#mark sandlin

“...We have used the Bible to support, promote and act upon some pretty un-Christian things: slavery, holocaust, segregation, subjugation of women, apartheid, the Spanish Inquisition (which, no one ever expects), domestic violence, all sorts of exploitation and the list could go on and on. Oddly, if you ask theologians to pick one biblical theme to rule them all, most of them would say “love”… well, love and grace. Okay, love, grace and forgiveness. Fine. They probably would not specifically agree on a single term, but they would most likely name something that is, in every way, the opposite of the oppression, belittlement, hatred and marginalization represented by the numerous atrocities committed by the Christian Church.

...But we keep doing it. We keep doing it even though each time after we argue, name-call, suppress others and fight for centuries, falsely playing the role of heavenly judge and jury, we slowly realize that we got it wrong. We realize that, in fact, Paul was not promoting slavery. We learn to contextualize his statements and letters. We become more skilled at interpreting the original Greek and, over time, we decide to stop quoting the Bible to support slavery (or the subjugation of women, or racism, etc.) because we finally come around to realizing that, as Rob Bell’s book points out, biblically love wins. Always.

10 Things You Can NOT Say If You Claim You’re Following Jesus

This was first published at Patheos.

If any list has been overdone in the Christian blogging world, it’s this list.

Just about every Christian blogger has done one and if they haven’t, they’ve thought about it and then thought better of it – because just about every Christian blogger has done one. (See what I did there?)

And yet, here we are.

You. Me. And my list of things Christians shouldn’t…

10 Things You Can NOT Say If You Claim You’re Following Jesus

This was first published at Patheos.

If any list has been overdone in the Christian blogging world, it’s this list.

Just about every Christian blogger has done one and if they haven’t, they’ve thought about it and then thought better of it – because just about every Christian blogger has done one. (See what I did there?)

And yet, here we are.

You. Me. And my list of things Christians shouldn’t…

Reading The Bible Like Conservatives Read The Qur’an

This article was first published at Patheos.

There’s an unfortunately popular meme going around conservative social media depicting some horrific doctrines of “radical Islam and ISIS.”

In at least one case, from the Conservative Post, the meme’s accompanied by a message suggesting all American Muslims should have to deny the doctrine listed or “leave our country” [my emphasis].

The list…

Reading The Bible Like Conservatives Read The Qur’an

This article was first published at Patheos.

There’s an unfortunately popular meme going around conservative social media depicting some horrific doctrines of “radical Islam and ISIS.”

In at least one case, from the Conservative Post, the meme’s accompanied by a message suggesting all American Muslims should have to deny the doctrine listed or “leave our country” [my emphasis].

The list…

10 Things Christians Shouldn’t Do At Christmas

Originally published at Time and Patheos.

Ah, Christmas! “The most wonderful time of the year.”

A time to gather with family and friends and, with smiles on our faces, pretend we aren’t quietly measuring who received the best present and which of our relatives really, really needs to stop drinking.

A time to hang tinsel and baubles from the tree, and time to hang up our hopes of losing that last…