Gatekeepers and pilgrims have opposite goals. Gatekeepers must remain stationary in order to watch over the gate, but pilgrims must be moving in order to progress in their pilgrimage. It's the very nature of keeping watch over an entrance that implies a dedication to how or where a thing is. There is a certain unchanging quality to watching over things, and that's how many people have been conditioned to see Christianity: we stand and guard the gate. The Wide and Narrow Gates A famous analogy in the Bible (Matthew) is about finding and entering through the narrow gate and walking the hard path that leads to life. Part of that analogy is a warning about the wide gate, which is easier to find but leads to destruction. I often hear these things referred to for the sake of warning others to check which path they're on, but approaching this passage with an emphasis on the warning often leads to tunnel vision. People can get so fixated on avoiding the wide gate that they fail t...

Original Author: Frank Friedl, on Facebook, June 5, 2020. Reposted here with permission. This post is part one of a series of topical thoughts inspired by the book Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew G. I. Hart. One of the first things that jumped out to me reading Trouble I've Seen by Drew G.I. Hart, is how he distinguishes "horizontal" racism and "vertical" racism. Horizontal is inter-relational. It's what we think of when we are quick to the defense of, "I'm not racist!" because we have social proximity to other races. On that scale, you probably aren't racist in this sense. Relationally, you consider others on equal footing. But vertical racism is something different altogether. Vertical racism isn't relational, it's structural. While you might have black friends (horizontal defense), those friends live at a lower rung on the cultural ladder. So maybe you're not personally racist horizont...

I saw a picture of some protesters a while back; they were protesting the lock down restrictions imposed in their area due to the pandemic. One of them was holding a sign that said something like God gave us free will, only evil tries to take it away. I think this is a really good summary of some of the more outspoken expressions of American Christianity. It seems to me that there's an underlying tension in this statement between American ideals of liberty and the Christian gospel. What Is Liberty? Liberty is not just literal freedom (i.e. freedom from slavery or oppression or captivity). Liberty is about the freedom to do things. For many Americans today, this is mostly individual and often manifests as "whatever we want to do." The writers of the Declaration of Independence put forth that there are certain unalienable rights, and one of those rights is the right to liberty. The American Constitution is built on that idea: freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom...