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“What do you mean when you say ______”? I asked this question five times to an individual in the Glenwood Hot Springs. After overhearing my conversation with a friend about our fidelity to Jesus, he said, “Yeah killing people in the name of god is one of those things, yeah?” In an increasingly postmodern, privatized, and polarized time, this question may be one of the most important diplomacies we can offer to a divisive and anxious generation[1]. In her own stunning, meek, and cogent way, Rebecca McLaughlin engages the five contemporary claims of the secular creed (see below) in her bo ..read more

Pride month is coming to a close this week. I’m not fully sure what was different about it this time around, but it seemed less “in your face.” Last year, the “culture war” between conservatives and Christians and the LGBTQ+ community was intense. Remember how much Target was in the news with their Pride gear? Perhaps we have been too distracted this year with other news… an upcoming election, war, and financial struggles are front and center. As Pride winds down, I thought it would be good to reflect on a few of the good things I see about the celebration and what we can learn about it in o ..read more

Pride Back in the Day Pride 1985. I was excited because it would be my very first one having just recently “come out”. My friends and I watched the parade that Sunday morning and ended up down by the Capitol, close to downtown Denver. Then the speeches began. After the third one, we got a little antsy. Our visibility was important as a community. We needed to let the world know back in the day we were a force to be reckoned with, but another speech?  We had to get across town to the Pride Beer Bust, anxiously looking at our watches. So that was my first Pride experience. Not quite knowin ..read more

As a student pastor, there’s a continuum of things you experience if you’re in their (students’) lives long enough. From seeing them eat baby food out of a diaper, to watching them on a stage or field. Then, there are those rarer moments, sitting with them on the playground after they’re betrayed by a friend or, for our purposes, they take on an identity label. Side bar: all those (above) happened this week for me. How’s your week going? ? In their book: Growing Young, the authors out of Fuller Institute say that today’s young people (Gen Z & Gen Alpha) are asking 3 Big Questions: Who a ..read more

We have spent the past few articles talking about WGA and its place within conversations about sexuality and faith, in particular the use of identity labels and the like (see Scott and Mary’s recent blogs). I wanted to offer some of my musings and personal journey with the use of identity labels, with regards to sexuality. I’m not a big fan of sexual/gender identity labels for myself. I can see how they serve a purpose: to identify oneself to others, to acknowledge what seems to be true of one’s experience, to move away from denial and into truth. Maybe the problem for me is that I have yet ..read more