Top ten most-read posts of 2024
Thanks for reading this year. This year’s most popular posts related to politics and the U.S. presidential election, how Christians should respond, who Jesus is, worship, and delightfully, Philly.
I’m so grateful for the folks who read my blog and subscribe. I mainly do this as a way to share my ideas with friends, my church, and the wider Anabaptist community. It’s a joy for me, as much as a discipline. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. I am very happy to offer my writing for free, but if you are feeling generous, you can become a paid subscriber. If you have ideas about what “paid content” you’d be interested in, let me know, but I have to admit my motivation to monetize this fun project remains low.
10. How personal salvation is an affront to the Gospel of Jesus Christ
American Evangelicalism individualized our faith and our salvation. In doing so, it erased the heart of the Gospel: world transformation.
9. The Reign of God is an indictment of Christian Nationalism, but what does it say to the Christian Left?
I’m convinced Christian Nationalists lack faith in the Reign of God, but that shouldn’t keep us from political engagement.
8. A love letter to Philadelphia
This week marks two decades for me in the City of Brotherly Love.
7. Affirming queer people is about Christian love, not 'secular ideology'
It would be intolerable if someone argued that people of different races could not love one another. Attempting to normalize the same bigotry against queer people is pure hypocrisy for Christians.
6. The words we sing in worship matter
I reflect on the 1985 version of Twila Paris's "He Is Exalted" and its 2020 rewritten counterpart in the Mennonite hymnal, Voices Together.
5. Jesus would dust his heels at a Thanksgiving table full of MAGA cultists
If there is no political tension at your Thanksgiving table, you aren’t exemplifying unity as the New Testament describes it, you’re turning a blind eye to oppression.
4. In grief and in hope
America decided to vote for fascism. That is something to grieve. But our grief isn’t the end of the story.
3. We need to act for justice, not success
Our political action cannot be rooted in a political party gaining power, but rather, in imminent action that leads to justice.
2. The “He Gets Us” people don’t actually get Jesus
He Gets Us ran an ad during the Super Bowl about enemy love, set to foot washing. But without justice, that gesture is empty. Love without justice won’t overcome polarization.
1. Four pieces of advice for pastors pursuing antiracism
I’ve led and participated in antiracist work in churches. Here are four lessons I’ve learned.