The Unclad Soul

While on the walking/bike trail this morning, Billy Joel’s “The Piano Man,” began playing through my earbuds. This was one of my late brother Jim’s favorite songs. We often talked about it. So, when it started playing, I raised my index finger to the sky and said, “This one is for you, Jim, wherever you are or aren’t.” Death has always been a mystery to me. Eternal life, the idea of immortality after this life, is something I can’t explain or even comprehend. As a minister, I was, over the years, with many people who were dying and, in some instances, who died in my presence. There is a profound change in the body at death, an emptying of life. The human spirit leaves, you can almost see it happening, and disappears into the inscrutable and is gone forever. Where does that spirit go? I’m not certain. As a Christian, I want to believe our essence, our spirit finds rest somewhere beautiful. But, in spite of those classic Bible verses and the long history of Christiani...

Dear God, Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Help us in the hour of our need. The lessons you taught us about kindness, tolerance, and acceptance of others, have lost their value in our day. The love you demonstrated has been ignored and replaced with political power, religious hypocrisy, and a spirit of meanness and self-righteous arrogance. We are not, as your followers or as good Americans, guided by the Beatitudes, but by branding forces of money and greed. We ignore the lesson of the Good Samaritan and, like the priest and the Levite who simply walked on by not wanting to get involved with the wounded victim, we too, are self-absorbed and blasphemous in our indifference to the hurting of others. You taught us to love the little children, to care for the poor and forgotten, to stand up to evil, especially when it is disguised as Christianity, as God’s Will, as faith, and yes, as patriotism. I know you cannot make us do what is right and honorable. To believe in you i...

I recently posted on Facebook an article from the Houston Chronicle about sexual abuse and sexual harassment from ministers within the Southern Baptist Convention. The author provided solid research that spanned the last 20 years involving pastors, youth workers, deacons, and volunteers within local SBC churches who sexually used, abused, or assaulted teens and women in their congregations. We have seen how pervasive this problem has been within the Catholic Church, but the truth is, it has been going on for years in churches across all denominations. Ministers have easy access to vulnerable teens both male and female, and, to women in their churches. Some come for counseling and end up in some sexual relationship with a pastor or youth minister. Church leaders are often so revered they are considered above reproach and this can create manipulation and taking advantage of a person’s trust by them. It is something some morally weak ministers fall into, and, something unscrupulo...

(Note: This may be hard to take, but I think it's necessary. - TM) President Trump took his road show to Houston, Texas this week. He was there to support the Senate candidacy of Ted Cruz. However, he barely mentioned Cruz. Most of the speech was about, as usual, himself. One of the most disturbing things he said was a threat to send the military to the border to stop what he calls “the caravan” of refugees from Honduras and Guatemala from entering the U.S. First of all, he cannot legally do that. There is an Act that prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement outside of military bases (The Posse Comitatus Act). And secondly, really? Just ignore these desperate people? Without the slightest proof and with a desire to continue to scare his base, he claimed gangs, murderers, rapists, and terrorists are basically the people in the caravan. “We don’t want them,” he yelled to the crowd, who of course cheered and applauded. I don’t care to go on ab...

I have a friend in Los Angeles who asked me to partner with her on a book project. She is a bright, gifted writer, with a personal story of pain and abuse. She is a gay woman who grew up in a strict Christian home filled with rules and moral demands. Though she knew at a young age she was gay, she had no way of processing that with her parents. When she finally did come out to them, which was an act of enormous courage, she was rebuked, sent to a physician who sexually abused her, and later was put in a mental facility to be treated, not for the abuse she endured, but because she was gay. She grew up in the church, attending services three times a week, doing her best to follow all the rules while still trying to deal with her sexual identity. The church provided no support for her struggle. No affirmation for her as a gay person. Only condemnation. Her parents participated in her rejection. She eventually left home, estranged from her family, and deeply hurt and bitter to...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

The Supreme Court decision last week to prevent any state in America from denying the issuing of a marriage license to a gay couple remains controversial. The ruling is being misunderstood by many and twisted into something it isn’t by others. In spite of the fact some politicians, religious people, and conservative media pundits keep alarming everyone that the world is ending there is nothing in this ruling that in any way threatens religious liberty.  Heterosexuals will not be forced to marry a gay person. Heterosexuals will not be forced to attend a gay wedding. Heterosexual ministers will not be forced to perform a gay wedding in their church or anywhere else. Heterosexual marriages will not be invalidated. Life will go on as usual only now no state in this country can deny a gay couple from obtaining a marriage license. And county clerks cannot deny them because they say it goes against their religious beliefs. That does not matter. It is the law and they will follow ...

Easter approaches with its egg hunts and colorful dress and the festivities of people celebrating bunnies and cashing in their Easter coupons on online shopping and at the mall. Holy Week is here too with its shadows of darkness, its Last Supper where cowardice and betrayal transcend devotion and trust. The disciples never really understood what Jesus had in mind. Many of them still don’t. I often worry that all of his teachings on kindness and generosity and love remain on the Cross beaten and dead to his followers; all of those wise and difficult truths; all of those calls to deeper living crushed by selfishness and fear, by greed and prejudice and the lust for power. The governor of Indiana and his legislative devotees have passed a brutal law primarily against the LGBT community shallowly disguised as “religious freedom.” Arkansas legislators came up with an even more appalling law with even worse prejudicial intent. Why are these discriminating laws necessary? We ...

In Mario Puzo’s brilliant novel, “The Godfather,” the mafia leaders meet for a critical negotiation to stop the fighting between families and to end the senseless bloodshed. In a room full of the men who wielded the most power a truce was established. Puzo writes, “The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.” This is in a strange way what international political diplomacy is about. It is sitting down with your enemies and trying to find a way to keep from killing each other. It is setting up rules and codes of conduct and lines that can’t be crossed, as well as giving one another something in return, in order to establish an atmosphere of peaceful toleranc...

“Art is so often better at theology than theology is.”  – Christian Wiman,  Poet/Author/Professor of Sacred Music, Yale Divinity School  

If your religion, your faith, helps you handle your addictions, brings you emotional balance and enables you to deal intelligently with life in healthy ways, then wonderful. I applaud you. If your religion/faith helps you live with a terminal illness or a lifelong disability with grace and courage and dignity, then you are an inspiration and someone I truly admire. If your religion/faith enables you to be understanding and compassionate of all people everywhere, if it creates a welcome in your heart for the oppressed and the forgotten and the different, if it makes you genuinely tolerant of other religions, if it moves you to social action, to deeds of kindness and generosity, then I respect you and will appreciate your commitment to your beliefs. But if what you believe in a religious context makes you feel you are more than others, if it leaves you arrogant and removed from the rest of struggling humanity, if it gives you a sense of superiority, the idea that you have some speci...

“Religion can be a bridge to the spiritual, but the spiritual lies beyond religion.”  ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, Physician/Author

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

If your religion helps you manage your addictions; if it creates a safer home environment for you and your loved ones; if it enables you to treat others with respect and worth; if it guides you into responsible life choices; if it enriches your inner self and leads you into a deeper understanding of the human condition; if it nurtures your sense of compassion and causes you to lift up the fallen and the hurting and the damaged and the left out; if it encourages you to embrace all people whatever their race, beliefs, social status, or sexual orientation; if it celebrates the earth and asks you to take care of it; if it ultimately provides you a healthier human spirit, then your religious beliefs and practices serve a useful purpose. But if your religion gives you permission to hate or mistreat other people; if it makes you feel superior to all other religious beliefs; if it says you will always be better than those who don’t believe; if it promises you rewards at no cost to you at...

On a recent Moyers and Company broadcast journalist and host Bill Moyers showed a clip of Republican Congressman Paul Broun stating that because he is a Christian he has thrown aside all of his training as a physician and scientist and believes only what the Bible tells him about evolution, climate change and global warming. Here is the brief segment: BILL MOYERS: Right now, two powerful belief systems have converged to counter facts staring us right in the face. Just as the number of Americans who question the science of evolution has gone up, so too has the number who deny that global warming is happening, and that human activity is causing it. This, at a time when the global scientific community is more certain than ever that you and I, and everyone else, are helping to turn up the heat and seal our fate. And here’s the scary political reality: on both fronts, evolution and climate change, radical right Republicans have made denial a litmus test. You can see it embodied i...

There are, it seems to me, five types of Christian groups these days. The first are those who are progressive, open-minded, grace oriented. This group is not bound to tiresome traditions that are irrelevant and exclusive. They long to grow emotionally, spiritually. These Christians welcome gays, actively care about the poor, and are not political except to work for justice in their communities, state, nation, and the world by supporting causes and agencies that reach out to hurting people in desperate circumstances. They are humble, human, and loving, but they are not afraid to break out of the mold, to ask hard questions, to challenge the status quo, and to embrace people of all faiths, races, and lifestyles. They are not into “getting people saved,” but are rather dedicated to discovering how to make the world a better place for everyone. Once a powerhouse for change and renewal this is a diminishing group within the Christian community.  A second group are those who are...

Episcopal minister and author, Alan Jones, tells in one of his books about a discussion he had with the president of a fundamentalist Christian college.  They were discussing their various theological differences and at some point Dr. Jones asked the college president what was the most difficult part of his job.  The man replied, “Everyone here, faculty and students, is a born-again Christian, and we have had food stolen from the kitchens, books stolen from the library, and there’s even been a suicide.” Apparently that was the most difficult thing facing him as the president of a religious school, the violation of students and others of their Christian principles. I learned a long time ago as someone who worked for years as a leader in the church that just because a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior does not mean they have lost their humanity.  And accepting Christ, in my thinking, is not about salvation from hell or ridding oneself of selfish desires o...

Religion, if it’s any good at all, has always been under attack.  Not because of its claim of righteousness, or its attempts at some lofty holiness, or because of its fundamentalism.  Historically, the best religion, the healthiest and courageous and most dangerous religion, has been attacked because of its struggle against systems of corruption, of injustice, of brutality, of exploitation and other crimes against humanity. Jesus was crucified for these very reasons.  People of religion over the years created these elaborate and complicated and puzzling and sometimes preposterous doctrines and ideologies about salvation and atonement and the rapture and the second coming and eternal damnation and so forth as a way of attempting to interpret scripture.  But Jesus was not killed for any of that.  He was killed for attempting to stand against the cruelty and injustices and inhumanity of the Roman Empire.  He was killed for his impatience with institution...