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Fellowship of Saints and Sinners

This video is an intimate look at the systemic nature of the commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of women and girls.  The woman in the video who is narrating the story is herself a survivor of sexual exploitation, and she, through a ministry called “GEMS,” has since dedicated her life to helping some of…

Fellow Saints and Sinners, I am re-posting the following response to the video I just shared with you, which poses the question, “Can prayer be social justice?” When I shared the video with the Facebook community, “Christians tired of being misrepresented,” which describes itself as “progressive” and “NOT a right-wing, fundamentalist” group, and to which…

20,000 children will lead the May 2012 World Prayer Assembly in prayer for the world. Wow. Which begs the question: can prayer be social justice?  After watching this video sent on by organizers of the May 2012 “World Prayer Assembly” in Jakarta, Indonesia, I am tempted to think so, albeit with some hesitations. (Incidentally, if…

Apparently Rob Bell’s best-selling Love Wins and its ambivalent stance towards an “eternal” hell (as “eternal” has historically been interpreted by evangelicals at least) continue to send ripples.  Two authors, author of Crazy Love Francis Chan and senior managing editor of Christianity Today Mark Galli have now responded with their own books, both of which seem at…

“The law, you see, was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah.” -John 1:17 “The Messiah”- and here I resort to  consulting trusty exegetical companion N.T. Wright- literally means “anointed one,” and in theory can be either a prophet, priest or king.  In practice, the Messiah was the one in ancient…

Apparently my reflections on Lauren Winner and her latest book have generated interest if not controversy about the nature of marriage as a storybook conclusion to the hopes and dreams of single people. In light of this, a few thoughts, queries and resources to further the discussion. First, while I single out evangelical Christianity for…

If there were anyone who knew about insecurity or a sense of not “measuring up,” it would be the thirteenth century, “stealth theologian” Mechthild de Magdeburg: she wrote as a woman in a largely male-dominated world of letters; she did not know the more academic Latin of her time and instead wrote in her lay,…

The domesticated goddess in me made a new recipe the other night.  (These days “domesticated” means trying out the dishes on sample at my local Trader Joe’s, so long as I can be assured of four ingredients or less.)  So this evening we were to eat “Baked Chili Cheese Cornbread Casserole” (a bag of shredded…

  “Love me passionately, love me often, and love me long.”  The appeal might grace the cover of Cosmopolitan.  The one, big exception?  That it is addressed to God…in the thirteenth century…by a “virginal” nun named Mechthild de Magdeburg. These days I am reading Mechthild’s strange, quirky yet wise The Flowing Light of the Godhead and…

While she doesn’t need or want my sympathy, I feel sorry for popular evangelical writer Lauren Winner. Only several years back we were reading her ambitious project to “change how Christians have sex.”  Now we are reading about her divorce. Winner’s latest book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, are reflections on God’s presence in…
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