LOVE AS REVOLUTION

I've struggled with how to begin this blog post, a review for  Emily M. D. Scott's   book,  For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World . So I'm gonna cry uncle and use the big word that came to mind when I began reading Pastor Scott's precious, first book. Awkward. It's a word the author applies to herself a fair amount - "That fall, I build a thick skin for awkwardness." (54), "at community meetings. I settle on an awkward white-lady-lurking posture..." (124), "When my dreaded archnemesis Awkwardness shows up..." (52). But it immediately comes to mind because for the vast majority of the book Pastor Scott herself is honest about how much and how often she feels ill-fitted to the life to which she's been called. As a pastor:  "I became a Lutheran pastor against my will. I never really meant to. At gatherings of Lutheran clergy, I don’t fit in. I am young, I am female, I am not married, I do not...

Like all the best spiritual memoirs, Rev. Emmy Kegler’s debut book One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins is a marvelous chain of moving personal stories and what they have taught her about God. There is much to comment on, but as a teacher - someone deeply concerned about how study can complement Christian devotion as to make us more powerful believers and attentive leaders - I found this book particularly wonderful because there are so many ‘class-settings’ where it could potentially be put to use. For example: If you are leading a seminar for anyone concerned about LGBTQAI+ youth – or a retreat for queer youth themselves: This book should be given to every registered attendee.   Pastor Emmy shares touching and relatable anecdotes, like how she got caught “writing anonymous love notes... four-line rhyming poems to every girl in class... slipping them into their desks when we left for gym” (30). Anecdotes like this are excellent sparks for meaningfu...

" Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?   And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken." - Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 So as many of you know, from now until the end of January I will approaching folks via social media to look for 200 people to give me small, monthly donations of about $5-$10 to supplement my income while I finish my PhD work. It is going to take a fair amount of work to accomplish, but it is an effort I am happy to undertake. 2018 was very difficult for my studies in large part because I had to piece together income from disparate jobs in order to pay bills. The impact this had on my studies was devastating as it cut deeply into my ability to read and focus, ...

I always chuckle a little bit whenever someone asks me the question - often with furrowed-brow and misplaced intensity: "Can the ELCA be multicultural?" It's a tough answer. Internal estimates place the whiteness of our denomination at almost 95%. Pew Research results of diversity among US religious groups.The ELCA is second from the bottom. Click for larger. This summer's sobering PEW research study of ethnic diversity in US religious communities had us at 96% white , making us the whitest church in the United States despite decades of trying to be otherwise. So sure, there is cause for worry, but having been in the vanguard of this very discussion for some time now, I always sport a sly grin whenever this topic pops up - because there is some little-known good news that invariablly twists the corners of my mouth a jaunty angle. The ELCA already is multicultural. It's true. Firstly, I know this because since beginning Th.M./Ph.D. studies at th...

The Problem: As the US reeled from yet another eruption of racist violence, the summer’s usually fleet flow slowed to a leaden crawl after Charleston. And as the darkest truth came to light – that not only had two of the nine victims been alumni of the ELCA’s Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (Mother Emanuel's Senior Pastor Rev. Clementa Pinckney and Associate Pastor Rev. Daniel Simmons) but that even the shooter, Dylann Storm Roof, was an ELCA member – that already heavy burden began burning to the touch. Bishop Eaton's pastoral epistle , released the day after the attacks, gave a sobering summation of the feelings of many in the ELCA: “All of a sudden and for all of us this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own.” The Response: But as the white leaders of our overwhelmingly white denomination (nearly 94.8% by ELCA internal estimates, 96% according to the recent Pew study ) struggled...

Question: How do you talk about Jesus' crucifixion at an open mic show with spiritual-but-not-religious types, many of whom have been badly burned by Christians and the church? Answer: It's a trick question. You don't talk about it... You embody it. Explanation: The idea first occurred to me during the winter of 2008 after I had completed 3 weeks at LSTC immersed in Prof. David Rhoads and his Biblical Performance Criticism seminar, "Scripture by Heart." By three weeks from class-end I had Mark 1 neatly stored in my brain - every wilderness-shouting, Holy-Spirit descending, demon-screaming juicy drop of it - before heaving it out before the crowd at the In-One-Ear Open Mic in Roger's Park one deep midwinter Wednesday. As the years flowed on I would perform most of the material from Mark 1 - 13, inspiring many conversations and confessions along the way, but I always stopped short of the Passion. Rev. Dr. David Rhoads whose book. Mark as ...