We tie up various loose ends and respond to some outstanding questions after leaning into the discomfort of talking about suffering for the last month. (Art: "Sorrowing Old Man At Eternity's Gate" by Van Gogh)
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Is God always angry? For Palm Sunday -- which begins Holy Week's march toward Good Friday -- we continue our differentiation from the American Christian legacy that we are "sinners in the hands of an angry God", with a focus on alternative ways to believe in the power of Jesus' crucifixion.
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The cultural pictures we have inherited for imagining a powerful God are mostly “white, bearded, muscular, dispassionate God up in the sky, who can do anything” images. But, for the long-suffering, the image of a God who "can do anything but refuses to" is no comfort at all. Is there a better way to imagine a powerful God?
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No matter how much (or little) we personally pick up the Bible, we all can influence how it is evoked in our culture: away from terrorizing applications, toward beautiful applications. This week's focus is inspired by one of our favorite responses to our survey about "Texts of Terror". It was two words: "Paul. LOL."
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Purity culture (making "acceptance from God" dependent on White American Evangelicalism's specific ideas on sexual ethics and gender identities) peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s, and still has a massive impact today. Is there a way outside of purity culture to find God's help in developing a healthy sexual ethic? We believe so!
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One tension it feels we must hold to live life well is (on one side) pursuing ideals, and (on the other side) choosing to embrace what is true right now and maybe can't be ideal. Hayley and Kyle discuss how to do that well without losing our minds or succumbing to cynicism.
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In relationships, it’s experiences above all that build trust. The same is true for relationship with God, so we want to consider together: what personal experiences have shown you God might be all-loving? If you grew up religious, you may have been taught that you can’t trust your experience, because you’ll just make God in your own image, and that’s why you need a strict set of beliefs. We hope to show you otherwise!
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We collected awesome, honest questions from people in our community about how it’s hard to believe in an all-parts loving, no-parts punishing God. Hayley, Kyle, and Vince (our pastors) have found there ARE actually satisfying responses to these hard questions, that can free us up to feel spiritually alive and active. Even better: there are a number of them. We don’t all have to come to the exact same conclusions…
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The winter ahead feels certain to be long for lots of reasons: fatigue, disconnection, loneliness, loss. And the reactions we may have to all this are those often associated with grief: anger, denial, bargaining, and feelings of depression or defeat. Special guest Erica Coates, professional counselor and friend of BLC, offers some spiritual/mental health principles that can help us grow hope within us so we can grieve our losses well, rather than pass on our pain to the next person.
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Vince and Kyle talk about why liberation theologies are what our country needs right now, why liberation theologies shine a clearer light on what is happening in Jesus on the Cross, and yet end with a surprisingly charitable view toward sin theologies.
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