Holiday engagement season is upon us and although the pandemic may have postponed or altered some couples’ plans to marry, others are still making plans to tie the knot soon. Previously I wrote a guide to egalitarian engagements and weddings, but I left out one big question many egalitarian couples face: how to navigate deciding whether to change last names.
I remember the first and, incidentally, the last time I saw my grandfather cry.
I remember it the way a teen remembers their first kiss or their first day of school. I remember it like a couple remembers their first dance or their first date. I remember it the way the country remembers when Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon.
I remember it vividly because it was everything to me.
On the eve of the US election, how many of us laid in bed awaiting results with knots in our stomachs? Who among us can hide our concerns for the future as significant differences divide our country and also the church? We have articulate and passionate spokespersons (but not necessarily saints) on every side. Their rhetoric too often feeds presumption, misrepresentation, and algorithms instead of holiness. Who has not prayed for leaders who depolarize, unite, and heal around a deep identity and purpose?
Editor’s note: This is one of the Top 15 2020 CBE Writing Contest winners. Enjoy!
When I was very young, I once heard adults talking about a couple who had left a church because they felt that the church was no longer being faithful to the Bible. The only detail I remember about the supposedly unfaithful church was this comment, made in a shocked and disdainful tone of voice: “They were calling God ‘Mother’!”
Editor’s note: This is one of the Top 15 2020 CBE Writing Contest winners.
[Trigger warning: themes related to sexual abuse]
The role of the pastor has shifted in the age of coronavirus. As churches consider reopening and discuss strategies for a safe congregational return to worship, there is a heightened sense of anxiety. Safety concerns, liability, finances, grieving congregants, conspiracy theories, and mounting pressure to open are just a few of the issues facing clergy. It does not matter what gender you are; if you are a pastor right now, these are challenging times.
This is the fourth and final blog entry on the topic of word studies—more specifically, on a few problems that sometimes work their way into word studies.
This is the third in a series of four blog entries about word studies and why they matter to egalitarians studying Scripture. The series points out fallacies to watch for in word studies because such studies can sometimes go too far.
Editor’s Note: This is one of the Top 15 2020 CBE Writing Contest winners. Enjoy!
When I first received a letter offering me a routine pap smear test, I replied saying I didn’t want one. Why? I wanted my hymen to remain intact until I was married.
Arising from Black and feminist liberation theologies in the 1980s, womanist theology brings a needed focus on the experiences of Black women to Christian theology. Attending to the abuses of slavery, the injustices that brought about the Civil Rights movement, and the present fight for full emancipation for Black people in the United States, womanist theology identifies with the oppressed to empower and liberate. Acting on love and an audacious courage to challenge assumptions, womanists take charge and battle the powers and principalities.