Why is a famous evangelical pastor defending slavery?

I was recently made aware of a debate going on in the neo-reformed Gospel Coalition corner of the world that I tend to avoid. Doug Wilson, a megachurch pastor from Idaho, argued in his book Black and Tan that the abolitionist movement was wrong and the Civil War should never happened, because if Southern slave-owners had been allowed to implement the Bible’s teachings on slavery, then a more humane transition would have taken place through “gospel gradualism.” So a Caribbean neo-reformed pastor Thabiti Anyabwile who writes for the Gospel Coalition decided this March to engage him in charitable conversation (summarized by the Wartburg Watch here) about his assertions (which I guess would be the equivalent of a Jewish person sitting down to have a civil discussion with a Holocaust denier).

Interruption, Ideology, and Truth

Amos Yong at the Missio Alliance talked today about “the phenemonology of interruption” in Pentecost. Interruption is how God expresses His sovereignty. Humanity muddles along in our reality that we can’t imagine being any other way, and events happen that do not fit “the way things are.” Our paradigms are shattered, and we are forced to grapple with the terror that Somebody greater than the projected Geist of our civilization has tinkered with us. Pentecost is the eternal event of the Spirit’s interruption. The opposite of Pentecost is ideology, the stasis of homogenized idolatrous “truth” that tries to substitute itself for God, what Slavoj Zizek calls “the big Other” and what Christians with a perspicuous (idolatrous) account of Biblical truth would call the “owner’s manual.”

Surprised by mercy: my train-wreck conversion story

I was invited to share an occasion when I was surprised by mercy. It was August 2002. I had just rushed my ex-girlfriend to the emergency room because she slit her wrists in a bathtub. I was a severely depressed, chain-smoking mess. And I discovered the gospel of mercy that I proclaim today when I opened Henri Nouwen’s book Life of the Beloved in a small group gathering where everyone other than me was a lesbian. I only remember Tanya and Pat by name, but if that group of lesbians had not been spiritual mothers who embraced and nurtured me in a time of crisis, I would not be a pastor today. I realize that talking about this will probably cause my Board of Ordained Ministry to have some questions for me, but God has commanded me to testify about the train wreck experience by which I discovered the true gospel. Because it was only in the fellowship of the despised that I could learn mercy the way God wanted me to understand it.

CampusPride and Chick-Fil-A make peace

It’s not often that something I read on Huffington Post gives me “hopey-changey” goose bumps. But CampusPride director Shane Windmeyer’s post about “coming out” as a friend of Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is one of the most hopeful things I’ve read in a long time. I challenge you to put your ideology aside for a moment, whatever it is, and consider the witness of love that has happened between these two men.

How many of us are like Cephas? (Galatians 2:11-21)

The Daily Office epistle for today was Galatians 2:11-21. In it, Paul talks about his confrontation of Peter, whom he calls by his Hebrew name Cephas: “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy” (Galatians 2:11-13). How many of us are like Cephas? I know that I am.

The Jeremiah Wrighting of Louie Giglio

When the outrage industrial complex tried to make Jeremiah Wright into the bogeyman who would take down the 2008 candidacy of Barack Obama, I had just read a couple of books by Wright’s main influence, black liberation theologian James Cone. It was incredibly frustrating to see liberation theology being paraded as some kind of scary crypto-Marxist plot by people who had never had any direct exposure to it. I feel similarly frustrated by the drama that caused Louie Giglio to back out of his inauguration prayer. It’s a curse of the information age in which scandal is where the money is, so you send people out to dig up old sermon archives to find a ” !@#$%^&* America” or “Homosexuality is sinful” sermon that will score a gazillion hits for your “news” site.

So what about celibate gay bishops?

The Church of England decided this week to allow gay men who are in civil partnerships to become bishops as long as they take an oath of celibacy. The evangelical Anglicans were up in arms about this and there were a lot of spirited comments on the article from people whose caps-lock key appeared to be stuck. It does raise a very interesting question of where the lines are drawn for Christians who are opposed to homosexuality.

Looking Back on 2012: April-May

In March, I fasted from blogging for Lent. April and May of 2012 were dominated by thoughts about our United Methodist General Conference. There was also a series of violent tornadoes that John Piper decided to interpret as God’s wrath against America for homosexuality or abortion (I can’t remember which one). Since homosexuality dominated the conversation around General Conference, I wrote a few pieces about it, striving to be both faithful to scripture and faithful to people I love who are gay. I also preached a sermon comparing and contrasting the uniformity and top-down vision of the Tower of Babel with the chaos of Pentecost. So here are the 10 from April and May.

What if he grows up to be gay?

People will be offended by this post for a variety of reasons, but I’ve been told that my vulnerability blesses others, so I’m going to ask a taboo question that no father says out loud, hopefully in a way that isn’t hurtful. I have two sons who are very different. My younger son is emphatically a boy. He likes to kick and throw balls. He jumps off of furniture recklessly. He likes to headbutt me. He has the kind of wild, primordial laughter that the book of Job ascribes to a horse on the battlefield. He’s like the Biblical character Esau. My older son is different. He’s more of a Jacob. He’s extremely interested in his own emotions and those of other people. He likes saying, “I love you” to complete strangers. He isn’t interested in kicking or throwing. Instead, he likes dancing and being theatrical. What if he grows up to be gay?

Letter from a gay Christian classmate

This is a letter from a guy named Chase Bannister who went to school with my wife Cheryl and me at Duke Divinity School. Chase is gay. That’s why he left the United Methodist Church. Cheryl and I have other friends and seminary classmates like Chase who are beautiful people with amazing gifts that have left the Methodist church because they’re gay. I’m sharing this letter because Chase is a person, not an issue. And because he said in his letter, “Remember me,” like the thief said to Jesus. Those words condemned me because I’ve often tried to forget friends like Chase, since my life as a Methodist pastor would be easier if I had never known them. In any case, whatever you believe about this issue, I hope that you’re willing to listen to a person whose life is directly impacted.