#christianty

A major bill funding ICE passed the House and it is really important we bombard our senators into voting against the bill and holding strong against it. Even if there is no chance that your senator will budge, I urge you to bear witness to our neighbors in need.

In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo XIV on Saturday denounced the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held. History’s first U.S.-born pope didn’t mention the United States or President Donald Trump in his prayer, which was planned before the talks were announced. But Leo’s tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified the war in religious terms. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because Holy Week didn't go the way that you hoped that it would go for you, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because you're struggling with your faith, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because of having to be around abusive family members, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because of an eating disorder, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because of any kind of physical or mental health struggle, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because you live in a home where you can't safely celebrate it, I see you and I love you. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because of past (or current) religious trauma, I see you and I love you. And God sees and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because you're in a homeless shelter or in any kind of unstable housing, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

If you're a Christian that is struggling with Easter because you've just/recently lost a family member, I see you and I love you. And God sees you and loves you too. Your pain, your struggles, your complicated thoughts and feelings are all important and valid.

Let’s start here: why is this the million dollar question? Why does it matter what the Bible has to say about sex, or love, or human relationships? At the end of the day, it’s just a book, right?

Oceans of ink (and blood) have been spilled over not only what the Bible says, but what it does, how it functions. The course of empires, nations, and families have been shaped by the contents of this book, and from a historical and cultural perspective, it holds a lot of weight. But you didn’t ask about the sociological, you asked about the theological, so let’s explore. 

Different Christian traditions vary in their approach to scripture. For example: some Protestant denominations believe that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. In this paradigm, God is the ultimate author of scripture working through human hands, and the resulting text is both without error and in no way deceptive or mistaken. Similarly, The Second Vatican Council decreed that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” When a member of the clergy is ordained into the Episcopal Church they swear that they “do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”

Can you see how many of these points of doctrine overlap yet seek to distinguish themselves from one another? Theologians have spent lifetimes arguing over definitions, and even when they manage to settle on solid teachings, the way that the teaching is interpreted by the clergy and incorporated into the lives of the laity varies WIDELY. As much as systematic theology may try, humans aren’t systematic beings. We’re highly contextual: we only exist in relation to others, to history, to circumstance, and to the divine. We simply cannot call up God to confirm church teaching, and I think a lot of people cling excessively to the Bible as a result of the ache (dare I even say trauma) of being separated from God via space and time in the way we currently are.

God is here, but God is not here. God is within us, God is within the beloved, God is within the sea and sky and land, and yet we cannot grasp God to our bodies in the way we long to. In this earthly lifetime, we are forever enmeshed in God, yet forever distinct, and that is our great joy and our great tragedy.

So barring a direct spiritual experience or the actual second coming, we're left to sort through these things ourselves. And because humans are flawed, our interpretations will always be flawed. Even with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives guiding us.