Christianity

Thou Shalt Not Employ a Transgender Professor? It’s Not a Verse in the Bible

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Reflecting on her own coming-out experience at Yeshiva University, Joy Ladin speaks out in support of Professor Adam Ackley, the theologian who was just fired from Christian Azusa Pacific University after coming out as transgender. There is no verse in the Bible in which God says, “Thou shalt not employ a transgender professor,” and religious organization who act against such people only do so out of fear: fear of difference, fear of the unknown, and fear of losing money.

Christianity

Weekly Sermon: Learner's Mind — If What You Fear Does Not Exist

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The beloved city, Israel’s capital, is besieged by Syria. No one is free. We are the walled city. We are its violent, deceitful citizens. O, dear people, you have been in thrall to fears, and for so long a time. In the Cross of Christ, come free and see in the present moment that what you fear does not exist. The violence of anger will move from your path and you, like the lepers, will become angels—messengers of good news to the city.

Christianity

Weekly Sermon: Learner's Mind — This Is Not The Way

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Soberly seeing how dreadfully easily we Americans utterly lose our way, pray for solidarity, that all who have faith see that there are more with us than there are with them. And do not think that politics will ever cool that violence in our nature which underwrites all the powers of domination and oppression. Only the spiritual, with learner’s mind, can see the way. Only the spiritual recognize no division between loving God and opposing oppression with all our heart and soul and strength.

Christianity

Nuns Who Commit Sexual Abuse and the Annexation of Mercy

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Unlike the vast majority of men and women who have survived clergy abuse, Steve Theisen was not sexually abused by a Catholic priest. He was sexually abused by a Catholic nun. Theisen’s testimony is gut-wrenching to hear. One of the saddest things Theissen told me was this: “The Catholic Church is supposed to be a community, but sex abuse victims are not treated as members of the community.”

Christianity

Weekly Sermon: Learner’s Mind — Be Bountiful

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The stories of Elisha are tucked away in a few chapters of 2 Kings, where most Christians never tread. Perhaps we heard them in Sunday school, but since then, they have been locked in a cabinet. Now, suddenly, this dusty old box bursts with a word like one of the best-loved gospel stories, the feeding of the multitudes. Here is the heart of the story: Food for all.

Christianity

Bishop Katharine: Seeing the Divine in All People

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In May, Bishop Katharine—the first presiding woman bishop in the Anglican Community—gave a sermon so provocative that it led critics on the Christian right to charge her with possession by the devil. I think that much of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the ordination of women comes from a deep-seated fear of content like Bishop Katharine’s: human life-affirming and focused on the kingdom of God.

Christianity

Weekly Sermon: Learner's Mind – The Help We Need

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God’s future comes to the church, not from best-laid plans, but from dialogue with the help we need; not from anxious arrangements with our fears, or our budgets, but from conversations with soul friends. Healing, after all, is not getting what we thought we wanted. Healing is receiving our own experience of God. That is how it worked for Naaman.

Christianity

You're Racist But Not Evil

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I suspect that when white people hear “You’re a racist,” what they really hear is the message: “You’re an evil, ignorant, oppressive white supremacist, the sort of person who would re-enslave black people and commit genocide against the remaining Native Americans and Jews if you had the chance.”