For part of my childhood, I didn’t love God. However, I spent many hours at St. Andrews Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, where my dad was organist-choirmaster (more about him here). Much of that time was in the historic sanctuary, built in 1857, as pictured below. On Sundays, I typically sat with my mom in the choir loft. Directly behind and facing us were large plaques of the Ten Commandments and the creeds. The plaques extend almost as high... Read more
After reading the Washington Post’s article on former Rev. Jeff Taylor and his alleged sexual abuse of boys across several churches in the US, I am haunted by the cruelty of unrepentant priests. Taylor was a youth pastor at my church, The Falls Church Anglican (TFCA) in Falls Church, Virginia. Our church is familiar with the allegations; TFCA commissioned an investigative report, released last year, which I discussed here. However, Post writer Ian Shapira detailed for the first time Taylor’s... Read more
The Bible says that humankind is made in the image of God. What about angels? Throughout the Bible, they are called “the sons of God.” (1 Pet. 3:19–20; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). We know that a son or a daughter is made in the image of his or her father. So aren’t angels made in God’s image too? What are angels really like, and how do we relate to them? I normally blog about topics... Read more
Even as evangelical thinkers emphasize the importance of our gendered bodies to sexual identity, there is a parallel, persistent, consternating, and somewhat contrary message on sex (as in sexual activity): that it actually isn’t so important, relatively speaking. For instance, Todd Wilson’s book, Mere Sexuality, arguably undermines the significance of sex. More recently, in a June sermon to clergy attending the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) in Cairo, Egypt, Rev. Sam Ferguson of The Falls Church Anglican called... Read more
Recently my church completed a sermon series on Genesis, with a key theme being sin’s effects on the human family. We explored how post-Fall familial strife pits brother against brother (Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Ishmael and Isaac) and woman against woman (Sarah and Hagar, Leah and Rachel), in a string of misdeeds to which God’s grace and faithfulness run in stark parallel. While the sermons didn’t lack for insight, a presentation on Genesis by Carolyn Custis James earlier... Read more
My church, The Falls Church Anglican in Falls Church, Virginia, recently hired an outside firm to investigate credible allegations of sexual abuse, occurring in the 1990s, by former youth director Jeff Taylor. The investigator’s report, which is available here, was released late last week. In it, victim after victim tells a similar story: the gateway for abuse was a one-on-one discussion with Taylor on the “sin” of masturbation and managing the “lust” that young men face. jeff taylor It appears... Read more
Back in the late 1990s, I burned my copy of Elisabeth Elliot’s Let Me Be a Woman – a story I tell here – along with a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While I have nothing against Dracula as a novel, I burned it symbolically as a bad influence on my thinking. I’d read it too young, when I was seven. My grievances with Elliot’s book were more personal. In Let Me Be a Woman, she grossly misapplied Holy Scripture... Read more
Recently I was shocked to read an email my parents forwarded me: a pastoral letter from Chip Edgar, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, addressing a kerfuffle at this year’s Mere Anglicanism conference. Edgar’s response essentially amounted to a takedown of the patriarchy, and I was inwardly fist-pumping. The context for his email was an explosion of prejudice from Rev. Calvin Robinson, a speaker at January’s Mere Anglicanism conference, a leading conference within the Anglican Diocese of North... Read more
For Advent this year, the children’s ministry at my church, The Falls Church Anglican, had the brilliant idea to create Advent calendars with names of Jesus for each day of the month. When my oldest daughter, who is six, read the name for day 21, she came running to me. “Mommy, what does ‘Son of Man’ mean?” You see, she thought Jesus was the Son of God, so how could he also be the Son of Man? I explained that... Read more
Is there such a thing as Christian feminism? I’ve been asked by a couple of readers to delve a bit more into how feminism does (and does not) cohere with Christian principles, as my blog has an unapologetically feminist bent. It’s a fair ask, but rather than comparing/contrasting Christian/feminist perspectives on hot-button social issues, I want to frame my response in terms of perspectives, as I’m fond of doing. What’s Your Feminist Lens? How favorably you view feminism as a... Read more
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