Category Archives: Theology
Reparative therapy: Not the path to welcome
We often hear pastors express their conviction that they welcome all to their flock, and increasingly—in an attempt to love those they don’t completely understand, and to minister to real needs and questions—their churches are offering “reparative” or “conversion therapy” …
Reflecting on Dr. King’s Dream…
This weekend across the United States – churches, civil organizations and non-profits will provide various opportunities to celebrate and honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King is a spiritual hero of mine, and having been inducted into …
Gays are us
From the pen of Reverend Dr. Dennis W. Wiley, prior to the King Memorial Dedication As the nation prepares to celebrate the dedication of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., this weekend, I am reminded that …
Pastor, “Is God displeased with me?”
Recently a pastor described to me the experience of sitting in the office with a church member and being asked a familiar question, “Pastor, Is God displeased with me?” This leader had demonstrated and publicly stated their welcome. The congregation …
A grandson trumps theology
A prominent church leader and retired university president, whose name would be immediately recognized by many if we used it here, found his view of homosexuality challenged when his twenty-year-old grandson came out as gay. He described it in this way:
Why anti-gay bullying is a theological issue
By Cody J. Sanders, as published in Religion Dispatches*
Ethiopian eunuchs and reading the text from the margins
As a man of color, I always read the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 with an emphasis on Africa. My reading through Hispanic eyes unmasks insights about the text that most of my Eurocentric colleagues miss. Nevertheless, I can easily fall into a similar myopia if I solely read the text with heterosexual eyes.
While whites may gain insight from me when I read the text from my particular social location, I myself am in danger of missing all the gems to be mined from a passage if I refuse to learn how to read the text from other marginalized social locations.