As a young Protestant boy growing up in Belfast my imagination wasn’t nearly creative enough to picture a scenario where the Pope would send personal greetings to an ecumenical gathering at the Anglican cathedral where his biographer was going to be speaking.

The love of our neighbors is a command not a suggestion. Taking care of the “least of these” is the measure by which we shall be judged. If we don’t take notice and pursue a more equitable and just world then we have blood on our hands.

Ask any pastor if they have had people try to have them “cancelled” and, if they trust you and are willing to share, every one of them will have numerous stories to share. The reality is that almost all of the attempts to cancel pastors have little if anything to do with theology, it’s almost always, politics and personalities.

A new poem on focused on our shared identity.

We all have family histories that shape who we are. Here’s part of my story …

In a busy and hectic world we all need to find space to slow down and breathe. Psalm 46:10 reminds us to pay attention to the presence of the divine with a call to, "Be still, and know that I am God." Do you take time to make space for the divine in your life?

What does it mean for us to say that we are only six social connections from anyone else on the planet? Some brief thoughts on our connectedness.

I haven’t written in a while because I didn’t want to simply write, “I told you so.” I didn’t want to sound patronizing. Yet, my frustration is that everything that happened last week at the nation’s capitol was entirely predictable.

I want to use the term Christian without any modifiers, no adjectives. I believe adjectival Christianity is the source of so many of the problems facing the church.

Whitehead and Perry share that “The desperate quest for power inherent in Christian nationalist ideology is antithetical to Jesus’ message. At its core, Christian nationalism is a hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ.”

I often hear people say that we shouldn’t judge others. Certainly we shouldn’t slander others, we shouldn’t bear false witness against others, we shouldn’t spread rumors about others, and we shouldn’t be judgmental. However, we must pass judgment on other people.

There was a time before Karl Marx. A time before Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith. A time before the political theory of Locke and Rousseau. There was a time when Christians didn’t think in terms of individual rights or argue about the virtues of socialism versus capitalism.