The "Right Way" as a Righteous Vocabulary A few days ago, I wrote about the story we tell when we're afraid — the one that points at immigrants as the cause of our scarcity rather than at the systems that created it — and about Jesus's refusal, in Matthew 20, to accept empire's logic of domination: "Not so among you." I want to pick that thread back up here, because there's a phrase I hear constantly in these conversations that deserves a closer look. "I don't have a problem

Nonviolent resistance is not new. It is as old as the prophets who stood in the public square and refused to be silent, as old as Jesus who disrupted unjust systems without raising a sword, as old as communities of faith who have said, again and again, this is not how it has to be. As a United Methodist clergyperson, I am shaped by our Social Principles , which remind us that faith is never meant to be private or passive. The Social Principles call us to affirm the dignity an

I got a phone call at one of my churches this week. “Are you the church with the 'all are welcome' sign out front?” the caller asked. “The one that says ‘All are welcome in this place’ with the rainbow?” I replied cheerfully. “Yes! That’s us!” 🌈 There was a pause. The kind of pause where your spirit quietly whispers, Here we go. “Does that mean… everyone?” “Yes,” I said. “Jesus is pretty clear that all are welcome into relationship with God.” Another pause. Longer this time