We are not bad or faulty for needing to brush our teeth everyday; it's just good hygiene. Likewise, we are not bad or faulty for having to lay down the same burdens continually, for having to pray regularly for the same resolve again and again, for needing the same thing we did yesterday; that's just good spiritual hygiene.
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 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 MoreConstant movement instead of strict adherence, defending those without power instead of those with power -- Special guest (and BLC's old friend) Joey Rodil shows us how Jesus' descriptions and modeling of his own mission can help shift our narrative about faith (and our experience of it) away from typical white American Christian notions.
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 MoreAcross many traditions, mature, life-giving spirituality has often been understood as a move away from reactivity. That doesn’t mean removed or without emotion. It means deeply invested and affected, but in a way that is slowed down, wise, and aligned with our values. Jesus suggests we are loved and shaped away from reactivity by relationship with God.
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 MoreTouching on a theology of liberation, joy, and suffering that connects Jesus' cross to the lynching of Black Americans, BLC's Leicester Mitchell helps us see Jesus and the Gospel through the lived experience of a Black man in America today.
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