I find that there’s a tension between sadness and anger. Is there an appropriate time to be angry? Are there ways to love without sadness? How do sadness and anger fit into being a Spirit-filled disciple of Christ who leans into God for all things and finds strength and joy in the Lord and rejoices in suffering? I don’t know all the answers, but here's what I've realized: when we’re angry we tend to focus more on oppressors, offenders, and enemies than we do on the oppressed and those who are being wronged. Justifying Our Anger We often use our anger as a way to motivate us to action, but what I see in the world is that anger often causes the situation to deteriorate quickly into an ignorant war between us and them, between this group and that group. It inevitably stops being about the people who are suffering and becomes about us or an agenda or about the people who are causing the suffering. I've gone back and forth with myself about whether or not that's a go...

Meaning of Imago Dei Imago Dei literally means “image of God.” It’s often used in reference to Genesis where God creates humans in God’s image, or in the image of God. Imago Dei isn’t something I was taught about, explicitly, growing up, but as I am studying it, I realize I have been taught indirectly through the liturgies of the traditions in which I was raised. Somewhere along the way, it was instilled in me that the imago Dei is a reference to the fact that I am human, as opposed to anything else in creation. As with most things in Churches of Christ (CoC), this was conveyed through negative comparisons. Just as we were CoC because we were not denominational and not Catholic, we were human because we were not dogs or cats or rocks, etc. Just as we were CoC because we did not merely praise God but were also orderly in praise, we were human because we were not merely instinctual but also intellectual. Etc. To be bearers of the imago Dei meant to be human, and to be human meant...

“Who is my neighbor” is a question asked of Jesus in the gospel of Luke by a lawyer. Scripture says the lawyer wanted to justify himself, which I think is to say that he wanted to love some people and not others. To do that, he needed to know, “Who is my neighbor.” By implication, “Who is not my neighbor?” If you’re not familiar with the story, it goes like this: Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”  But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor? Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the good Samaritan, which is so popular that many non-Christians are fam...

Hypocrisy in the Church is one of the things I have conversations about pretty regularly, particularly with people who are frustrated with their congregations or with Christians in general. It's a topic that comes up a lot with non-believers, too. It's an important topic and is probably one of the most important discipleship issues with which I deal. What Is Hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is when a person claims to have a moral or ethical standard, but their life doesn’t seem to line up with that standard. I think most people understand that hypocrisy isn’t a good thing. It’s often at the heart of our frustrations with politics and religion, but we also experience it in less obvious ways, such as when we have hypocritical bosses with double standards or deal with entitled people. Entitlement can be a form of hypocrisy, because people who feel entitled often espouse certain expectations for others which they don’t have for themselves. Many of Jesus’s teachings deal with hypocris...

I heard an analogy the other day about Jesus dwelling in our hearts. It addresses whether or not Jesus would feel at home in our hearts. The speaker used examples like being in somebody's home and feeling uncomfortable and feeling ready to leave as soon as you can. He's using examples about the way things smell, look, or feel or a sense that you get. He asked questions like these: what if you came home today and Jesus was waiting at your door and asked to be invited in? What if you did just that; what if you invited Jesus into your living room? Are there things in your living room that you would want to put away? Are there things you wouldn't want Jesus to see or are there shows that you wouldn't watch while he was around? I think this analogy is understandable for most people. We’ve probably all been in uncomfortable spaces, which we were waiting to “escape” because of that discomfort. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works for our relationship with Jesus, because it ...