Growing up in a Southern, progressive Christian church and going to seminary, we often made fun of the Jonathan Edwards’ style ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers throughout West Tennessee. Their vision of the future and the afterlife was dark and ominous. In hindsight, we should have taken their fiery spirit more seriously. We’re facing a future […]
Tag: sin
The sin of empathy
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, prelate of the Episcopal Church had the audacity to do something truly radical recently: she asked a president for mercy. Mercy is not necessarily entirely foreign to this particular president. He showed “mercy” to 1,500 men and women pardoned on his first day in office, some charged with violent crimes, for […]
Quarantine, Day 18
I heard someone today reference the Church as one of the reasons the Black Death was able to kill off somewhere between 40% to 80% of Europe during the 14th century. When I started digging more into that claim, I had some trouble verifying it. The claim hinged on the belief that people packed themselves […]
