means “to be bound.” He told me that he’s bound to his Zen Buddhist practice, a discipline that leads to love and liberation – for himself and others. I really resonate with his reframing. 

In American culture, we are left with some pretty uncompelling options for how we come to terms with the ultimate significance of our place in the world. Unfortunately, “organized religion” is often weighed down with so much traumatic, dramatic and dogmatic baggage. The guilt and obligation can be so oppressive. On the other hand, “spirituality” can feel like a slippery, vague, kind of non-committal concept. 

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Disfellowship?

Today is Ash Wednesday, a somber day of reflection for those of us rooted in the Jesus tradition. I am reflecting on yesterday’s news that the Southern Baptist Convention decided to “disfellowship” from Saddleback Church, a community I attended twenty-five years ago. Disfellowship is a new word for me. As far as I can tell it means that Saddleback Church got cancelled. Why? Because Saddleback Church employs women as teaching pastors. 

The supremacist ideology that only men should be pastors comes from the Christian scriptures. There are a few bible verses that say that women are the “weaker sex” and must be quiet and submissive, and must never have authority over men. But the bible also says that those who get baptized are clothed with Christ in mutuality and that old hierarchies like "male" and “female” no longer apply! These kinds of biblical contradictions are beautiful. Because they force our faith to be humble and thoughtful. 

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Four Scenes

It’s Sunday! Here’s a short sermon, summing up my faith in the four scenes from Matthew 14. 

1: King Herod throws a party where he serves up the head of John the Baptist on a platter. 

2: Jesus feeds five thousand poor folks with five loaves and two fishes - and twelve baskets of broken pieces are leftover. 

3: Jesus walks on water to the disciples, paralyzed by fear, trying to cross a stormy sea. 

4: When they get to land, the sick flock to Jesus and get healed by touching the fringe of his cloak. 

Monday, February 13, 2023

Who is the "Us?"

I only watched the 4th quarter last night, but I did see one of these commercials funded by wealthy conservative Christians. They are promoting a version of Jesus who is generous and loving and rejects “being political.” The end of every ad says “He gets us. All of us.” The problem with this kind of propaganda is that it does not make the “us” explicit. In oppressive societies like 1st century Palestine and 21st century America, there are both oppressors and the oppressed. The “us” cannot possibly mean everyone. 

In the Gospels, Jesus consistently takes a courageous stand against oppressors, those who seize and maintain their wealth and power by exploiting and excluding others. Jesus was “being political.” He calls King Herod a fox. He turns over the tables of the Temple bankers. He demands that the rich young ruler give away all his possessions. The text says that Jesus loved the rich man—so much so that he put up a boundary to his destructive behavior. 

Jesus knew that the rich man made his money off exploiting and excluding those Jesus called “blessed:” the poor, persecuted, pure in heart and those who hunger for justice. He also told his disciples that after political and religious elites canceled him on a cross, he would rise up in the bodies of the unhoused, uninsured, unfed, unclothed, immigrant and imprisoned people of the world—the very folks being exploited and excluded by those funding these ads.

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

The Courage of Kareem

I will probably stay up late tonight to watch Lebron try to break the record. I used to be a Lebron hater too, but my love and respect for him has grown over the past decade. Lebron has somehow exceeded the extremely high expectations set for him when he was a teenager. Who does that? He went to the Finals eight years in a row and, in 2016, he did something MJ never did. He led his team to a title against a far superior opponent. I also appreciate that Lebron speaks out, from time to time, on the issues that matter most. Another thing MJ never did. 

What about Kareem though? It’s unfortunate that he’s consistently left out of the debate over who’s the greatest of all time. His sky hook was unstoppable – and he played until he was 42. He would have scored a lot more points if he left college early. Instead, he led UCLA to three championships in a row. It’s hard to believe, but Kareem has even more haters than Lebron. Because he’s stayed true to his convictions – no matter how unpopular they’ve been. 

A few months after Dr. King was murdered, Kareem declined an invitation to play for the US Olympic team because he did not want to signal support for the way Black people were treated in the country he loved. Instead, he spent the summer in his native New York teaching kids how to play basketball and trying to inspire them to stay in school. Kareem’s courage, on and off the floor, then and now, is a model for us all.

Sunday, February 5, 2023

Winning

The politics of hate are funded by wealthy and powerful people. The owners and managers of corporations, banks, financial institutions, and factory farms are heavily invested in putting the blame on everyone but them. They manipulate the fear, shame and rage of white folks and middle-class people by scapegoating socialism, wokeness, cancel culture and trans folk. Meanwhile, wealthy and powerful people sponsor politicians to create policies that increase corporate profits on the backs of ordinary people. 

The American political system was designed for a small portion of the population to be successful. Campaigns are corporate-funded. The Senate, the electoral college and the House redistricting process are anti-democratic. The court system caters to people who can pay for good lawyers. The Democratic Party is more “inclusive,” but it is corporate-funded too. The reforms that liberals propose will not transform the unjust structure – even if they are passed. 

I believe that our hope for healing and transformation grows with grassroots organizers. In every context, with very little recognition, they tirelessly struggle on behalf of those being exploited, displaced and poisoned by “successful” people whose moral imagination is shaped by the profit motive. When multitudes of us reject the corporate scripting and start to follow these brilliant people - most of them low-income women of color – the wealthy and powerful will stop winning.

Saturday, January 28, 2023

A World Where Everyone's Needs Are Met

The police murder of Tyre Nichols is another clear indication that “reforms” aren’t working. We’ll cut violence and crime in America when we create a society where everyone has access to affordable housing, universal healthcare, a guaranteed minimum income, free education, clean water and nutritious food. A world where Dr. King’s dream becomes a reality will not have a modern police force. This is why I am a police-and-prison abolitionist – and not a police-and-prison preservationist. When I dare to imagine a world where everyone’s needs are met, a crucial part of that equation is the defunding of police and prison budgets. 

Unfortunately, police-and-prison abolitionism is not a socially respectable politics for most white folks and middle-class people – the Americans who believe the lie that police and prisons protect and serve everyone the same. But hear me out. What most white folks and middle-class people believe about police and prison abolition in 2023 is precisely what most white folks and middle-class people believed about the abolitionism of slavery in 1823 and the abolitionism of Jim Crow in 1923. They thought it was unrealistic then too. Things are changing though. I can feel it. Because the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.

Thursday, January 26, 2023

I Wish I Knew

I recently read something from someone who was asking people what they wish they could tell the younger version of themselves. I love the question because it helps me clarify what really matters moving forward. 

When I was nineteen, or twenty-nine, I wish I knew how to openly embrace my own imperfections and weaknesses with grief and grace. 

I wish I knew how to identify feelings like fear, shame and resentment. 

I wish I knew that there were “other” leaders who embody a way-of-being that is tender, open-hearted, emotionally honest, humble, playful, present and just a lot less productive and performative. 

I wish I knew that intimacy, deep connection and meaning are the main things – not speed bumps on the road to achievement.

Sunday, January 22, 2023

18 Years


Nineteen years ago, you bowled me over
like two Big Ballard Imperial IPAs on a river
float. Eighteen years ago, we both said “I do” to a
lifetime of loving and trusting together.

Since then, we’ve lived in eighteen different
places (count ‘em!), from the suburbs to big cities to rural
spaces, chasing depth and meaning and wonder in a world
where everything seems to be hanging by a thread.
Marriage is far from easy, but you make it make sense for
me, modeling the wisdom of what the 12-steps say, that
our past is a series of lessons that advance us to higher
levels of living and loving. Without a test, there can be no

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Inevitable

A few years ago, Lindsay and I went to Corvallis, Oregon for a little retreat. We got tattoos. Mine is a little Greek word from the end of the Gospel of Luke. The risen Jesus is walking with two disciples on the road. He tells them, “Was it not necessary that the christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” In my youth, this text was used to teach me that “it was necessary” for Jesus to die on the cross so that sinners like me could go to heaven. 

I learned Greek in seminary. I found out that “it was necessary” is one Greek word (dei). I also found out that, when read in context, a better translation of this one Greek word is “it was inevitable.” The death of Jesus was not ordained by God. It was not necessary. It was inevitable. Because Jesus spoke truth to power, in public. Jesus was a liberated man. The truth he spoke freely was a threat to those clinging to power. That’s why they demonized him, arrested him, tortured him and crucified him. 

What they did to Jesus, they did to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. too. Dr. King’s murder was inevitable in a racist culture where profit motives and property rights are more important than people. Like Jesus, Dr. King comforted the afflicted - and afflicted the comfortable. Like Jesus, King did not care about getting approval from “important” people. Dr. King modeled the way of the cross for modern America. This is the spiritual path I am committed to. It’s not about putting Jesus and King on a pedestal. It’s about trying to follow their lead.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Making Everything Right Again

When Jesus went out to the Jordan River, John refused to baptize him. He told Jesus, “I need to get baptized by you!” But Jesus was adamant that he get baptized by John. Jesus said that the role reversal “fulfills the way of righteousness.” In Greek, righteousness is “dikaiosune,” one of the most mistranslated words in the bible. Dikaiosune is a descriptor of the divine. It means that God is determined to make everything right again – which is only possible when the oppressive social hierarchy is flipped on its head. This is precisely what Jesus did at his baptism. 

If Jesus really was some kind of lord, savior or son of God, he would be expected to be the one performing all the baptisms. Instead, Jesus released the power and control to the weird, wild prophet who wore camel hair and dined on locusts and honey. What Jesus really needed was to immerse himself in the radical, reassuring words from heaven: “You are beloved.” I desperately need this daily immersion too. I am learning from Jesus (rather slowly) that I can only hear these words when I stop equating my identity and security with my position on the oppressive social hierarchy.

Monday, December 19, 2022

Pronouns

Watching evangelical christians dismiss and demonize preferred pronouns is hard to stomach. These are the same folks who insist that the pronouns of God and Jesus are He/Him/His. Always capitalized. Always in control. The good news is that the bible subverts the preferred pronouns of these “biblical christians.” 

The scriptures start with a beautiful image: the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. God, in Hebrew, is elohim, a masculine noun. But Spirit, in Hebrew, is ruach, a feminine noun. The word “hovered,” elsewhere in the Hebrew bible, refers to a mother bird hovering over her nest. The She-Spirit hovered over Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan River. 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

F#*king Weirdo!

This week, we traveled to Southern California for a memorial service celebrating the long life of Lindsay’s grandmother. Yesterday, we flew back to Detroit. At the Orange County airport, we strapped on our masks - and goggles. Because at this point, planes are basically rave parties for viruses. While we waited to board our flight, two different white dudes, two minutes apart, walked by and took photos of us. The second guy smirked at me, and ten feet away, snapped a couple selfies with me in the background. 

When I walked towards him, he picked up the pace. He was hiding behind his woman, who was holding a swaddled baby. I walked alongside them, socially distanced. I asked him why he was taking photos of me. He hit the mute button. – so I kept asking. Finally, he said it was a public place and he could do whatever the f#*k he wanted. Then Karen yelled, “Get away from me and my child, you f#*king weirdo!” 

Monday, December 5, 2022

A Tonic

During Advent, I’ve been thinking about what it means to redeem masculinity. Most models of manhood emphasize a counterfeit form of “strength” that is oblivious to the suffering of others. Being a man, however, does not have to be controlling and abusive - or passive and emotionally distant either. Real men take sides. They take cues from women and queer folk and others who are marginalized. Real men possess a passion for other people. They are nurturing, present, playful, open-hearted, humble and tender. Real men turn the toxic into a tonic – a wonderful phrase from my friend Johari Jabir

This is true for christianity too. All the hate and harm done in the name of Jesus brings some serious tension to “being a christian.” But I believe in digging deeper into the biblical tradition so we can compost christianity. Let the oppressive elements decay – and water the love-and-liberation stuff so we can grow Something Else. Back in the day, Frederick Douglass called the white christianity that sanctified slavery “the boldest of all frauds.” Douglass was a christian, but he refused to let the fraud have the final word. The world will be a better place if we, like Douglass, turn toxic faith into a tonic – infused with a Love that lays down its life for others.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Getting Free From Homophobia

In the wake of the Club Q shooting, I’ve been reflecting on my long process of getting free from homophobia. I was raised in the Colorado Springs brand of Evangelical Christianity. I was taught that LGTBQIA people were living in sin. I never owned a gun, but I used the bible like a sword. I cut others with gay slurs. I cut myself resisting male touch and tenderness. My pastors told me that the bible is perfect without any mixture of error – and that the bible says that anything “gay” is an abomination. Make no mistake. My religion was not Christianity. It was Supremacy. It said that LGBTQIA folks are sinners and that women must be quiet and submissive - and that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Because the bible says so. 

Monday, November 21, 2022

Wabi-Sabi

For a short season, Lindsay and I lived in Central Oregon, on a small compound two blocks from the Deschutes River. We were renting a one-bedroom ADU from Amanda, a teacher, and her partner Kyle, a general contractor who has potty-trained all three of their sons on construction sites. Eventually, Kyle recruited us to help him build a pizza oven in the backyard, made out of leftover materials he collected from different jobs. 

Early in the project, we made a grave error – while pouring concrete! Kyle just shook his head and muttered, “wabi-sabi.” It’s a Japanese phrase that means there’s beauty in our mistakes. After Kyle translated the term, my perfectionist tendencies took a backseat. Even better, Kyle refused to compartmentalize it. This was great news because when it was time for dinner, he made me the guy in charge of rotating the pies every few minutes. 

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

My Ballot Choices

My spiritual convictions drive my ballot choices. I believe that everyone is a child of God - nothing more, nothing less. I believe that this God hums on open-heartedness, humility and sacrificial love – and that this God beckons people of conscience to conspire for the affirmation and protection of those who are perpetually exploited and excluded in America. 

I do not believe in a human hierarchy of value. I do not believe that certain people deserve better healthcare, better public schools, better police protection, better roads or better representation in court and Congress than anyone else. I do not believe that we should still be living in two completely different Americas, more than fifty years after Dr. King was killed.