The New York Times recently ran an op-ed entitled Joy is Not a Strategy. They could not be more wrong. Joy is dangerous. It’s wild. It’s subversive. And it’s contagious.

As Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was pausing in a moment of rapturous applause during his Vice Presidential acceptance speech at the DNC, the camera panned to his family, whose effusive

Dear White Christian, it’s time. It’s time to admit that this was all a horrible mistake: that whether you were misled by a pastor, deceived by a politician, manipulated by

Today, I attended a PRIDE event at a small town here in North Carolina known to be decidedly conservative and extremely slow to embrace LGBTQ equality. (Such an area is

The verdict is in. Donald Trump (the unhinged decade-long cult leader of the current Republican Party and its likely presidential candidate in a few months) is a convicted felon, found

We all have a story we tell ourselves, a narrative about who we are and what matters to us. It is the carefully curated working mythology of our daily lives

Yesterday I came across a video on a widely-followed Instagram page. It was a small section of a full Joe Rogan interview with author Coleman Hughes. In the clip, Hughes was accurately

This week, a dear friend of mine who makes a living publishing original content on social media and who has a large, vibrant following, messaged me to catch up on

They’re no longer saying the quiet part quietly. It’s all out in the open now. The extreme Christian Right (which is now essentially the de facto Republican Party) has declared

Nex Benedict will never see their seventeenth birthday. The beautiful, healthy, vibrant nonbinary teenager died at the hands of peers who bullied them incessantly and who violently beat them in

Recently, I asked my social media followers what gives them hope right now. A myriad of reasonable and predictable replies came back: children, grandchildren, spouses, partners, meaningful work, food, sex,

The Conservative response to Taylor Swift’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce reminds us what grievance culture does to those who find their home in it: they

I’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well. As a Christian for most of my life and a pastor for nearly three decades, I’m quite familiar with the Old

“You should let people know what you’re for, not what you’re against.” I hear these sentiments from time to time. The implication, is that declaring your opposition to people or laws

This was never about him. My Trump-supporting neighbors, family members, and former friends think it has been but my sadness really has nothing to do with him. From the very

This week the Pope formally gave Catholic priests the authority to bless same-sex relationships. Though this declaration does not include performing marriages or even civil unions, it is a massive shift

I confess that I’m a little lost presently. I’ve become a restless, reluctant nomad moving through familiar places with a hovering emotional dissonance. I am a lifelong American who is

What do you remember about the first days of the pandemic? I remember going to three grocery stores with a rising sense of dread as the shelves became more and

Have you ever noticed that nearly all Republican politicians claim to be Christians—but they never mention Jesus or his teachings? I have. Pay attention the next time you see a Conservative member

These are heavy days. Our bodies and brains aren’t equipped to carry the kind of elevated urgency we’re immersed in and to hold the scale of pain that we’re exposed

A dear friend recently posted the words I Stand With Israel on her social media account. I was honestly curious, so I asked her to clarify what she meant by

They say a budget is a moral document. I agree. The proposed Republican budget seeks to drastically reduce or eliminate funding for programs and services that tend to the essential

Hatred is a terribly powerful thing. It has a way of infiltrating the heart like a cancer; hardening it, darkening it, destroying it. When someone submits to rage completely, when

From the moment his initial presidential campaign began, Donald Trump promised to “Make America Great Again”. White Evangelicals passionately embraced both him and that message—and the Church has suffered because