That Old Time Hymnal; it’s good enough for…

The United Methodist world is abuzz with the news: production on the new United Methodist Hymnal, slated for the 2012 quadrennium, has been halted.
While my congregation rejoices that this means the copies of The Faith We Sing we just bought are not going to be obsolete right away, and I rejoice that people aren’t going [...]

Sticks and stones may break my bones…

… but words– oh the awesome power of words– words can cause me to hate and fear and kill.
Reflecting today about the shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN. A virtual friend of mine, Terry, points out that we often tolerate hateful and violent words by people in the media in our country, [...]

Nope. I really can’t tell.

Please note: there is no way on God’s green earth that linking to this site is in any way an endorsement.
One of my friends told me about this site, and I spent a lot of time clicking through it.
It’s called “You’ve Been Left Behind,” youvebeenleftbehind.com, and here’s the thing: I can’t tell if it’s legitimate [...]

Irresistible Revolutionary

Okay, ‘fess up. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t have at least the teeniest crush on Shane Claiborne? Male, female, queer, straight or bi, is there anyone who doesn’t want to either be Shane or be near Shane? Because I’ll admit, I’ve got it bad for this grungy Jesus freak! Lookit the glasses! Gotta [...]

Ouch.

But nothing we didn’t already know. Nearly half of Americans have switched religious affiliation/denomination. Oh, and that’s not good news for the UMC.
With respect to my earlier thoughts about Easter, I read this in Borg and Crossan’s The Last Week, which, about three pages from the end now, I highly recommend:
“Both parts of the pattern [...]

Wherein I become a Fundie

So my thoughts on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.
First, I can’t believe this, but it’s true: I’ve finally found a series of books that I would recommend people not read for religious reasons. I don’t mean like Narnia and Left Behind, which [...]

Link Rec

Someone recommended this link to a friend to help her pass the time, and it is the funniest thing I’ve seen ever. Of course, it helps if, like me, you suffered through all twelve Left Behind books just for the sake of laughing at them/ being horrified by them/ being prepared to explain to people [...]

Surprised by Stewardship

I had what I thought was a relatively disappointing Stewardship Sunday this past week. We had decided to do the 18th because we thought people would be away on Veteran’s Day weekend. Last week there were 74 people in church; this Sunday, there were 51. Well, bugger. I’d worked hard on my sermon and thought [...]

Spiritual Darkness

I recently read this article on Time Online: Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith, by David Van Biema. It’s a long article, and a heartbreaking one, but well worth the read. To very briefly summarize, a collection of private correspondence (which she’d wanted destroyed and I half-wish they had listened, but am half-glad they didn’t) reveals [...]

Book Reviw: Lamb

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.
Why everyone in the world should read this book:
This book accomplishes something that not many authors/filmmakers attempt: an actual characterization of Jesus as, you know, a *character.* This was one of my top complaints about “The Passion” (and that’s saying something, because I had [...]