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Progressive Christian

Holiness

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June 2020

June 29, 2020

“All People Are Holy”: The Theology Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez summarized one of my core religious convictions in a speech given on February...

April 2020

April 18, 2020

Spiritual Memoir (A Poem About My Life)

In my spiritual memoir, Satan will never have A speaking part because it’s Satan who...

February 2020

February 01, 2020

Resisting Harm Is What Holiness Is For

One way to talk about the tragic division in contemporary American Christianity is to say...

June 2019

June 30, 2019

Can “Social Justice” Christianity Be Anti-Gay?

This past Friday, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that inaugurated the gay...

February 2019

February 26, 2019

Practical Holiness Is Wesleyan Orthodoxy

I just spent a three-day Cursillo retreat with mostly older, conservative small-town United Methodists in...

February 02, 2019

Nein! A Response to Jason Micheli On Sanctification and Sex

Jason Micheli is my closest frenemy who isn't openly Calvinist. I love Jason, but sometimes...

February 02, 2019

Nein! A Response to Jason Micheli on Holiness and Christian Sexuality

Jason Micheli is my closest frenemy who isn't openly Calvinist. I love Jason, but sometimes...

January 2019

January 09, 2019

Why Does Holiness Matter?

Holiness is one of the most important and controversial aspects of John Wesley's 300 year...

August 2017

August 03, 2017

How AA defines holiness

The entry in AA's Daily Reflections for today says, "Our real purpose is to fit ourselves...

July 2017

July 09, 2017

Five twitter theology feeds: the gospel, hyervigilant moralism, law and order, God’s glory, Good Samaritan

I've been traveling for the past week so I've only had internet access on my...

March 2017

March 03, 2017

Detoxify Christianity: A FB Live Video Series for Lent

If you don't think there's anything toxic about American Christianity, then you can stop reading...

October 2016

October 07, 2016

Let’s start an inclusive evangelical campus ministry network!

Time just ran an article about InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's witch-hunt against LGBTQ-affirming staff-people. Not staff-people...

September 2016

September 12, 2016

An open letter with 12 honest questions for the Wesleyan Covenant Association

Dear Wesleyan Covenantal Association, First of all, I'm not afraid of you. I don't think...

July 2016

July 20, 2016

So your local church can’t do ministry because there’s a gay bishop out there?

Good News magazine recently published an open letter to the United Methodist Council of Bishops...

July 18, 2016

Wild Goose interviews: #1 Alicia Crosby

While I was at the Wild Goose Festival two weekends ago, I interviewed five people...

July 16, 2016

Could a queer bishop restore Wesleyan holiness to the United Methodist Church?

Last night, the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church elected our first openly-queer bishop,...

May 2016

May 19, 2016

The three essentials of the Wesleyan gospel

I came across an article by a woman named Carolyn Moore that puts forward "three non-negotiables for...

May 10, 2016

Can traditional sexuality exist without social control?

With the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, many conservative evangelical leaders...

April 2016

April 15, 2016

The 12 scriptures that inspired my book

When I was a Southern Baptist, we used to believe that Methodists didn't read the...

April 07, 2016

Can Jesus save us from our gated communities? #EmptyNotClean

From now until the release of my book How Jesus Saves the World From Us,...

April 06, 2016

Queerness, the idolatry of norms, and the “new” morality

I wish that United Theological Seminary president David Watson could have been at lunch with...

November 2015

November 01, 2015

Seven points of contention in today’s reformation

So it's that time of year known as Reformation Sunday when we remember the anniversary...

October 2015

October 26, 2015

Mental illness, morality, and holiness

One of the most important struggles of my spiritual journey has been the way that...

May 2015

May 14, 2015

Jesus’ holiness vs. our moralism (with Debra Hirsch)

I've been reading Debra Hirsch's Redeeming Sex as part of the Patheos Book Club for...

February 2015

February 13, 2015

Can Christianity be sex-positive? A chat with Dianna Anderson

Dianna Anderson is a twitter friend and conversation partner who is part of our growing tribe...

February 02, 2015

Is God offended by our sin?

What is God's attitude toward our sin? How you answer this question says a lot...

June 2014

June 23, 2014

The two women who got me to carry the rainbow flag

Despite the fact that I've been pretty vocal on my blog about LGBT issues, I...

June 21, 2014

The Virginia Conference talks about sexuality

Like many annual conferences of the United Methodist Church, the Virginia Conference is considering a...

April 2014

April 24, 2014

Social holiness is about way more than sex

Fellow Methodist pastor Evan Rohrs-Dodge wrote a very legitimate post recently pointing out the distinction...

March 2014

March 05, 2014

Jesus vs the Pharisees: A Debate on Holiness (my Lenten sermon series)

One of the most important and often neglected threads of the gospel stories of Jesus...