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Mercy Not Sacrifice

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May 2016

May 11, 2016

The contempt for the heart in United Methodism

It's odd that a movement founded when John Wesley "felt [his] heart strangely warmed" has...

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...

May 07, 2016

A prophecy and two visions from Acts for our United Methodist General Conference

The book of Acts is supposed to model for us how the early church engaged...

May 06, 2016

What Romans 1 teaches about sin and why it ironically exonerates LGBT identity

Romans 1:18-32 is one of the most important passages in scripture, because it describes the...

May 02, 2016

On making Jesus answer questions he wasn’t asked

Conservative United Methodist scholar Ben Witherington's recent rant in the United Methodist Clergy group was...

April 2016

April 29, 2016

Is punishment the primary vocation of a bishop?

Drew McIntyre is not a bad person. I got to know him on a mission...

April 28, 2016

Should the United Methodist Church be more like McDonald’s?

Last night, I went to a screening of the film "Act of Love" about the trial of...

April 27, 2016

Can we have a scorn-free General Conference?

One of my favorite parishioners at my last church was a Tea Party Republican. He...

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...

February 2016

February 04, 2016

The wind is not always God

Every Wednesday morning, I give away donut holes and, more recently, cups of yerba mate...

June 2015

June 19, 2015

Why I can’t use euphemisms for anti-gay Christians

I have many anti-gay Christians in my life and I love them at least as...

October 2014

October 02, 2014

When Martin Luther King, Jr. Clashed With White Moderate Methodists

When Martin Luther King, Jr. and his entourage descended on Birmingham, Alabama in early 1963,...

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 22, 2014

#VAUMC14: We voted for real conversation about sexuality; that means the onus is on us to have it!

Yesterday, my colleague Tom Berlin put forward a motion to postpone the resolution that had...

June 21, 2014

#VAUMC14: Connection — institution vs reality

Part of our annual conference program each year involves a teaching study led by a...

June 21, 2014

The Virginia Conference talks about sexuality

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

June 12, 2014

What does a safe and fruitful church conversation about sexuality look like?

The Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church will be meeting next weekend in Hampton,...

June 05, 2014

Should the #UMC ask King Solomon how to cut a baby in half?

Two women stood before King Solomon in 1 Kings 3:16-28 with one baby, both claiming...

June 01, 2014

What if conservatives and progressives need each other?

Nobody gets on my nerves like sanctimonious moderates. You know, the kind who are religiously...

May 2014

May 27, 2014

Is there any #UMC accountability for resisting injustice and oppression?

It seems like in United Methodism as with many things, there are unspoken rules about...

May 23, 2014

Let them go in peace and start over from scratch like Wesley did

The United Methodist blogosphere has been fired up after a recent announcement that 80 prominent...

May 10, 2014

In defense of Boy Scout campouts (a reader responds)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the way that the middle-class church is being...

May 09, 2014

What is a heretic and what is orthodoxy? (A response to Timothy Tennent)

In a recent blog post, Asbury Theological Seminary president Timothy Tennent claimed that the real...

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 04, 2014

What is Biblical obedience? Abraham, Huck Finn, and Adolf Eichmann

There's a movement within United Methodism called "Biblical Obedience" whose name itself is offensive to...

February 2014

February 07, 2014

Five hypotheses about original sin and total depravity

So I went to the Facebook United Methodist Clergy page yesterday with the question of...

January 2014

January 27, 2014

Church, I think we’re gonna be okay

The past several years of my life have been building up to a three and...

January 03, 2014

A letter that captures the heart of the Methodist conflict

The Institute of Religion and Democracy just published a letter from a retired professor Walter...

November 2013

November 22, 2013

My duty to the Bible’s living interpretive tradition

I had a good discussion yesterday with my pastor covenant group about our discernment process...

November 20, 2013

Justice of the heart and Frank Schaefer

This week, the United Methodist Church put a pastor on trial named Frank Schaefer for...