Posts

A Letter to Dr. King from a Recovering White Moderate
Dear Dr. King, I wish I’d have written this sooner. Indeed I should have but doing so was simply not possible, as it’s taken me this long to realize that

The White Evangelical Church Has Failed America. It’s Also Failed Jesus.
Christians need to name something right now: the white Evangelical Church in America has failed us all—fully, grievously, irreparably. If not for them, the previous president’s vile video confession of

I’m Really Tired of Hatred
Yesterday while picking up lunch I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months. After exchanging surprised greetings and a fierce hug—she stopped abruptly, looked genuinely concerned

Christians are Supposed to Care About People
I used to think I was a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. After a few meandering spiritual wilderness years I attended

We Who Grieve Aren’t Strong, We’re Trying To Survive
We recently lost a dear family member to a lifelong illness at just twenty-three years old. As his devastated father and I were exchanging dozens of texts during those first

Grieving A Loved One’s Missing Christmas Presence
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you. When grief visits you, the holidays change. Your wish list becomes incredibly small. Your priorities crystalize down to the essential, elemental things.

Evangelicals, It Was A Sin Supporting Him
Dear Evangelicals, It’s time. It’s time to admit that this was all a horrible mistake; that whether you were misled by a pastor or deceived by a politician, or lied

America’s Un-Civil War
The heralds of disaster are hard at work right now. They are prowling social media with dire prophecies and wielding megaphones in ramped up rally crowds and forecasting doom in

Mr President, Judaism is Not a Nationality and America is Not a Religion
Mr President, We shouldn’t be here. It is both laughable and sickening that we find ourselves at this place, having this conversation, about something like this—but then again, such has

Opposing Hateful People Doesn’t Make Me Hateful
“You’re being hateful.” I hear that a lot. The accusation is lobbed violently from behind anonymous Twitter handles or lazily tossed into neighborhood social media sites or spoken in quiet,

Dying to Leave, Trying to Live: My Depression Journey
(Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm) “I’m done living.” It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a car outside our Central New York hotel, with heavy snow

He is Morally Impeachable
The truth is vulnerable right now. Good people know this. We can see that justice in this particular iteration of America is susceptible to compromised politicians and fake news conspiracies,

The Epidemic Loneliness of Trump’s America
As I travel the country and interact online, people tell me their stories and I look for the pattern in those stories: the recurring themes and similar sentiments that begin

This isn’t Christianity
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly

Trump’s Presidency Exposed My White Christian Friends
The previous President has been many things since arriving: a national embarrassment, a global punchline, an environmental disaster, a divider of people, a prolific murderer of the English language. But

Hashtags Won’t Save Us
I woke up this morning and there they were waiting for me, the latest round of black and white saviors from the ether: the hashtag warriors. Some of them still

Not Voting is Not A “Statement”
I usually avoid small talk, as it’s an introvert’s kryptonite, but yesterday at the pharmacy I made eye contact with the woman in line behind me and started up a

I Resist Him Because I’m a Christian
As a Christian, I take the words of Jesus seriously. They matter to me. I don’t think they’re theoretical ideas meant to be uttered for an hour on Sunday or

If You Don’t Care About Kurds Dying—You’re Not Pro-life
You say that you’re pro-life. You let me know in hashtags and bumper stickers and t-shirts and memes and march photos and sermons and high horse sanctimony. You treasure and

The Loneliness of Grief
I know how you feel. People often said those words to me in one form or another after my father died. I knew they meant well. I knew they were

When Fear is Your Religion
I feel sorry for white Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians. It must be awful to go through life terrified; to believe that you are perpetually in danger, to always be threatened

I’m Not The Radical Left, I’m The Humane Middle
Apparently, I’ve been radicalized and I wasn’t aware. Certain people call me the “radical Left” all the time. I never considered myself radical before. I just thought I was normal,

Yes, Greta Thunberg is a Superhero. And Yes, You Can Be One, Too.
Greta Thunberg is one in a million. (Actually, she is one in seven point five billion.) She is infinitesimally small, statistically insignificant, numerically inconsequential. She is a brief cosmic blip.

No America, It’s Not Gonna Be Okay
I am a newly retired optimist. I used to believe that things would always be okay: that no matter how bad circumstances seemed in the world, I trusted that people

A Letter to Dr. King from a Recovering White Moderate
Dear Dr. King, I wish I’d have written this sooner. Indeed I should have but doing so was simply not possible, as it’s taken me this long to realize that

The White Evangelical Church Has Failed America. It’s Also Failed Jesus.
Christians need to name something right now: the white Evangelical Church in America has failed us all—fully, grievously, irreparably. If not for them, the previous president’s vile video confession of

I’m Really Tired of Hatred
Yesterday while picking up lunch I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months. After exchanging surprised greetings and a fierce hug—she stopped abruptly, looked genuinely concerned

Christians are Supposed to Care About People
I used to think I was a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. After a few meandering spiritual wilderness years I attended

We Who Grieve Aren’t Strong, We’re Trying To Survive
We recently lost a dear family member to a lifelong illness at just twenty-three years old. As his devastated father and I were exchanging dozens of texts during those first

Grieving A Loved One’s Missing Christmas Presence
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you. When grief visits you, the holidays change. Your wish list becomes incredibly small. Your priorities crystalize down to the essential, elemental things.

Evangelicals, It Was A Sin Supporting Him
Dear Evangelicals, It’s time. It’s time to admit that this was all a horrible mistake; that whether you were misled by a pastor or deceived by a politician, or lied

America’s Un-Civil War
The heralds of disaster are hard at work right now. They are prowling social media with dire prophecies and wielding megaphones in ramped up rally crowds and forecasting doom in

Mr President, Judaism is Not a Nationality and America is Not a Religion
Mr President, We shouldn’t be here. It is both laughable and sickening that we find ourselves at this place, having this conversation, about something like this—but then again, such has

Opposing Hateful People Doesn’t Make Me Hateful
“You’re being hateful.” I hear that a lot. The accusation is lobbed violently from behind anonymous Twitter handles or lazily tossed into neighborhood social media sites or spoken in quiet,

Dying to Leave, Trying to Live: My Depression Journey
(Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm) “I’m done living.” It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a car outside our Central New York hotel, with heavy snow

He is Morally Impeachable
The truth is vulnerable right now. Good people know this. We can see that justice in this particular iteration of America is susceptible to compromised politicians and fake news conspiracies,

The Epidemic Loneliness of Trump’s America
As I travel the country and interact online, people tell me their stories and I look for the pattern in those stories: the recurring themes and similar sentiments that begin

This isn’t Christianity
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly

Trump’s Presidency Exposed My White Christian Friends
The previous President has been many things since arriving: a national embarrassment, a global punchline, an environmental disaster, a divider of people, a prolific murderer of the English language. But

Hashtags Won’t Save Us
I woke up this morning and there they were waiting for me, the latest round of black and white saviors from the ether: the hashtag warriors. Some of them still

Not Voting is Not A “Statement”
I usually avoid small talk, as it’s an introvert’s kryptonite, but yesterday at the pharmacy I made eye contact with the woman in line behind me and started up a

I Resist Him Because I’m a Christian
As a Christian, I take the words of Jesus seriously. They matter to me. I don’t think they’re theoretical ideas meant to be uttered for an hour on Sunday or

If You Don’t Care About Kurds Dying—You’re Not Pro-life
You say that you’re pro-life. You let me know in hashtags and bumper stickers and t-shirts and memes and march photos and sermons and high horse sanctimony. You treasure and

The Loneliness of Grief
I know how you feel. People often said those words to me in one form or another after my father died. I knew they meant well. I knew they were

When Fear is Your Religion
I feel sorry for white Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians. It must be awful to go through life terrified; to believe that you are perpetually in danger, to always be threatened

I’m Not The Radical Left, I’m The Humane Middle
Apparently, I’ve been radicalized and I wasn’t aware. Certain people call me the “radical Left” all the time. I never considered myself radical before. I just thought I was normal,

Yes, Greta Thunberg is a Superhero. And Yes, You Can Be One, Too.
Greta Thunberg is one in a million. (Actually, she is one in seven point five billion.) She is infinitesimally small, statistically insignificant, numerically inconsequential. She is a brief cosmic blip.

No America, It’s Not Gonna Be Okay
I am a newly retired optimist. I used to believe that things would always be okay: that no matter how bad circumstances seemed in the world, I trusted that people