Warning: Photo contains offensive hand gesture. Parental guidance suggested.
This weekend is Pride in San Francisco, one of the largest Pride events in the world. Over a million people are expected to attend the main event on Sunday morning, June 28. All weekend there are events held literally out my front door. Not just the GLBT [...]

My ears always perk up when I hear the Bible quoted on the House floor to argue against a bill I support. Today,  Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) didn’t do as bad a job with Luke 11:46 as Shimkus did with his Bible quotes. The verse Pence quotes is one of Jesus’ three woes to the [...]

Paul Ray, author of the Cultural Creatives, has an ongoing research project that is chronicling the break down of the old political dividing lines.  I was reminded of it when I listened to this very intersting interview with him as part of the lead up to the “State of the World Forum.”  If you have [...]

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post expressing frustration that Baptists only get in the news when they say something crazy. So said I: “I don’t want to be a be a Baptist today.” I encouraged readers to “talk me down” in Rachel Maddow Show fashion. I was succesfully talked down. Tripp assigned me [...]

A leader from church came back from the regional UCC gathering and asked me if I knew a theologian named John Cobb because if not I should.  Luckily I know John quite well (and could possibly run his fan club), but what she said next was pretty exciting for me as a minister, “Tripp [...]

“A DEVOUT UNCERTAINTY”:
WHAT IS THE WILL OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST TODAY?
I would not present this section of my discussion of homosexuality to a workshop at the Annual Gathering of CBF, because a panel discussion would occur with different Baptist voices representing all four of these broad viewpoints. However, I am not in a workshop [...]

Option 4. Variation in God’s Design for Creation:  “Welcoming and Celebrating!”
The union of a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage constitutes the normative purpose of God for humanity in the goodness of creation.  The goal in the relationship of male and female is the intensifying oneness of marriage.  Children are the special [...]

Option 3.  Homosexuality ‘In the Shadow of Human Fallenness’:  “Accommodation”
It has become increasingly clear that the homosexual orientation is not essentially a choice or an environmental production: It is more than an orientation because it roots in the personhood of the homosexual male or female. Human “genetics” not only accounts for the sexual distinction between [...]

Option 2. Deviation from God’s Intention in Creation: “Welcoming but Not Affirming”
The second option shifts the argument by distinguishing between homosexual behavior and homosexual persons. The advocates of this viewpoint generally accept the biblical warrants against homosexual activity characteristic of church tradition, but it does not reject homosexual persons as “perverts.” “Welcoming but not [...]

Option 1. The Rejection of God’s Design for Creation: Homosexuality as a “Perversion”-
The proponents of this historic but fundamentally negative understanding of homosexuality demonstrate the complete rejection of homosexual activity as well as the homosexual person, because a person is bound together with and cannot be distinguished from his or her behavior. Since God’s design [...]

UPDATE: The bill passed! It was very close. Thanks to everyone who took action!
We just sent out a national alert today. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, introduced by Reps. Waxman and Markey, will put a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and create millions of green jobs here in the U.S. It is a [...]

This session was much less depressing.  Real things were said.  Honest things.
What we need:
- “Entrepreneurial apostolic leaders!  That is what we need for the future.
- We need an alternative public witness to the religious right, because…..the gospel is bigger and more beautiful than what is seen today.
- Global economic downturn forces the church to make [...]

Round One
Sweet Quotes from random people at the Transforming Theology conference.:
“It has been a long time since someone thought Liberal or Progressive and thought Lutheran….Disagreement doesn’t mean lack of charity. ”
“So many Methodist, so little time.”
“There is no God who ceases to be creator, and who can therefore be played off against what has been [...]

Over the summer Chad and I will be recording a bunch of podcasts to share with the Homebrewed Christianity Deaconate.  While we do not lack confidence in our ability to select rockin’ guests, we want to know now…..
Who should we invite on the podcast?
What topics are worth a series of interviews?
When Chad and I go [...]

When I was in Divinity school I went to the Process and Faith summer institute to take a week long Process Theology class.  It was a great experience because it combines class lectures from the big names like John Cobb or Marjorie Suchocki or Ron Farmer, class discussions, and theological engagement with pretty sweet films.  [...]