On the weekend of Valentine’s Day, Kyle and a panel of folks from our church help us relieve the pressure everyone feels about romance being what will complete us. (For single people, of course, but also for partnered people!) Unfortunately, churches have reinforced this pressuring message just as much as 90s Disney movies, pop music, Hollywood, etc, and just called it “Biblical”. But it’s not!
Read MoreFull recording of our virtual kid-friendly take on the traditional Anglican Christmas Carols Service — carols, readings, a brief reflection, and prayer.
(Art by Janet McKenzie)
Read MoreOptimism is great! It's what we feel when external signs point toward a better future. But hope is internal (spiritual even); it's not dependent on external good news. Hope is more resilient. Many Advent reflections point to two figures from the Bible who had profound experiences of hope being sparked inside them: Simeon and Anna. How might they encourage us this year?
Read MoreIt’s no surprise that white American Christianity has chosen Donald Trump as its leader when for decades its prevailing use for Jesus on the Cross has been “motivation by fear of punishment from a strongman, violent God”. What an unhealthy, worthless picture of God! BLC stakeholder Abby Dye helps us discover Jesus on the Cross as a totally different (and inspiring) picture of God that models a totally different kind of leadership: self-sacrificial love.
Art: Ethiopian painting of the Crucifixion, ca. 2000
Read MoreWith last week's news about so many families still separated on the US-Mexico border we feel a renewed need to educate ourselves on what we can do and find hope for change in Jesus, the God who identifies with outsiders. Special guest Sami DiPasquale, who works on the border in El Paso & Ciudad Juarez, is interviewed by friend of BLC Val Buchanan, as we continue try to shift the American narrative about God away from white, conservative, Trump-backing evangelicalism.
Art by Tim Vermeulen.
Read More#DefundCPD's message is "the safest neighborhoods have more resources, not more police." Yet, one day of Chicago's budget for police ($4 million!) accounts for 32 months of its budget for Violence Protection Programs. BLC stakeholders Laura & Leicester Mitchell share with us about "Jesus, the revolutionary" and their work with #DefundCPD, as we continue to try to shift the American narrative about God away from Trump-backing, white, conservative evangelicalism.
Art by Alexander Smirnov.
Read MoreIt should break our brains that the biggest reason we might get four more years of Donald Trump as president is American Christians. What if our church could help shift the narrative in our country about who God is, and whose side God is on? One of BLC’s resident theologians Hayley Larson leads us through our first starting point for answering the question "who is Jesus?" — the God who became human.
Art by Edward Knippers
Read MoreSpiritual fulfillment is something human beings long for, but Jesus suggested it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich (or privileged) person to find it. Vince shares some of the more humbling experiences on his journey of finding spiritual fulfillment by learning to align himself with the oppressed, rather than with his privilege.
Read MoreBLC's Hayley Larson shares with us from both her personal story and professional studies how feminist language, images, and actions help us see the God Jesus reveals more fully, and how relying exclusively on male reference points is dangerous to faith.
Art by Kelly Latimore.
Read MoreWith help from BLC’s Maria Santillan, we consider how, in the same way microaggressions reinforce systemic racism in America, spiritual microaggressions in church settings reinforce systemic marginalizing of people whose family or culture don’t pre-dispose them to understand or be able to navigate American churches. Our church considers this a fight for equity — for the important perspective of church outsiders, like Maria, to be valued in spiritual conversations.
Read More
