Opinion

This piece was originally published as the cover story of Word&Way magazine in October 2020, but which has never been published online. Read the piece online in our e-newsletter A Public Witness.

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell offers her thoughts on how the church's model of the larger group tending to the few in need was swept away during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our pastors were like skippers left on ships trying to throw out as many lifelines as they could while keeping the whole ship from going down and rescuing their own families. But now it's time to turn back to the boat and give each other some grace.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that if ever a Bible story reads like our national mythology, it’s Jesus’s story of the rich farmer in Luke 12. In America, we don’t recognize the farmer's actions as greed — we call it a vision, a game plan, a business strategy, good sense. Kennedy suggests that this means we have lost the ability to see how greed possesses our lives.

Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn discusses why her congregation felt it was time to revisit the practice of having an American flag in the front of their worship space after the insurrection of January 6, 2021. As a pastor, she has become increasingly convinced that we, as committed followers of Jesus, must name, define, and understand Christian nationalism, and work to dismantle it, in our congregations and our country.

On this anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Christina Ray Stanton reflects on how traumatic reactions can be a normal part of the grieving process and what this means for how we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. As we approach anniversaries of traumatic events or dates associated with loss, many people find themselves feeling vulnerable and out of sorts — although they may not know why.

Word&Way Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on dangers of rhetoric by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Republican politician misquotes Ephesians 6 to demonize his opponents.

Botrus Mansour describes the work it took to transform his grandparents' 140-year-old house into a wedding chapel for those who want to tie the knot in the town where Jesus turned water into wine performing his first miracle in Galilee. This symbol of rich Palestinian Christian heritage represents more than just a tourist business or museum — it is part of a community that has chosen to be the living stones of this biblical land.

Contributing writer Greg Mamula offers the latest entry in a six-part series on the future of the church. In this fourth article, he focuses on recognizing, celebrating, and unleashing the gifts and talents of all people. In order to better understand how we might do this, he turns to one of his favorite passages of scripture: the third resurrection appearance of Jesus in John 21.

Contributing writer Sarah Blackwell examines how to go about learning who we truly are at our core through engaging in a few specific practices that might help bring clarity to the view from within. There may be an instinctive draw to know ourselves better, but often we do not really investigate or learn about ourselves as a spiritual practice.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy tackles the theological and rhetorical problem of dealing with speakers who will say one thing today and another tomorrow and whose words and actions are contradictory. Until we can put language and actions together as a consistent performance, we will struggle to properly understand contemporary evangelical motives.