The State of California is seriously considering giving monetary reparations to Black people who are able to prove that their relatives were slaves. Good luck with that! Reparations make sense to me only if they are used to confront the basic issue of racism. From my viewpoint, slavery is alive and well in the United … Read more
I have been called “antisemitic” many times. I found out a long time ago that if you are ever critical of anything that happens in Israel, you are instantly labeled as antisemitic. I don’t think I am. My Christ is a Jew. Daily, I read the Bible, which was written by Jewish people. The foundation … Read more
In June 2023, we were going to our youngest granddaughter’s high school graduation here in Orange County, California. As we walked in, a group of women were handing out a flyer that read “Protect Public Education” in an attempt to recall four of their newly elected school district board members. These people who are being … Read more
Every day I receive two emails from Words Trivia. This company offers exercises designed to help people increase their vocabulary (and advertise stuff). Half the time I have to guess the meaning of the word, and about half that time I guess right. This morning’s word was ubiquity. I thought I knew it so I … Read more
On the first Tuesday in November 2008, Annie and I were driving cross-country from the East Coast to the West to return to our home in Orange County, California. We were staying in a Motel 6 in not the nicest neighborhood in some Midwestern city and listening intensely as the election results were pouring in. … Read more
Jim Palmer, a former megachurch pastor, left that ministry because he could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy. He shared some of what he calls misguided religious establishment thinking. I call them dirty little church secrets. Much religion today is toxic, especially from ultraconservatives. It is rooted in fear, false doctrine (e.g., hell being a place), … Read more
I have an idea: let’s reinstate the death penalty nationally—but there’s a caveat! I concocted this brilliant idea after Robert Bowers, age fifty, was sentenced to death on August 2, 2023, for murdering eleven innocent Jewish folks and wounding six others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018. This … Read more
This week’s blog post is the preface to my new book, How to Make Love (the Agape Kind) with Jesus, available now. As always, let me know what you think. God is the same as nature. —Sister Julian of Norwich A six-year-old girl stood in front of her parents and emphatically stated, “Why should I … Read more
It look me ninety years to write my newest book, How to Make Love (the Agape kind) with Jesus. It started on October 28, 1932, when I entered the world, son of Ham, an Episcopal priest, and Pearl, my mom and a saint. As a PK (Preacher’s Kid), I fell in love with the Episcopal … Read more
Someone sent me a cartoon showing a little boy asking his teacher in Sunday school, “Why did God have to send himself down to earth to become his own son to sacrifice himself to himself just to convince himself to forgive us?” This is my exact feeling about the theology of the church. It just … Read more