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Making money is HARD.

Nearly half of all businesses fail within five years.1

Now imagine making business even harder.

Imagine trying to turn a profit while also improving your community, caring for your employees, protecting the environment, and advancing some larger social mission.

In other words, imagine trying to succeed according to multiple bottom lines.

Businesses that intentionally pursue these kinds of competing goals are often called social enterprises.

Oddly enough, one of the more intriguing examples I’ve seen recently isn’t a coffee shop, a nonprofit, or a certified B Corporation.

It’s the WNBA.

Now, before basketball fans accuse me of picking on the league, let me be clear: I’m fan of the league and admire what the WNBA is trying to accomplish.

Like many organizations today, the WNBA isn’t pursuing just one objective. It’s trying to build a profitable sports league while also growing women’s athletics, advocating for social causes, paying players well, and providing compelling sports entertainment.

None of those goals are bad.

In fact, they’re all good.

The challenge is that every additional goal creates another bottom line to manage.

Sometimes those bottom lines reinforce one another. Other times they compete.

I think that’s one reason this summer of 2026 has been so turbulent for the league. Players like Caitlin Clark have become a lightning rod because her play and presence touch some—but certainly not all—of those competing priorities.

Social Enterprises and Multiple Bottom Lines

The business world has a name for organizations that intentionally pursue more than one bottom line.

They’re called social enterprises.

The United Way of the National Capital Area defines a social enterprise as a business that prioritizes social or environmental goals alongside financial sustainability.2 Unlike a traditional business that measures success primarily by profit, a social enterprise also asks questions like:

• Are we serving our community?

• Are we creating social value?

• Are we caring well for our employees?

The point isn’t that profit doesn’t matter—profits sustain the business after all. Rather, profit becomes one important measure among several.

That’s a noble aspiration, but it also makes leadership decisions exponentially more complicated in that—Every additional bottom line creates another tension to manage.

Sometimes those priorities reinforce one another; other times they compete.

Churches, I would argue, face exactly the same challenge.

Like social enterprises, churches rarely exist for a single purpose. They proclaim the gospel, form disciples, build community, care for members, serve their neighbors, and steward financial resources, among other things. None of these are bad goals. In fact, they’re all central to the church’s life.3

The challenge is that these priorities don’t always reinforce one another. Sometimes they compete.

Every hour spent on one ministry is an hour not spent on another. Every dollar allocated to one initiative is a dollar unavailable for something else. Every strategic decision inevitably elevates one priority while, at least temporarily, placing another in the background.4

That’s simply the reality of organizations operating with multiple bottom lines.

The Leadership Question

This, I think, is where churches have something to learn from both social enterprises and, perhaps surprisingly, the WNBA.

The challenge isn’t simply having multiple bottom lines—many healthy organizations do.

The challenge is recognizing that, eventually, every organization has to decide which bottom line is ultimate.

This summer, I served as a bridge pastor at a church that had begun asking how it might better use its building to fulfill its mission. Listening to some of those early conversations, it became apparent that many of the church’s priorities, while all good, also competed with one another.

For instance, questions were raised about whether flags—if any—belonged in the worship space. Others wondered whether, if the building were increasingly used for community concerts, recitals, and other neighborhood events, the worship space itself might need to be adapted to better accommodate those uses.

Whatever your thoughts on flags in the sanctuary or the use of sacred space for community events, I think the larger organizational principle is the same. These aren’t conflicts between good and bad. They’re often conflicts between good and good. Yet attempting to pursue both simultaneously almost always means one priority receives greater emphasis than the other. In that sense, one “suffers.”

That’s why every organization eventually has to ask:

Which priority governs all the others?

I’m intentionally not answering that question here.

Different churches—and different Christian traditions—will likely answer it differently.

My point is simply this: the more bottom lines an organization has, the more important it becomes to know which one ultimately drives its decisions.

That’s really the key. If that question remains unanswered, organizations inevitably find themselves pulled in multiple directions at once.

The WNBA is wrestling with that reality. So are many churches.

If I had one piece of advice for both, it would be this:

Figure out your ultimate bottom line—and have the courage to let it govern all the others.

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The Moral Foundations of Politics

The more I think about our political divisions, the less I think they're primarily about facts. Increasingly, I think they're about morality.

I just finished reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion and while it was a very fascinating read, by the end of the book, it did begin to show its age.

In it, Haidt argues that our moral reasoning is built on several intuitive "moral foundations." He identifies six primary ones:

1. Care / Harm – Concern for the suffering of others; virtues like compassion, kindness, and protection of the vulnerable.

2. Fairness / Cheating – Justice, reciprocity, equality, proportionality, and opposing exploitation or dishonesty.

3. Loyalty / Betrayal – Commitment to one’s group, family, nation, or team; valuing solidarity and faithfulness.

4. Authority / Subversion – Respect for legitimate authority, tradition, hierarchy, and social order.

5. Sanctity / Degradation – Ideas of purity, holiness, and avoiding contamination, whether physical, moral, or spiritual.

6. Liberty / Oppression – Resistance to domination and coercion; valuing freedom, autonomy, and standing up to bullies.

His broader thesis is not that one side is morally superior, but that different communities “taste” morality differently. He likens morality to having several taste receptors: progressives tend to rely most heavily on Care and Fairness, while conservatives draw on all six foundations more evenly. That difference helps explain why people can look at the same issue and arrive at fundamentally different moral intuitions before they ever begin reasoning about it.

After finishing the book, though, it struck me that I don’t think it’s accurate to say progressives have abandoned loyalty, authority, or sanctity. Rather, I think they’ve relocated those foundations to different objects. Sanctity may be directed toward the environment, loyalty toward activist or moral communities, and authority toward marginalized voices or expert consensus rather than traditional institutions. That distinction turns out to matter quite a bit.

So while it’s possible that conservatives and progressives don’t weight each of these foundations equally, I think Haidt is at least partly wrong (and, from what I’ve read, he has since revised some of his thinking on this). Conservatives and progressives both appeal to all six foundations.

If that’s true, then the real takeaway is this: political opponents often aren’t speaking different moral languages—they’re using the same grammar but with different words.

The Same Moral Grammar, Different Words

I think that explains why debates so often feel like people are talking past one another. Each side hears the other saying, “You don’t care about equality,” when the disagreement is actually, “What counts as fair?” Or, “You don’t respect authority,” when the real question is, “Who has legitimate authority?”

To put it bluntly, each side has sacralized different things.

One of Haidt’s most helpful insights is that people often don’t disagree merely over facts—they disagree over moral framing. And once an issue is framed as a moral absolute, compromise becomes much harder because conceding feels like participating in evil.

Take abortion as an example:

• Calling abortion “health care” frames it primarily through the moral foundations of care (meeting a medical need) and liberty (patient autonomy).

• Calling abortion “the killing of an unborn child” frames it through care (protecting vulnerable life) and sanctity (the inviolability of human life).1

Neither phrase is morally neutral. Each foregrounds one moral narrative while backgrounding another. As a result, each can sound to the other side not merely inaccurate, but morally deceptive.

This phenomenon extends well beyond abortion:

• “Gender-affirming care” vs. “gender ideology.”

• “Tax relief” vs. “tax cuts for the wealthy.”

• “Climate justice” vs. “energy independence.”

• “School choice” vs. “defunding public education.”

These aren’t simply competing descriptions—they’re competing moral worlds.2

Why This Matters

Where things get especially tricky—and arguably even dangerous for the future of our nation—is this:

First, we no longer share a common moral language.

In the past, Christianity—or at least what many called “Judeo-Christian values”—functioned as a shared moral language that Americans could organize around. More broadly, the American mythos also offered a common vocabulary centered on ideas like independence, hard work, and personal responsibility.

Today, many rightly critique parts of that story, often in favor of multiculturalism and pluralism. But I think we also have to name the elephant in the room: increasingly, we no longer share a common moral foundation or even a common moral language. We’re using the same words, but we mean very different things by them.3

Second, moralizing immediately raises the stakes.

Some issues do this more than others. “Tax relief” versus “tax cuts for the wealthy” doesn’t carry the same moral weight as framing abortion as either women’s autonomy or the killing of an unborn child.

But more and more issues are becoming moralized. Take the debate over trans kids. Both those who affirm gender transitions and those who oppose them generally believe they are protecting trans children (I’ve written about this in a previous Substack). Once an issue becomes morally foundational, disagreement is no longer experienced simply as someone holding a different opinion. It becomes an attack on one’s deepest moral commitments—and often on one’s identity.

Third, moralizing makes disagreement feel morally unacceptable.

In many ways, moralizing allows us to build a proverbial ivory tower while making ourselves almost impervious to questioning or debate. “How dare you?” becomes the default response.

Growing up in a very conservative environment, abortion simply wasn’t debatable because of how it was framed. If abortion is murder, how can we possibly negotiate over the taking of innocent life?

A similar dynamic exists on environmental issues, though with different moral foundations. Many progressives understand the earth as something sacred. Conservatives are more likely to understand nature primarily as a resource for human flourishing. Think of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. “Water is Life” wasn’t merely a slogan; it framed water as something sacred.4 That framing often made little sense to conservatives, who were more likely to view both water and oil as resources to be stewarded for humanity’s flourishing (which, in turn, many conservatives regard as sacred beneath God).

Once something has been sacralized, compromise becomes extraordinarily difficult. You’re no longer negotiating policy. You’re negotiating morality itself.

So what do we do instead?

Three things come to mind.

First, delay moral absolutizing.

Whenever possible, we should describe an issue in ways that both sides could at least recognize as fair before moving to moral evaluation.

Unfortunately, our social media ecosystem rewards the opposite. Algorithms reward immediate moral framing because outrage drives clicks—for supporters and detractors alike. And the quicker we’re able to moralize an issue, the quicker we convince ourselves we’ve gained the moral high ground, whether fairly or not. This is why nearly every tragedy is moralized almost immediately.

Second, learn to separate our moral beliefs from ourselves.

Here’s what I mean.

In modern Western culture, the individual has increasingly become the primary moral authority. In earlier eras, the family, tribe, or religious community often functioned as that center instead. Of course, those arrangements had plenty of their own problems—people fought when their family, tribe, or religious community was threatened.

But today, criticism of our moral beliefs is often experienced as criticism of us.

I wonder if we’d be healthier if we were more intentional about locating our moral beliefs outside ourselves. For Christians, for example, our moral framework ought to be grounded in Christ and the Christian tradition, not simply in our individual preferences. More broadly, simply naming where our moral convictions come from may help create a little distance between ourselves and our beliefs. Then, when someone challenges those beliefs, they’re not rejecting me as much as they’re engaging a set of convictions that I hold.

Third, become more secure in what we actually believe.

This may sound counterintuitive, but I sometimes wonder whether our outrage stems less from deep conviction than from shallow formation.

We often assume people are deeply knowledgeable about the beliefs they hold most passionately. I’m not convinced that’s true. Because we don’t always understand why we believe what we believe, criticism feels disruptive—even dangerous.

But if I know my own convictions well, I can receive critique without immediately feeling threatened. I can weigh it against my own reasoning, acknowledge where it exposes weaknesses in my thinking, and explain why I ultimately agree or disagree.

Ironically, the more secure we become in our own beliefs, the less threatened we become by someone else’s.

In closing

None of this means moral truth doesn't exist or that every viewpoint is equally valid. It does mean, however, that if we hope to persuade rather than simply condemn one another, we have to understand the moral world the other person is inhabiting.

We don't heal polarization by shouting our sacred values louder.5

We begin by recognizing that, more often than not, we're arguing over different sacred objects while using many of the same moral instincts. That recognition won't solve our disagreements, but it might make genuine conversation possible again.

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Are Progressive, Inclusive Churches More Interested in Being “Progressive” and “Inclusive” Than They Are in Being Christian?

Now, while I do spend plenty of time on here critiquing progressive Christianity, I think many conservative churches have exactly the same problem.

I was recently listening to my good friend and colleague interview on the Church and Main podcast. While I haven’t yet read the Substack essay that prompted their conversation, one observation Clark made during the podcast interview has been rattling around in my head.

Borrowing from Stanley Hauerwas, Clark suggested that whenever we put a word in front of church—whether inclusive, progressive, conservative, or traditional—that word can eventually “completely dominate what the church is supposed to be.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about that.

The word in front of church begins to eclipse the word that follows it.

That observation immediately reminded me of an interview I once had with a “progressive, inclusive” congregation.

When the Word Comes First

Interestingly, I wasn’t asked much about traditional Christian doctrines or even my understanding of the gospel. Instead, much of the conversation centered on my willingness to be affirming of LGBT Christians.

To be clear, I understand why.

Pastors have significant influence, especially through the pulpit each Sunday. Even conservative churches have been damaged by poor pastoral leaders. It’s entirely reasonable for a congregation to want confidence that a prospective pastor will care well for everyone in the pews.1

But looking back, I realized something felt off.

It wasn’t that the church cared about inclusion.

It was, like Clark suggests, that inclusion seemed to function as the primary confession of the church.

Listening to Clark helped me understand why that interview has stayed with me all these years. It felt as though the first question wasn’t, “Are you committed to Jesus Christ and the gospel?” but rather, “Will you affirm this particular ethical position?”

Clark put it this way:

“What happens when those ethical positions become the entry point—the confession that’s required to belong to Christ?”

That question struck me because I don’t think it’s limited to progressive churches.

It’s Not Just Progressive Churches

The more I sat with Clark’s observation, though, the more I realized this isn’t really a progressive church problem.

It’s an American Christian problem.

Conservative churches often do exactly the same thing. The word in front of church simply changes.

The point isn’t whether those words describe something true or valuable.

The point is what happens when they become the thing that most defines the community.

That’s what intrigued me most about Clark’s argument. The issue isn’t ultimately which adjective we choose. It’s whether that adjective begins to function as a confession that stands alongside—or even ahead of—the gospel itself.

And that got me thinking about Peter in the book of Acts. Acts 10 describes a deeply convinced Peter that certain foods were unclean. “By no means, Lord,” he said.

Peter’s practices weren’t arbitrary; they were rooted in Scripture and centuries of Jewish faithfulness.

Yet when the Holy Spirit confronted him, Peter changed.

Not because culture persuaded him.

Not because public opinion shifted.

But because he became convinced that God was doing something new.

To me, that’s one of the defining characteristics of Christian discipleship.

It isn't that every commitment is perpetually up for revision. It's that every commitment ultimately remains submitted to the gospel and open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This also helps explain something I’ve found surprising over the years.

I’ve occasionally met LGBT Christians who choose to worship in churches that are not explicitly affirming. At first glance, that seems almost incomprehensible to many progressive Christians.

But I wonder if what’s draws some of them isn’t agreement on every ethical question.2 Rather, it’s the conviction that this is a community genuinely seeking to submit itself to Christ and to the leading of the Holy Spirit—even if that process hasn’t led everyone to the same conclusions.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting LGBT Christians should attend churches where they experience hostility or abuse. Nor am I suggesting questions of human sexuality don’t matter. They do.

My point is simply that, for some Christians, a community’s posture toward Christ and the Holy Spirit matters even more than complete agreement on every point of interpretation.

That strikes me as a deeply Christian instinct.

An Old Idea for a New Moment

As I thought about all of this, I found myself reflecting on the tradition in which I am ordained—the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

From its beginning, the Restoration Movement3 (out of which the DOC was born) wrestled with a remarkably similar question.4

How do we keep being Christian from being eclipsed by everything else?

Early leaders like Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell certainly didn’t believe doctrine was unimportant. Nor did they imagine Christians would all agree on every point of interpretation.

Rather, they were deeply suspicious of anything that functioned as a dividing line beyond the centrality of Christ. That’s why they were so insistent on open communion. They didn’t want creeds or theological systems to become ends in themselves rather than witnesses to the gospel.

Their founding vision was simple, if difficult:

Christians first.

Not because they thought differences didn’t matter.

But because they believed every Christian—and every church—should remain continually submitted to Christ, Scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Restoration Movement certainly DID NOT solve this problem. It eventually developed its own divisions, labels, and identities.5

But its founding vision still remains remarkably relevant.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again—I’ve convinced that we can discern the future of Christianity by looking to its past.

I wonder if this is one of those moments.

Christianity Before the Adjective

As someone who can’t help but think about the future of Christianity in North America, I find myself wondering if we’ll increasingly see churches and Christians who refuse to let an adjective become their primary identity.

Perhaps that’s too optimistic.

But I also wonder if it’s already happening.

I’ve been with Christians who disagree about abortion, sexuality, and/or political policy, yet who share something deeper. They genuinely want to follow Jesus. They genuinely believe the Holy Spirit still has something to teach them. And they genuinely recognize that they themselves might still have something to learn.

That’s a very different posture than beginning with absolute certainty that our group/tradition already has all the right answers.6

And, this is where I think my own tradition has so much to contribute here:

Neither the Restoration Movement nor the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has lived up perfectly to its founding vision. No tradition has.

But that vision—that Christians should be known first and foremost as Christians, continually submitting themselves to Christ, Scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit—feels remarkably relevant in a moment when so many of our ecclesial identities are shaped by adjectives.

This isn't about abandoning creeds or doctrine (even if the Movement became famous for saying, "No creed but Christ"). It's about recognizing that every creed, doctrine, and ethical commitment remains accountable to Christ, the gospel, and the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit.7

Back to the Future?

The American church has much to learn from the early Restoration Movement—and frankly so does my current branch of that movement—the Disciples of Christ.8

I’ve argued before that one way we discern the future of the church is by looking to its past.

Perhaps this is one of those moments.

Perhaps the future of American Christianity isn’t a more progressive Christianity.

Or a more conservative Christianity.

Perhaps it’s simply a more Christian Christianity.

One where the word Christian once again carries more weight than the word placed in front of it.

P.S. If you're interested in the future of Christianity in North America, I'd love to invite you to check out my forthcoming book, The Church as Community Hub (releasing September 8). While this essay reflects on the church's identity, the book asks what that identity looks like when embodied in neighborhoods, shared spaces, and everyday community life. I hope you'll take a look.

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This might be one of the few times you’ll ever read someone making the case for being a 1099 contract pastor.

Hear me out.

Recently I listened to a podcast episode about the growing trend of co-vocational ministry. The host, who serves as both a lead pastor and a co-vocational minister himself, was talking about some of the realities of churches working with pastors and worship leaders as independent contractors.

One thing that stood out to me was his acknowledgment of the limitations.

“The church is their secondary job. So you have to take that into account.”

He went on to explain that many of these ministers are technically 1099 contractors rather than W-2 employees.

“You can’t just tell contract workers, ‘You have to be here at this time and in this way.’ That’s a W-2, not a 1099.”

I found myself nodding along.

The point wasn’t really about taxes. It was about expectations.

Churches have to recognize that if someone is serving in a co-vocational role, ministry may not be their primary source of income. That changes the relationship. It changes what can reasonably be expected of both the church and the pastor.

At the same time, he also pointed out that this model creates opportunities. Churches can access gifted leaders they otherwise couldn’t afford, while pastors and worship leaders gain greater flexibility in how they structure their work and their lives.

As someone who currently serves in several ministry and nonprofit roles, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about these changing realities.

Job Creep

One of the biggest challenges with part-time ministry is what I’d call job creep.

A church hires someone for ten, twenty, or thirty hours a week.

But ministry doesn’t really work that way.

Hospital visits.

Funerals.

Committee meetings.

Pastoral care.

Crises.

Especially in churches with older congregations, the work has a way of spilling well beyond whatever was originally agreed upon.

I know there are pastors who simply say, “You make it work and cut back somewhere else.”

Maybe—But I’ve never found that particularly sustainable.

A Surprising Benefit

Here’s what I’ve found interesting.

Serving as a 1099 contract pastor has actually helped me develop healthier pastoral boundaries.

Like a lot of pastors, I’ve often struggled with feeling like I need to always be available, always say yes, or always help.

But when ministry is clearly defined as contract work, I’ve found it surprisingly freeing to simply and honestly say:

“I’m not contracted for that. I’d be glad to help, but I can only do so at an additional rate.”

At first that felt awkward.

Now it feels like a big relief.

If I’m contracted to preach, help plan worship, and provide a defined amount of pastoral care, then funerals or extensive hospital visitation—while deeply meaningful ministry—are also significant investments of time and emotional energy.

It’s okay to acknowledge that.

Better Expectations

Obviously there are tax implications when it comes to 1099 versus W-2 employment, particularly around housing allowance and clergy compensation.

Those conversations matter—and in my experience, there are actually some practical ways to navigate them well.

But I sometimes wonder if we spend so much time talking about the tax implications that we overlook the ministry implications.

Clear expectations can actually be healthy.

Not because pastors shouldn’t be generous.

Not because churches shouldn’t care for people.

But because healthy boundaries make long-term ministry more sustainable.

Ironically, I think they also force churches to think more carefully about what they’re actually asking of a part-time pastor.

A Different Way of Thinking

I don’t think 1099 ministry is the answer for everyone.

Nor do I think churches should classify pastors as contractors simply because it’s easier administratively.

But I do think there are some surprisingly healthy implications to thinking about part-time ministry through a contractual lens.

For me, it’s been less about taxes and more about boundaries.

Less about classification and more about sustainability.

In a season where more and more pastors are serving co-vocationally, that’s probably a conversation worth having.

I’d be curious what others have experienced.

If you’re serving in a co-vocational or contract ministry role, what has helped you establish healthy expectations and boundaries with your church?

And if you’re trying to figure this out and could use some ideas, feel free to reach out. I’d be glad to compare notes.

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I have spent what feels like the entire summer repainting my pergola.

It’s a big structure, and after hours and hours of work, I am finally nearing the end. I ran out of paint Saturday, so I’m gonna get the next gallon. Next Saturday. The last time I did it was in 2021, and I probably waited a year too long. But last summer I did the fence. And summer before that, I did the deck.

And I’ve already started doing the math again in my head.

Next summer I’ll probably have to do the fence again. Eventually the house will need to be repainted. And by the time I finish all that, the pergola will probably need attention again. It’s sort of exhausting. And my wife wonders, why is it taking so long? And I say, Well, I don’t want to spend my entire Saturday, A, when it’s 100 degrees out in the heat. And B, like I’m just gonna have to do it again soon enough.

Perhaps you can relate.

Wood rots, paint peels, metal rusts.

Eventually the things we carefully build and faithfully maintain begin to break down.

We can repair them, we can repaint them, we can develop better and more sophisticated materials and technologies.

But eventually...

Most of the time, the best we can do—and this is sorta depressing to say—the best we can seem to do is just delay the decay.

And that raises a much bigger question than the one I’m wrestling with with my pergola.

What do we do?

What do we do when we realize that human effort alone cannot keep everything from falling apart?

More Than a Home Repair Project

This is a problem that many of us can relate to beyond simply home repair projects.

Try as we might, human effort alone cannot solve all the world’s problems, or even, it seems, the problems facing our own nation.

We have more knowledge, more technology, and more resources than it seems any other previous generation.

And yet suffering persists.

War persists.

Hunger remains.

New medical treatments extend our lives, but they cannot keep our bodies from eventually breaking down.

The Apostle Paul calls this a bondage to decay.

Now the assumption of American culture in our lifetimes has been that progress is inevitable, or at least mostly possible.

Through human achievement, if we can educate enough people, elect the right leaders, and create the right technologies, we can steadily improve the world.

Now that confidence has lost some of its luster in recent years.

Still we cling to it.

We continue searching for the right innovation, the right institution, the right political movement that will fix finally what is broken.

Now, let’s be clear, these efforts are not wrong, per se.

We should relieve suffering where we can.

We should pursue justice.

We should develop medicine.

We should care for this world.

But none of these efforts can finally free us from decay.

And like my painting of my pergola, they simply hold it back for a while.

Eventually we are forced to confront a reality we’d rather not face...

...that the future cannot depend entirely upon us.

God’s Promised Future

Now, Paul does not say this to leave us in despair.

Our reading this morning is a rich and full passage.

It contains promise upon promise that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, that God remains at work amidst the suffering, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

There is far more here than we have time to explore this morning.

So I want to focus on one thread running throughout Romans chapter eight and this particular verse in Romans.

That God is moving creation toward a promised future.

Something new is coming.

And Christians have a word for that.

Christians always have big, complicated words, if you’ve noticed that.

In this case, the word is eschatology.

Basically, in a very simple summation, it’s that the trust that God has a future for our world.

That creation will not remain trapped forever in decay, and that God is at work redeeming it, restoring it, and ultimately making all things new.

Now in Paul’s time, in the time of the Apostle Paul, they believed in many gods.

The question was not whether God or many gods existed.

The question was whether or not there was a God who cared about creation and had a purpose for the world and for humanity.

Or whether everything we know and love was destined just for decay.

Paul’s answer is yes.

God does have a purpose.

And that’s the hope at the heart of Romans 8:28.

He writes,

We know that God works all things together for good, for the ones who love God and for those who are called according to his purpose.

Now, I do want to add this important caveat.

This verse is sometimes used as if Paul were saying that everything that happens is good, or even that suffering is good.

But I want to be clear that Paul does not mean that suffering in itself is good.

Paul knows that bad things happen.

He knows that suffering is real.

The point is not that everything that happens is good.

The point is that God is working in and through everything that happens to bring good toward God’s intended purpose.

It’s also worth noting, I think is quite interesting that the Paul the word Paul uses for works in this passage is in the present active tense in the original language, meaning that God’s work is not merely something that God completed long ago.

Nor is it something that God promises to begin someday, but rather it’s something that God is doing right now.

Right now, continually and actively, God is moving creation towards God its good intended purposes.

Now, truth be told, we may not always recognize that good work.

We certainly cannot always understand how present suffering could be drawn into something good.

But Paul is confident that even amidst the groaning and decay, God remains at work.

He writes that God decided in advance that we would be conformed to the image of his son.

God’s purpose is to bring humanity, us, and creation into the future God is already revealed in Jesus.

In the risen Christ, we see what lies beyond suffering, death, and decay.

We see renewed humanity and restored creation.

Jesus is not simply the one who rescues isolated individuals from the world.

Jesus is the first glimpse of the future God intends for our creation.

This is why Paul calls him the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

This purpose was already at work, this purpose was already in process before we recognized it.

We don’t need to invent it.

We don’t need to bring it into existence.

We don’t need to carry the responsibility for its completion.

God calls us into a future that God has already promised and begun in Jesus.

And this is what I believe gives our lives meaning and purpose.

We’re not simply trying to slow creation’s decay.

Or make a few isolated improvements along the way before eventually everything disappears.

Rather, we are invited to live with God’s movement towards a promised future.

We do not need to create that future.

God creates that future, but we can begin living as witnesses to it right now.

So What Does It Mean to Trust This Promise?

First, I want us to trust that the responsibility is not on us.

As one theologian put it,

It is impossible to understand the Bible as long as we think in terms of human effort being enough to achieve human betterment.

What he means is this that human that does not now let me say this, that does not mean that human effort is unimportant.

It means that human effort alone cannot carry the weight of our ultimate hope.

God has not asked us to defeat by ourselves every form of injustice.

We are not being asked to end every effort every element of human suffering through our own efforts, nor carry the responsibility for freeing creation from its inevitable decay.

We are not the saviors of the world.

That position has already been filled.

And being released from that burden does not mean we are free to ignore suffering whatsoever.

Rather, I would say this morning, it frees us to care with hope.

We can look at the world and honestly say,

This is not, this is not how things should be.

Because in the life and witness of Jesus, we have already seen, God has already shown us how the world is meant to be.

Which leads to the second promise.

That God, that God will have the final word.

As one writer puts it,

Our hope is not in that our efforts can make the world a better place. Our hope is in the action of God to open our eyes to see the small but sure ways that God’s new reality is breaking forth.

God is working now.

God’s promised future is already breaking forth into the present.

And we may only see it in small glimpses, but its completion does not depend entirely on our own efforts.

It depends upon God.

This is why, this is why we can name what is wrong without assuming responsibility for fixing everything.

We know that children should not go hungry.

We know that migrants should not be abused.

We know the LGBT persons should not face discrimination.

We know that poverty, violence, and death are not how God intends things to be.

But this present reality will not have the final say.

God will have the final say.

And God’s final word will be life.

Every tear wiped away.

Every suffering brought to an end.

And all things made new.

Friends, that’s good news.

And the third promise we can trust this morning is that God’s actions will bear witness to God’s future.

And we are invited to participate through our actions to testify to that future.

As one theologian writes,

Our responsibility is not to bring about the new reality, but to live for it, to act for it, even if it’s not yet here fully.

And even our small acts, even our seemingly insignificant acts, become a sacrament, a testimony to that coming future.

So we feed the hungry.

We advocate for the human for the better treatment of migrants.

We stand for the dignity and honor of all people.

We comfort those who grieve.

We welcome those who have been excluded.

We care for whatever corner of creation that God has entrusted to us or called us to.

And we do this even as we know that one meal will not end hunger.

We know that one act of advocacy or kindness will not end injustice whatsoever.

We know that befriending a lonely person will not end loneliness entirely.

But each action, each action of ours bears witness.

Each act of mercy says that this suffering does not belong to the world that God intends.

Each act of justice says that the present arrangement will not have the final word.

Every act of love that we offer offers a glimpse of the future that God is bringing.

Friends, our actions do not need to save the world.

Rather, they are signs of what God has promised.

And this is the movement, this movement from responsibility to participation.

It’s a movement from control to trust.

We are not trying to create God’s future.

We are bearing witness to something that is already coming.

The responsibility is not on us.

God will complete what God has said, God will do.

And even our smallest actions testify to that promise.

Walking Into Hospital Rooms

And trusting in these promises changes the way we enter a world filled with pain.

As a hospital chaplain, I regularly enter into rooms filled with problems I cannot fix.

I cannot cure the cancer.

I cannot undo the accident.

I cannot bring someone back from the dead.

If I believed it was my responsibility to fix all of those things, I could not keep walking into those rooms.

That amount of suffering and pain and injustice would eventually overwhelm me.

But the burden is not on me.

Last week I shared that sometimes when I walk into the hospital I almost do so with a bit of enthusiasm because I know that I have good news to share.

The good news I seek to share is that God is present and at work no matter the situation, seeking to bring good for whatever happened.

When a woman who has endured a lifetime of abuse asks me whether she is worthy of love, I cannot undo everything that had happened to her.

I cannot guarantee that she’ll never be hurt again.

Just as I cannot single handedly end every form of abuse or injustice that happens in our world today.

But I can look her in the eyes and I can tell her the truth that God loves you.

That what happened to you is not what God intends for you, that it does not define your worth, and that it will not have the final word.

Now again that may not fix everything immediately, but it bears witness to the future that God has promised, a future in which abuse, suffering and injustice and death are finally overcome.

And this, I believe, is what faithful participation looks like.

We enter into places and spaces to which we have been called to offer the mercy, justice, hope, and love that we have been given to offer, and we entrust what we cannot fix to God.

And that does require a fair bit of trust.

I often leave hospital rooms wishing I could make everything better.

This past Thursday I entered a room of a woman who was quite literally at the end of life.

In fact, an hour or two later I was called back to be with her family and pray with them after she had passed.

I wished I could have ended the death.

I wished I could have had brought her back to life.

But I brought with me the good news and hope that I could bring that God had given me to bring, the hope that God had given me to bring, the place and the calling God had brought me to.

Bring that good news.

Good News

We don’t need to carry burdens that are not ours to bear.

We don’t need to protect ourselves from feeling like nothing we can do matters.

Because God is working, there is another way.

We can care without believing that everything depends on us.

We can name all that is wrong without pretending that we can correct it all.

We can walk towards suffering rather than turning away because we know we do not do it alone.

We carry good news.

This is not how things should be.

This is not how things will eventually be.

God is at work even now, and we are bearing witness to the world that is coming.

We have good news to share, friends, and and for the two months that I’ve been with you, I’ve been trying to proclaim this thing that the gospel of Jesus Christ really is good news and really has relevance and impact to our world today.

It’s good news for all of us.

The burden is not ours to carry alone.

God is at work.

God will have the final word.

And we are free to live and act towards that promise in whatever area of the world that we have been called to make a difference and to share God’s good news.

Thanks be to God.

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Imagination Isn’t Enough

I just finished reading Imaginable: How to Create a Hopeful Future by Jane McGonigal. There’s a lot about the book I liked. Though not a religious book, McGonigal highlights the importance of imagination—something I think is certainly lacking in many churches and communities.

She smartly asserts that:

“Imagining literally anything you might experience in the far future, as vividly and realistically as you can, increases your motivation and likelihood of doing anything that has a longer-term benefit today” (35).

No doubt, imagination is integral to the life of any individual, community, or church. As McGonigal notes, feelings of stuckness and a lack of possibility can lead to depression and decline, whether for individuals or institutions.

She goes further, suggesting that by imagining a desired future, we can almost prophesy our own outcomes:

“If you want someone to believe that a future event is likely, you just have to ask them to imagine it happening, in as much vivid detail as possible” (138).

In the book, McGonigal spends a lot of time—too much time, in my opinion—walking through future-imagining scenarios. To some extent, I understand her point: imagining a better future can lead to different outcomes.

But a deeper theme kept surfacing for me throughout the book: the assumption that humans, through imagination and ingenuity, have the power to shape the future for good.

Now, to some extent, I agree.

But even though the book was published in 2023, it already feels dated—almost decades old.

McGonigal writes about imagining future scenarios to solve climate change, institute universal basic income, and achieve nuclear disarmament. Yet as I write this in March 2026—while my city is experiencing record-breaking temperatures, tax policy continues to shift in favor of the wealthy, and the United States is entering its fourth week of war in Iran—the book doesn’t feel a few years old. It feels like it belongs to a different era.

Imaginable was published in a particular cultural moment—one that, I suspect, historians will look back on closely. Coming out of a tumultuous Trump presidency, a global pandemic, and a national racial reckoning, the 2021 election felt, to many, like a return to normalcy. As if the disruption had been a blip, and we could now get back on track—and not just get back to normal, but continue shaping the future according to our ideals.

In that sense, McGonigal’s vision reads, at times, like the optimism of a certain kind of progressive imagination.

I don’t mean to be overly critical. I appreciated her broader points about imagination and ingenuity. Some of her exercises were genuinely engaging—I even wrote a recent post imagining how the church might change in ten years.

But in the end, what the book reflects is something deeper: a confidence that through human willpower and technological progress, we can ultimately fix what is broken in the world.

And that’s where I think it falls short.

Recently, for the Podcast, I interviewed author and missiologist Todd Korpi about his book AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. Wisdom is the word that kept coming to mind as I read McGonigal.

For as much as she looks toward the future, wisdom requires a deeper engagement with the past and a sober awareness of present realities. That grounding often feels absent in her book.

And I think that absence helps explain where we find ourselves today—on the brink of global conflict and potential economic instability. It’s not simply that leaders imagined a better future. It’s that they often lacked the wisdom to ask how those visions would impact the people already living in the present.

In many ways, the political moment we’re living through feels like a reaction against those kinds of future-oriented assumptions.

But even more fundamentally—and this is essential—Korpi writes:

“We can’t innovate our way out of the curse. We can only come to Jesus” (29).

Some might push back on Korpi’s theology. To be honest, I don’t always land cleanly on doctrines like original sin myself. But if anything, the last decade has made one thing increasingly clear:

Left to our own devices, we cannot fix things on our own.

As N.T. Wright notes, “part of the Christian story… is that human beings have been so damaged by evil that what the need is not simply better self-knowledge, or better social conditions, but help, and indeed rescue, from outside themselves” (Simply Christian, 22).

This isn’t meant to be a “throw up our hands and give up” kind of post, nor a call to disengage from the world.

It’s meant to be a grounding reminder.

We are not the authors of the future.

We cannot save ourselves.

We do not hold what comes next.

Only God does.

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I like you just the way you are.

Why did those simple words mean so much to so many people?

Perhaps you or maybe for some of us our kids or grandkids grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. Any? All right, some, yes. Maybe you remember the trolley, the cardigan, the puppets.

Perhaps more than anything, you remember those words.

I like you just the way you are.

Fred Rogers had a remarkable gift, and I think I mentioned this last week. He was a Presbyterian clergy person, but Fred Rogers had a remarkable gift for making people feel seen, safe, known, and loved.

A few years ago, Tom Hanks portrayed Mr. Rogers in the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. But rather than retelling Mr. Rogers’ life, the film follows Lloyd Vogel, a cynical journalist assigned with writing a profile about Mr. Rogers.

Now, Lloyd was known for exposing people’s flaws in his writing.

But from the beginning, Mr. Rogers wasn’t interested in being interviewed, but rather interviewing, getting to know Lloyd Vogel.

At one point in the film, Lloyd even blurts out,

I’m supposed to be interviewing you.

As the film unfolds, Rogers gently earns Lloyd’s trust until Lloyd finally shares the painful story beneath all of his anger.

Years earlier, Lloyd’s father had abandoned the family just as his mother was dying of cancer. Lloyd was left alone with her beside his mom in her hospital bed, as she cried out in pain during her final moments.

No one, no one, should have to carry that kind of pain alone.

But Lloyd did.

And that loneliness of the moment became anger and bitterness that followed him for years. It shaped how he saw the world, how he treated people, and how he responded when life became difficult.

Anger became the place he returned to again and again.

When Protection Becomes a Prison

In many ways, what Lloyd experienced could be described as trauma.

And one of the fascinating things I’ve learned about trauma over the years is that two people can experience similar events but respond very differently.

Researchers have found that one of the greatest factors into whether trauma turns into long-term post-traumatic stress isn’t simply what happens to us.

But whether we have someone to help us carry that load, someone to help us process what happened, someone who reminds us that we are seen, safe, known, and loved.

But when we’re left alone dealing with a pain all by ourselves, we often develop coping mechanisms.

That’s what Lloyd’s anger was.

At first anger protected him.

Whenever something reminded him of that awful day his mother died, he could simply retreat into the bitterness instead of feeling the deep grief and pain beneath it.

So what began as protection slowly became a prison.

Over time, anger wasn’t simply something that Lloyd chose, it became his default response.

It shaped his relationships, it distorted how he saw the world and threatened the very people that he cared about the most.

He’d become trapped by the very thing that once helped him to survive.

We All Have Our Thing

I bet some of us can see some of ourselves in Lloyd.

Maybe for you it isn’t anger.

Maybe it’s perfectionism, this idea that if we can always prove that we’re good enough.

Maybe it’s busyness because if you’re busy, you don’t have to feel.

Maybe it’s people pleasing or control or cynicism, withdrawal, or work.

Or alcohol or something else.

We all have our thing.

Whatever it is, those patterns often begin as ways of protecting us.

But over time they begin to control us.

They become familiar paths, our minds almost travel automatically, and we fall back into them without even recognizing what we’re doing.

It’s almost as if they become our master.

And underneath so many of those patterns is often the very same thing.

Fear.

Fear of being hurt again.

Fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of being alone.

But we were never, we were never, we were never meant to carry our pain alone.

Slaves or Children?

The Apostle Paul knew what it was like to feel trapped.

Early in Romans, in Romans chapter seven, perhaps you remember, Paul describes wanting to do the right thing, but finding himself so unable to do it, caught in patterns he could not seem to escape.

Now, to describe that experience, here in this text, Paul reaches for an image that everyone in the Roman world would have understood.

Slavery.

Now, while Roman slavery differed somewhat from American chattel slavery, the point is much the same.

A slave’s life was no longer their own, they weren’t in control of their own future.

They lived under the control of a different master.

That’s the image that Paul wants us to have in mind, that fear can become a slave master, and a cruel, cruel, cruel master with that.

Fear promises to protect us, but eventually it controls us.

We fall back into the same familiar patterns because the unknown feels more frightening than what we already know.

I was listening recently to a former crisis chaplain describe working with victims or survivors of domestic abuse.

He said that often what kept people trapped wasn’t their situation, but was fear.

The uncertainty of leaving into an unknown future felt scarier than the abuse that they were enduring.

Fear convinced them that a better life wasn’t possible.

Paul says here in Romans, this is not the life, this is not the life, the kind of life that God desires for us.

He says,

You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.

I think it’s interesting here what Paul says.

He doesn’t simply promise that our circumstances will change.

He says, our identity, our identity has changed.

We are no longer slaves, we are God’s children.

And if we are God’s children, we are no longer alone.

This is why Paul can speak of confidence instead of fear.

Joy instead of slavery.

You know, I think the deepest fear beneath so many of our coping mechanisms is the fear of being abandoned, the fear of not having anyone to carry our burdens with us.

To that fear, Paul says,

I have good news.

You are not alone.

The Promise

So, what does then freedom look like?

Paul says it begins with a promise.

And the first promise is this, that when we cry out, God is already here.

Paul says that when we cry, Abba, Father, God is already with us.

Now, Abba is this word that Jesus himself used in prayer.

Paul even preserves it in the original Aramaic language that Jesus would have spoken himself, suggesting that this phrase was a common phrase used in early Christian worship practices.

But what’s important isn’t the phrase itself, it’s the promise.

Our cry does not summon God, it simply reveals that God is already present.

Long before we have the words to pray, long before we realize we need help, God is already present with us.

And the second promise, friends, the second promise is even better.

God’s presence by the Holy Spirit reminds us who we are.

Paul says the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are the children of God.

Notice here, notice here who is doing the work.

This is not something we have to produce on our own.

The Holy Spirit is doing the work because fear always has a way of making us forget.

When we’re hurting, we begin to wonder if we’re alone, if we’re abandoned, if we’re even lovable at all.

But the Spirit continually bears witness with our Spirit, reminding us of a different truth:

• that we are known,

• that we are loved,

• that we are seen,

• that we’re not alone.

Even when you struggle to believe it for yourself, the Spirit keeps speaking that truth, promise over you and over me.

We Were Never Meant to Carry It Alone

I remember hearing a trainer for a debt collection company saying something that surprised me.

He said that when most people called, they weren’t asking for their debt to just simply go away.

They simply wanted someone to hear their story.

They wanted someone to understand what had happened:

• the layoff,

• the divorce,

• the illness.

What had brought them to that moment?

It reminded me of what we talked about already at the beginning of this sermon.

That beneath our desire to be rescued is often an even deeper desire to not be alone.

And that’s one of the greatest promises that echoes throughout the entire Bible.

I am with you.

God says again and again and again.

God speaks these words to scared, tired, grieving, uncertain people.

I am with you.

That’s the promise that Paul wants us to trust.

Not that we’ll never suffer.

Not that we’ll never struggle.

But we don’t have to carry those burdens alone.

And as the Spirit keeps reminding us again and again whose we are, fear slowly begins to loosen its grip.

The patterns that once mastered us no longer have the final say.

We belong to God.

A Hospital Room

As I’ve mentioned before, I work part-time as a hospital chaplain.

Most every Thursday evening I walk the halls of St. Anthony North Hospital looking for people to visit.

I simply seek to put into practice all that I’ve just shared, to remind people they’re not alone, that God loves them, and God is with them even in the midst of their pain and struggle.

So I often walk around with a bit of enthusiasm.

Because I know I have good news to share.

And I often joke with the charge nurses,

“Hey, I’m looking for business, looking for some customers.”

One recent Thursday, a nurse took me up on my offer.

“Can you go see room 302?” she said.

“Sure, I’d be glad to,” I said.

So I do what I always do.

As I make my way to the room, I try to remind myself that God is already at work in that room.

God’s already present in that situation, and I simply need to be a part of what God is already seeking to do with that person in that room.

And I also always try to pray some snippet, at least, of the Saint Francis prayer.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there’s hatred, let me sow love.

Where there’s despair, hope.

Where there’s sadness, joy.

So, you know, I knocked.

I introduced myself.

“Hello, my name is Loren, I’m a chaplain.”

And since I knew I’d been asked to come see this woman, I kind of boldly made my way in and I sat down and I chatted with her.

She was a woman around my age, had just undergone a painful surgery, and it was quite apparent that she was quite uncomfortable in the moment.

But the more I began to talk with her and hear her story, what occurred to me was as much as she was suffering under the pain and burden and weight of this recent surgery, the real story and pain that was holding her down was a deep woundedness.

As a child she had experienced abuse from her parent.

A parent perhaps acting out of their own pain and abuse, coping mechanism perhaps of their own.

And this woman in the years since had been living out that pain and abuse and trauma through abusive relationship after abusive relationship.

And the one thing I found myself saying to this woman wasn’t that,

“You’re fine,”

or,

“You’re special,”

or,

“You’re unique.”

I wanted her to know,

You are not alone.

God is with you.

Because even in that moment, as we were talking, she said something deeply heartbreaking to me.

She said,

“I’m not sure I’m worthy to be loved.”

And so I looked at her with as much conviction and courage as I could and I said,

God loves you.

You are a beloved child of God.

You Are Worthy of Love

It’s amazing how often beneath all of the stuff, we all sort of deeply want to know we’re loved and seen and known and cared for.

In that moment, I don’t think what she needed was someone to solve all her problems, not that it could anyway.

She needed to know that she wasn’t alone.

That God loved her.

And I really think underneath that pain that we all feel, that fear that we all fear, is the same question that that woman wrestled with herself.

Am I worthy?

Am I worthy of being loved?

And the gospel answers, yes.

The gospel answers affirmative—

I can’t say the word—the gospel answers, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Extremely, yes.

Not because of what we’ve done.

The gospel answers yes, not because of what we’ve done, but because of whose, because of whose we are.

We belong to God.

And I think that’s where the real freedom begins.

Because not that we finally become strong enough.

Not that we finally fixed ourselves.

But when through the Spirit we begin trusting that God has been with us all along.

That’s where freedom comes from.

Have you ever felt that kind of freedom?

Have you ever felt that kind of welcome?

Home

I remember when I was a teenager or young adult myself when my grandparents were still alive.

And often because of my activities or adventures, I’d find myself on their side of town.

Often I’d just swing by.

I’d walk in the back door and say,

“Hey, anybody home? Loren’s here.”

No matter what they were doing, they’d stop.

They’d come to greet me.

It didn’t matter if they were watching TV or working in the shop or cooking dinner.

What mattered was that Loren was there, one of their beloved grandchildren.

They welcomed me.

They welcomed me with kindness, joy, and love.

Looking back, I think that’s one of the closest pictures we have of what Paul means by adoption.

Not having to wonder whether we’re welcome.

Not having to wonder whether the door will be opened.

Not having to wonder whether you belong.

Simply knowing that when you walk in, you’re home.

I mean, that’s what it means then to be Christ’s body, Christ’s church here on earth.

When people walk in, to let them know they are home and they are loved.

Perhaps this morning you’re like that woman I met in the hospital room.

Maybe you’ve never experienced that kind of welcome.

I hope this morning, even at this time right now, through this church you’re at least experiencing a little snippet, a little taste of that welcome.

Even still, hear Paul’s words again.

When you cry, “Abba Father,” you are not trying to convince God to come near.

You don’t have to earn God’s love and presence.

God is already with you.

God already loves you.

The Spirit is already reminding you that you are God’s beloved child.

You do not have to fall back into fear again.

You do not have to carry your pain alone.

Because in Christ, you are already home.

That’s good news, friends.

That is good news.

Thanks be to God.

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[This essay has been updated since the original posting].

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This is a follow-up to the sermon I recently shared on Romans 8:1 and Paul’s declaration:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

After the sermon, a woman in the congregation thanked me for the message and asked if we could meet.

“Sure,” I said.

During our conversation, she said many of the things I’ve heard over the years since the church plant I led closed in 2021.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“COVID was hard.”

“It was a difficult time to start a church.”

I’ve heard those words many times.

And while I know people have always said them because they were trying to help, they’ve almost always had the opposite effect.

It wasn’t until after preaching that sermon—and after that conversation—that I realized why.

For some reason, the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan came to mind.

At the end of the movie, Captain Miller is dying. He looks at Private Ryan and simply says,

“Earn this.”

The movie then jumps ahead some fifty years.

An elderly Ryan stands in Normandy at Captain Miller’s grave, surrounded by his family. Hanging over the entire scene is the question that has presumably followed him for decades:

Did I earn this?

In many ways, I think I was asking the same question after the church plant closed.

People kept trying to explain why it wasn’t really my fault.

COVID.

Funding.

Church planting is difficult.

The denomination.

Timing.

Those explanations may all have been true, at least in part.

I knew the church’s closing wasn’t entirely my fault.

But I also knew I hadn’t done everything perfectly. I knew I’d made mistakes. There were conversations I wished I’d handled differently, decisions I second-guessed, and moments where I’d fallen short.

That’s what made those explanations feel incomplete.

Looking back, I realize people were trying to answer a different question than the one I was asking.

They were asking,

“Was it really your fault?”

My heart was asking,

“Will this forever be held against me?”

Those are not the same question.

And explanations don’t answer the second one.

I Needed Forgiveness

I had made commitments. People believed in me. The region had invested significant time, money, and trust in me. I felt like I had let people down.

Whether the church’s closing was entirely my fault wasn’t really the point.

Something had happened. There had been failure, there were things I wished I’d done differently, and there were consequences.

What I desperately needed wasn’t someone to tell me,

“It wasn’t your fault.”

I needed someone to tell me,

“You’re forgiven.”

Preparing my sermon on Romans 8:1 started something in me.

But it wasn’t until afterward that I realized what I had been longing to hear all along wasn’t simply Romans 8.

It was Romans 4:

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

That was the gift I didn’t know I needed.

Not an explanation.

Forgiveness.

One asks whether something happened.

The other declares that, because of Christ, it will no longer be counted against you.

That’s absolution.

More Than an Explanation

This is one place where I increasingly wonder if progressive Christianity has lost something essential.

Its pastoral instinct is often to reassure people that what happened wasn’t their fault—that they were oppressed, marginalized, traumatized, wounded, or harmed.

Sometimes all of that is absolutely true. Naming those realities matters.

But I don’t think they always reach the deepest place in the human heart.

Historic Christianity has traditionally insisted that our deepest problem is not only outside us but also within us. We are sinned against, yes. But we also sin. We fail. We hurt people. We don’t become the people we long to be.

Perhaps that’s because most of us know the truth is rarely that simple. We know we’ve been sinned against. We also know we’ve sinned. We know circumstances have shaped us. We also know we’ve made choices we regret.

Which means our deepest need isn’t only liberation or vindication.

It’s forgiveness.

I wonder if one weakness of progressive Christianity is that it sometimes seeks exoneration where the gospel offers forgiveness.

Those are not the same thing.

Exoneration says nothing happened—or that nothing should be held against you.

Forgiveness says something happened.

And yet, because of Christ, it will no longer be counted against you.

I increasingly suspect that beneath all our explanations and self-justifications, many of us are still longing to hear the words,

“You are forgiven.”

That’s why Romans 8 hit me so differently this time.

Paul doesn’t explain why everything wasn’t my fault.

He doesn’t minimize failure.

He doesn’t erase consequences.

He simply announces:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

I think I finally understand why that verse became such a gift of grace for me.

Not because it convinced me I’d done nothing wrong.

But because it announced that Christ’s forgiveness—not my success or failure—would have the final word.

The gospel doesn’t merely explain our story.

It speaks a new word over it.

And wow, that is such good news.

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The Fear of Being Labeled

Have you ever been so convinced that you were in trouble that you could feel it in your body?

Your heart racing.

A pain in your stomach.

Your chest tightening.

Your head spinning.

I remember I was about ten or eleven years old, sitting in my grandparents’ basement watching TV with my cousin. We were doing what kids did in the ‘90s—laughing, joking, making “your mama” jokes. Does anyone remember “your mama” jokes?

I thought I was being funny.

He said, “Your mama’s so ugly...”

I fired one back, thinking I was being pretty clever.

Then he looked at me and said,

“I’m gonna tell her you said that.”

Instantly, every ounce of joy left my body.

I was terrified.

I begged him,

“Please don’t tell her.”

I was the kind of kid who hated getting in trouble. Respecting adults mattered in my family, and my conscience immediately went into overdrive.

I remember feeling physically sick. I kept running back and forth to the bathroom because my stomach was in knots.

Looking back, I think I was less afraid of simply getting in trouble.

My uncle and aunt had recently married, and my cousins were my aunt’s children from a previous relationship. We had all just moved back to Colorado. We really didn’t know each other all that well.

I was terrified that one stupid comment I made trying to be funny might become the way she knew me.

That instead of seeing me as Loren, she’d see me as some disrespectful kid.

Now, whether because it had been a gag all along or because he simply felt sorry for me, he eventually said,

“I’m not gonna tell her.”

Boy, let me tell you—it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Have you ever felt that kind of relief?

All that stress.

All that weight.

All that condemnation...

left my body.

I could breathe again.

When Judgment Becomes Condemnation

I’ve been thinking about that story because I wonder if what I was experiencing wasn’t simply guilt.

It was condemnation.

The fear that one mistake would become my label.

Have you ever felt something like that?

Have you ever made a mistake—big or small—that you worried others would hold against you forever?

That because of one moment you would forever be known as a bad mother...

a bad husband...

a bad friend...

a bad person?

Or maybe worse...

because of those mistakes, you began calling yourself those things.

Even if we’ve never experienced that ourselves, I imagine we’ve all seen it happen to others.

A few years ago, we lived through what many called cancel culture.

There was tremendous energy around calling out public figures for harmful behavior. In many cases, that truth-telling was long overdue. People who had hidden behind fame, wealth, and power while abusing others were finally being held accountable—names like Harvey Weinstein being the most obvious example.

Now let me say this clearly:

That kind of judgment is necessary.

Justice matters.

Actions have consequences.

But somewhere along the way, I think something changed.

What began as judgment often became condemnation.

Not simply,

“What you did was wrong.”

But,

“This is who you are.”

A bad person.

Soon it wasn’t just celebrities.

Relationships were canceled.

Adult children cut themselves off from their parents.

Friends walked away from one another.

Mistakes became identities.

There was no path toward repentance.

No possibility of repair.

No hope of reconciliation.

Only condemnation.

Paul’s Astonishing Promise

And I wonder if that’s where things often go so wrong—not only in our culture, but also in our own lives.

We confuse judgment with condemnation.

We mistake the labels born of our worst moments for our truest identities.

And into those fears, Paul speaks these astounding words:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

What Comes Before “Therefore”?

When I was growing up in church, I always remember hearing that whenever you see the word therefore in Scripture, you should ask what it’s there for.

In other words, what came before it?

In this case, what comes before it is one of the most honest and heartbreaking passages Paul the Apostle ever wrote.

For the sake of time, I’ll summarize chapter 7.

Paul looks back at his own life and says,

“I keep doing the things that I don’t want to do.”

Paul knows what is right.

He knows what is good.

Yet somehow he finds himself making the same mistakes again and again.

Sound familiar?

Maybe not in those exact words.

But perhaps you’ve said something like:

“I can’t believe I did that again.”

“I thought I’d be further along by now.”

“Why do I keep making the same mistakes?”

Maybe you’re a parent and you’ve yelled at your child for what feels like the millionth time.

Maybe you’ve had another fight with your spouse.

Or another painful conversation with your adult child.

And afterward you ask yourself,

“Why do I keep doing this?”

Eventually, the question begins to shift.

Maybe I’m just a bad parent.

A bad spouse.

A bad friend.

Because Paul isn’t simply describing mistakes.

He isn’t just describing sin.

He’s describing what happens when our failures begin telling us who we are.

Listen to how he speaks about himself.

He doesn’t simply say,

“I’ve done bad things.”

He says,

“I am a bad person.”

His failures have become his labels.

Finally, Paul cries out,

“Who will rescue me from all of this?”

Notice the question.

He doesn’t ask,

“How do I try harder?”

Or,

“How do I finally get my life together?”

He asks,

“Who will rescue me?”

Paul’s answer comes almost immediately:

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Which is why chapter 8 begins with these extraordinary words:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Notice what Paul doesn’t say, because I think this is important.

Paul does not say there is no failure.

Paul doesn’t say there is no accountability.

Paul doesn’t even say there are no consequences.

He says there is no condemnation.

Because on the cross, Jesus took the condemnation that belonged to us.

Paul writes that because Christ bore our condemnation, our failures no longer get to define us.

Yes, they may describe something we’ve done.

But they are no longer our truest identity.

They’re no longer our labels.

What Does It Look Like to Trust This Promise?

So what does it look like, then, to trust in this promise?

First, I think it means trusting that our worst mistakes—our worst labels—are not our truest identities.

Paul says there is no condemnation for us. Not for someone else, but for you and for me.

Which means the labels that echo around in our heads—

bad husband...

bad parent...

bad friend...

bad person...

Maybe someone else gave you those labels.

Maybe you’ve given them to yourself.

But they are not the labels by which Christ knows you.

Paul’s promise is this:

Those labels are not your truest identity.

Your identity is found in Christ.

God’s beloved. That’s your identity.

God Does Not Define Us by Our Worst Mistakes

Secondly, I want us to trust that God doesn’t define us by our worst mistakes.

Again, I want to repeat this because I think it’s important.

There are still consequences to our mistakes.

There are still things to confess.

There are still relationships to repair.

Paul is not denying any of that.

But neither does God reduce us to our worst moments.

In Christ, our failures might describe what we’ve done, but they don’t determine who we are before God.

Beloved child of God.

Like God does not have a running thread.

God doesn’t have a big file cabinet in the sky.

God doesn’t even have a cloud storage account.

(I was hoping that would land.)

God does not have a running list—or a cloud storage account—of all our mistakes.

Free to Tell the Truth

Thirdly, this morning, I want us to trust that we are finally free to tell the truth.

And I think this is one of the most important implications.

Christianity is not anti-judgment.

Christianity is anti-condemnation.

Judgment tells the truth about what is broken.

And there are a lot of broken things in our world today.

Broken things in our families.

Broken things in our relationships.

But condemnation says that what is broken can never be repaired.

And that’s not the good news Jesus shares.

Because in Christ, condemnation has been removed.

We no longer have to protect ourselves.

We no longer have to pretend.

We no longer have to hide.

We can confess without fear of condemnation.

“I’ve failed.”

“I’ve made a mistake.”

“I’ve hurt someone.”

Not because those things don’t matter—they very much do.

There still may be consequences.

There still may be hard conversations.

There still may be repair work to do.

But confession no longer has to threaten our very identity.

And I think, then, the church should be the safest place in the world to tell the truth.

Not because failure doesn’t matter—but because condemnation doesn’t get to tell us who we are.

When Failure Became My Identity

I wish I had believed those words for myself five years ago.

In 2021, a church plant I led for more than three years closed.

I was quite simply devastated.

I’d poured my heart and soul—and more than that, blood, sweat, and tears—into that effort. It closed for a whole host of reasons, COVID-19 being the most obvious. But like many things during the pandemic, COVID simply revealed or accelerated what was already happening.

We were small, averaging only about thirty-five people on a Sunday.

We were nowhere near financially viable.

And I had made plenty of mistakes along the way.

Frankly, the details aren’t really the point.

We all have things we’d do differently.

We were running out of funding.

I had two young kids at home.

My wife was an ER nurse, literally on the front lines of the pandemic.

And I was quite simply running out of gas.

So when my church planting coach suggested it might be time to call things a wrap, I couldn’t disagree.

In the spring of 2021, we held our final worship service.

There were consequences.

There were things to grieve.

There were things I wished I’d done differently.

Those facts have not changed.

But in the months that followed, something else happened.

It wasn’t simply that the church had closed.

The church closure became a label.

I hadn’t just experienced failure.

I was becoming a failed church planter.

Quite literally, I’d heard those words from other pastors. Never directly, of course—more in the ways we all tend to talk.

And as I looked for other ministry opportunities, I could almost feel that label follow me into every conversation.

In many ways, I had become a black sheep.

After all...

I was a failed church planter.

Some people may have placed that label on me.

But eventually, I placed it on myself.

What made it truly painful wasn’t that other people used the label.

It was that I began to believe it myself.

In the months after the church closed, I actually changed my Twitter handle to @failedchurchplanter, trying to be funny.

A little self-deprecating humor.

But I eventually deleted it.

Not because it wasn’t true.

But because I realized it wasn’t a joke anymore.

I believed it.

And I began to wear it—not as a badge of honor, but as a mark of shame.

It became a weight around my neck that I carried into every gathering I attended.

It shaped my confidence.

It shaped my energy.

It shaped my behavior.

I wasn’t Loren anymore.

Beloved child of God.

Husband to Corinna.

Father to Lexi and Jackson.

Son of Loren and Kathleen Richmond.

Brother.

Friend.

Pastor.

I was simply...

Failed church planter.

And I thought I deserved no better.

A Different Story

Then, in the winter of 2025, something shifted.

I was listening to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast about reframing our stories of pain and failure as a step toward healing.

As I listened, I had one of those moments where God used an unexpected voice to reveal—or perhaps remind me of—an old truth.

I found myself thinking,

This sounds quite Christian.

Because God has always been in the business of taking what looks like the end of the story and refusing to let it be the end.

I mean, that’s quite literally what happened at Easter.

And I began to wonder:

What if I stopped asking, “Am I a failed church planter?”

And instead asked, “Am I someone who has experienced failure?”

That little shift opened up just enough space within me for God to keep working.

The church really did close.

That fact has not changed.

There were still things I wished I’d done differently.

But failed church planter no longer had to be the final story.

Or the ultimate label.

Because Christ had already spoken different words over me.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The Truest Label

I don’t know about you.

Maybe you have labels that rattle around in your own head.

I certainly do, at times, still.

But more and more I’m learning to trust that Christ’s declaration is the truest label I’ve ever worn.

Failure may tell the truth about something I have done.

Failure may tell the truth about something you’ve done.

But it does not—

It does not—

It does not—

get the final word about me.

And it does not get the final word about you.

Christ does.

So this morning I wonder...

Is there a label you’ve been carrying around?

A mistake you’ve quietly allowed to become your truest identity?

Maybe no one else even knows.

But Christ knows.

And into that place, he speaks the same promise he spoke through Paul:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

That promise is not just for Paul.

It’s not just for me.

It’s for all of us.

It’s for you.

There is therefore now no condemnation.

That is good news, friends.

That is very good news.

Thanks be to God.

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“They want me to preach harder at them,” she said. “They want me to make them feel guilty and tell them what they should do…”

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a mainline pastor.

Initially, I was puzzled. Who wants that? Who goes to church hoping to feel worse about themselves?

As someone who grew up in conservative Baptist contexts, where guilt and obligation were often readily available, I can assure you it wasn’t particularly enjoyable or life-giving.

How odd, I thought.

Then I remembered another conversation I’d had several months earlier.

I was talking with a member of a mainline congregation about their new pastor and what the church was hoping for from this new season of ministry.

The response surprised me.

“We’re ready for him/her to push us harder.”

That conversation had struck me at the time, but hearing the pastor say something similar brought it back to mind. And I found myself wondering why.

Why do people seem to want things to be harder?

Why do so many of us want to be challenged, pushed, and told what we ought to be doing?

When I mentioned the earlier conversation to the pastor, she responded with a simple observation:

People want law, but really they want grace.

I’ve been thinking about that comment ever since.

Law & Gospel

Partly because it connects with another line of thought I’ve been exploring recently.

In a previous post, I suggested that Critical Theory often functions a bit like Martin Luther’s understanding of the Law. It identifies injustice, exposes where we fall short, and calls us to do better. In that sense, I think it can be tremendously valuable.

But one of Luther’s key insights was that while the Law can diagnose, it cannot save.

The Law can tell us what’s wrong. It can reveal our failures. It can expose our need.

But the Law cannot forgive us.

Lately I’ve found myself wondering if something similar might be happening in many of our churches. Not just progressive churches, but especially among those of us in the mainline.

What if we’re actually quite comfortable with Law?

What if challenge feels more concrete than grace?

What if being told what to do feels more productive, more tangible, and maybe even more spiritual than simply receiving forgiveness?

And perhaps most importantly, what if we’ve become so suspicious of cheap grace that we’ve forgotten what costly grace actually is?

Which brings me to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The term “cheap grace” comes from Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship, published in 1937 while Bonhoeffer was witnessing the rise of the Nazi regime. He looked on with horror as so many of his fellow German Christians unquestioningly aligned themselves with Hitler.

He wrote:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

By contrast:

“Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”’

I think the reason so many liberal or progressive Christians want “harder,” more challenging, “tell me what to do” preaching is because they have never experienced costly grace.

In short, grace is not prescriptive enough because grace is illogical. It’s foolishness, as Paul says.

Which raises a question for me: If costly grace is so transformative, why do so many of us seem to prefer challenge over forgiveness?

The story of the lawyer in Luke 10 comes to mind:

²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Seeking to Justify Himself

I want to focus in on those words:

“But he wanted to justify himself...”

In the book Law and Gospel, , William McDavid, and Ethan Richardson write:

“Works righteousness—the attempt to justify yourself by works of the law (be they actions or attributes)—is the default mode of human operation, not just the select few who identify as religious.” (66)

And I think that’s especially helpful in naming what might be happening in this story.

Often, the lawyer is interpreted as trying to avoid being a good neighbor to others, as if to say, “So-and-so isn’t my neighbor, therefore I don’t have to help him.”

Maybe.

But I’ve begun to wonder if it’s actually the opposite.

What if the lawyer wanted to know who his neighbor was so he could detail all the ways he was already helping his neighbor?

What if he’s not looking for an excuse so much as looking for validation?

After all, Luke tells us he wanted to justify himself.

The Liberal Temptation

And I wonder if this is what many white liberals are trying to do.

To be clear, I don’t mean that cynically.

I think many white liberals genuinely want to know where injustice is happening and who is being harmed by it. They want to help. They want to advocate. They want to stand in solidarity. They want to do works of justice and mercy.

All of that is good.

But—and this is my key point—I wonder if their action is sometimes much like that of the lawyer.

Not avoiding being a neighbor.

Trying to justify themselves.

Like the lawyer, they want to demonstrate all the ways they are fulfilling the law and living out justice.

Not because they are trying to avoid justice and mercy, but because deep down they feel the need to prove that they are doing enough.

That they are good enough.

That they are on the right side of things.

That they are justified.

And that’s the thing. Like the lawyer, they feel the need to justify themselves because they haven’t really experienced costly grace. Instead, grace remains something that must somehow be earned by fulfilling the law.

I wonder if this is part of the challenge within mainline Protestantism.

Middle- and upper-class white Christians generally don’t think we’re that bad. We tend to assume that sin is primarily ignorance or imperfections, something we can educate our way out of, rather than outright rebellion, failure, or brokenness.

We know we’re imperfect.

We know we’ve made mistakes.

But we don’t often experience the sort of desperation that makes grace feel like relief.

And if we don’t think we need much grace, then what we need instead is improvement.

Growth.

Progress.

One more thing to do.

A Big Relief

Recently, I was interviewing David Zahl for the podcast about his book The Big Relief. I asked him about atonement and why that word is often seen as embarrassing, unnecessary, or even offensive among liberal mainliners.

He mentioned that for people who have really done wrong, people who have really failed, atonement is, to use his words, “a big relief.”

That struck me.

In the book he writes:

“Guilt is more a default state of being, exerting constant pressure and wreaking havoc on mental health. In left-of-center circles, many people feel pressure to demonstrate their contrition and regret over cycles of injustice.” (83)

And later:

“Atonement may be a religious-sounding word, yet it takes many nonreligious forms. Some of these forms are constructive, and some are not. ... On the healthier end, activism can be a form of atonement... Unfortunately, this kind of perpetual atonement can become enslaving if it offers no completion, or what theologians would call satisfaction... There is always one more good deed to do, one more apology to give before the slate is wiped clean. Partial atonement wears us out.” (86)

That sounds remarkably similar to Luther’s Law.

There is always one more thing to do.

One more injustice to address.

One more apology to make.

One more thing to learn.

What Costly Grace Produces

The pastor and former white supremacist Caleb Campbell comes to mind as someone who seems to have experienced costly grace and, as a result, seeks to share that grace. He considers himself a “missionary to Christian nationalists” and urges conversion rather than confrontation. He believes hospitality and kindness, rather than arguments, can lead people away from the fusion of God and country.1

St. Patrick comes to mind too.

After experiencing the grace of God, he returned to Ireland to share that grace with the very people who had kidnapped him.

What strikes me about both Campbell and Patrick is that when they experienced costly grace, they didn’t simply feel compelled to prove themselves.

They felt compelled to share what they had received.

Theologian Willie James Jennings says it this way:

“A disciple of Jesus is someone…ready to enter the stories of those to whom she is sent by God…Evangelism, offering witness to the gospel, is quite unavoidable if one seeks to yield to the Spirit of God” (Acts, 88-89).

Because they had received grace and recognized it as such, they knew they had to share it with people who desperately needed it.

In Campbell’s case, that includes Christian nationalists, white supremacists, and skinheads.

Grace or Self-Justification?

This feels like a very different move from what often happens in white liberal Protestantism.

And before anyone misunderstands me, I’m not saying marching, protesting, voting, or advocacy are bad things. They are not.

But I do wonder how often these activities become ways of demonstrating righteousness rather than extending grace.

Can we imagine white liberal Protestants regularly entering spaces filled with MAGA activists or Christian nationalists in hopes of winning them over through hospitality, kindness, and the good news of Jesus, a la Campbell?2

Honestly, I struggle to imagine it.

And I wonder if part of the reason is that we still feel the need to justify ourselves.

As Zahl, McDavid, and Richardson write:

“We long, with every fiber of our being, to save ourselves.” (16)

Costly grace is sort of the opposite.

Costly grace is unmerited, undeserved and overflowing.

The kind of grace Patrick and Campbell received in such abundance that they knew they needed to share it with others who were also desperately in need of it.

Again from the Law and Gospel book:

“American Christianity now is in crisis in large part because people have marketed it as a religion of good people getting better, when in fact it is a religion of bad people coping with their failure to be good.” (12)

What’s wild and perhaps a bit illogical is that many pastors in white liberal Protestantism spend a great deal of time assuring people that they are good enough and beloved.

And to be clear, they are beloved.

But I wonder if that message sometimes feeds the very anxiety it seeks to relieve.

“I’ve got to prove that I’m good enough.”

“I’ve got to show that I’m one of the good people.”

And so the cycle continues.

People want law, but really they want grace.

Maybe that’s why the pastor’s observation has stayed with me.

People want law, but really they want grace.

Law gives us something to do—Grace tells us what has already been done.

Law lets us justify ourselves—Grace tells us we don’t have to.

And perhaps that’s why grace is so difficult to receive.

Not because it is cheap.

But because it is costly enough to take away our favorite project:

saving ourselves.

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I was reading the online responses and debate after the New York Times published an essay by gay Christian author titled “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.” Vines’ article has elicited a significant amount of pushback in both Christian and non-Christian progressive circles. But as I read Vines’ essay and several of the responses to it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeper going on beneath the surface than language, inclusion, or social norms.

To begin, in the New York Times, Vines briefly reviews the history of marriage equality, his own journey toward accepting his sexuality and reconciling it with his Christian faith, and eventually his marriage to his husband. But as grateful as Vines is for the freedom to marry the person he loves, he argues that the LGBTQ movement has drifted from the message that made marriage equality possible. In particular, he highlights not simply the word queer itself, but the broader assumptions of queer theory, arguing that its anti-normative posture undermines the case that being gay is simply one natural variation of human sexuality deserving the same dignity and legal protections as heterosexuality.1

As I mentioned, the responses were fast and fierce, including one from another notable Christian LGBTQ advocate and progressive pastor, , who responded with a few Substack essays of his own, including one titled “How Should I Engage with Traditionalist LGBTQ+ Christians?”—adapted from a chapter of his book Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table. The problem, he argues, isn’t queer theory. It’s that Christianity itself has long been captive to a moral framework built on patriarchy, hierarchy, and exclusion. Rather than defending existing norms, Christianity should continually question them in pursuit of greater justice and inclusion.

Robertson notes that there are “two of the ways that queer people and our allies can reconcile queer identity with Christianity.”2 The first is what he calls the “apologist-affirmative approach,” which seeks to use the traditional tools of historical criticism to argue that, when we explore the culture, context, history, and language of Scripture, it becomes clear that the Bible says nothing explicitly about loving, same-sex relationships. The second, he says, is a “queer hermeneutic,” which reads the Bible through the lens of a queer person’s experience, seeking to find parallels in the characters of Scripture that help queer people see themselves in the Bible and reclaim their place within the broader Christian tradition.

Robertson then notes a third approach, the “queerly-resistant approach,” which “explicitly uses the tools and methods of modern queer theory to intentionally trouble the texts of Scripture,” exploring the way power emerges within both the Bible and its formation, while encouraging active resistance to texts that promote anti-queer perspectives “without much concern for what the tradition has said or what the historical context suggests.”3

As I read both pieces—and admittedly spent a few hours using ChatGPT as a conversation partner to help clarify my own thinking—I realized they weren’t really arguing about language, inclusion, or even sexual diversity.

They were arguing about revelation.

Or perhaps, more fundamentally:

Where does morality authority come from?

Two very different projects

At first glance, both authors are affirming Christians.

Both affirm LGBTQ inclusion.

Both appeal to Jesus.

Both reject traditional evangelical interpretations of the so-called “clobber passages.”

But beneath those similarities are two very different theological projects.

Vines writes that the campaign for marriage equality succeeded because it presented same-sex relationships as faithful, covenantal relationships consistent with “a core biblical idea about marriage.” His argument isn’t that Christianity needs a new morality. It’s that the church misunderstood the morality it had already received.

Robertson, on the other hand, writes that “the problem wasn’t a disagreement over six verses. It was a broader paradigm.” He argues that the problem is “the entire paradigm of ‘traditional’ or ‘orthodox’ Christianity.” He suggests the goal is to “deconstruct the Bible’s many ways to promote problematic ethics and ideas”4 and argues that much of “traditional Christian” theology has become morally questionable—even toxic. More strikingly still, he goes so far as to suggest that “Christianity today is not reflective of the actual teachings of Christ or the beliefs of the authors of the Bible.”5

To be sure—these are markedly different claims.

Vines is asking whether we’ve misunderstood Christian revelation.

Robertson is asking whether the framework of historic Christianity itself should continue to function as our norm.

The question underneath the question

The more I reflected on these two essays, the more convinced I became that the real disagreement isn’t over queer theory. I mean, it kind of is—but only on the surface. Vines isn’t ultimately arguing against queer theory itself. He’s arguing against the deeper question it raises or unsettles: the question of authority.

Based on my reading, Vines sounds pretty adamant that moral authority comes from God.

Robertson, on the other hand, seems to locate moral authority in our ongoing willingness to question and reconstruct both the Bible and the historic Christian faith.

I think that’s the real question Vines and Robertson are answering differently.

Because I think every moral system eventually has to answer the same question:

Who or what has the authority to define what is true and good?

For Vines, the answer seems relatively straightforward:

God has revealed himself. Scripture, rightly interpreted, remains authoritative.

The Christian tradition, while certainly capable of error, is fundamentally attempting to preserve that revelation.

Our task is to reform ourselves according to what God has already spoken.

Robertson’s project seems different.

He rightly points to history, psychology, lived experience, marginalized voices, and the pursuit of justice as essential conversation partners for theology. But as I read him, I found myself asking a different question:

What is the thing that doesn’t get rethought?

If orthodoxy can be reconstructed, if the creeds can be questioned, and if traditional doctrine can be revised, what remains the final authority?

Reading Robertson, I couldn’t escape the question of whether our own moral discernment has become that final authority.

That isn’t meant as a criticism so much as the question I found myself unable to shake.

Of course, Andrew Root

As all of this was bouncing around in my head, I came back, of course, to theologian Andrew Root, especially his book Churches and the Crisis of Decline.

Reading back through my highlights, several passages suddenly seemed remarkably relevant.

“To find God, if it is the wholly other God we seek, begins with the confession that we have no way of knowing this God.”6

Then, only a few pages later:

“Only in confessing that we have no way to find God are we assured that we seek God and not just our own echo.”7

Root is, of course, deeply influenced by Karl Barth, especially in this book. At the heart of Barth’s theology is the conviction that if God is truly God, then we don’t begin with ourselves. We don’t begin with our moral intuitions. We don’t begin with our politics. We don’t even begin with our experiences.

We begin with the confession that if we are to know God at all, God must first make himself known.

Christianity begins not with discovery, but with revelation. That’s foundational Barth.

And that struck me as the deepest difference between Vines and Robertson.

Vines begins by asking, What has God revealed?

Robertson seems to begin by asking, What best promotes justice, liberation, and flourishing?

Those aren’t the same question.

Our own echo

Another Root passage sharpened the point even further.

“Religion does not want a living God—who is alive in speaking both a yes and a no—it wants an object to use for its own individual meaning making.”8

Or, as he puts it in his more recent book Baal and the Gods of More:

“So many... Protestant leaders today think the Word is a fine idea but not something that can save us.”9

Quotes like these are why I can’t stop reading Root.

Because at the heart of this issue isn’t language, inclusion, or sexual ethics. It’s a much deeper question:

Where does truth come from? Us, or God?

And, to be sure, this isn’t simply a temptation for progressive Christians. It’s a temptation for all of us.

The “God” of MAGA politics doesn’t want a living God who acts and speaks. It wants an object that blesses nationalism, capitalism, or its preferred political vision.

Likewise, my concern is that some forms of progressive theology risk reducing Jesus to just another marginalized voice—someone we admire, appreciate, and emulate, but no longer the living Lord whom we worship and who speaks with authority into our lives.

In both cases, Jesus exists not to confront us, forgive us, and save us, but simply to affirm and inspire us.

Root’s point—and Barth’s before him—is that the living God refuses to become our projection.

As a slight aside, I also think of another Root passage:

“Modern theologies that concede to the immanent frame’s planting of God in religion tend toward a theology without the church. For Barth, attending to a God who is God is impossible outside the church. The church is the context for knowing and reflecting on a God who acts as God.”

If our own moral discernment becomes the final authority, then it’s not hard to see why the church eventually becomes unnecessary. While I’ve been critical in the past of the ways progressive Christianity can make church feel optional, conservative Christianity can do precisely the same thing.

But Christianity has never been merely an individual search for meaning.

The church is a people continually gathered around a God who still acts, still speaks, and still surprises us.

A living God

So, for all the disagreement and dissension surrounding the words gay and queer, I don’t think this is ultimately an essay about language, inclusion, or even sexual ethics.

Rather, I think those debates expose a much deeper theological question:

Where does moral authority come from?

Or perhaps even more fundamentally:

What has the authority to tell us we’re wrong?

Is Christianity something we receive as God’s self-disclosure, continually reforming ourselves in light of it?

Or is Christianity something we continually reconstruct according to our best moral reasoning?

I find myself much closer to Vines—not because I agree with everything he writes, nor because I think his essay settles the debate—but because I still believe Christianity begins with a God who acts before we do.

A God who reveals himself before we discover him.

A God who sometimes says “yes.”

And sometimes says “no.”

If Christianity loses that God, I worry we’re left with something far less demanding—and far less interesting.

Not the living God.

Only our own echo.

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Brandan Robertson, “How Should I Engage with Traditionalist LGBTQ+ Christians?,” Substack, July 1, 2026,

Brandan Robertson

How should I engage with traditionalist LGBTQ+ Christians?

The following is a chapter from my book “Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table…

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a month ago · 19 likes · 1 comment · Brandan Robertson

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3. Brandan Robertson, “Queer Isn’t the Threat. Respectability Politics Is.,” Substack, July 2, 2026,

Brandan Robertson

Queer Isn't the Threat. Respectability Politics Is.

Since coming out as gay in 2015 in an evangelical context, my world and the broader world have changed significantly. As a young, aspiring pastor, I wanted nothing more than for my evangelical community to accept me. I hadn’t changed in any fundamental way; I was simply now honest about who I was attracted to. I fought hard to challenge anti-LGBTQ+ bibl…

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a month ago · 38 likes · 23 comments · Brandan Robertson

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CRT is the law

Over the past year, among many other books and topics, I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading works on Critical Theory, anti-racism, disability theology, and related subjects. Along the way, I’ve found myself both appreciating and questioning what I was reading.

Then this past week, while attending the Iowa Preachers Project in Charlottesville, Virginia, something clicked.

What if Critical Theory functions much like Luther’s understanding of the Law?

If so, that might explain both why I find it so valuable and why I sometimes find it so exhausting.

It tells us what is wrong.

It names injustice.

It reveals where we fall short.

But can it offer grace?

A Crash Course in Law & Gospel

This past week I was in Charlottesville, VA for the last in-person gathering of the 2025-2026 Iowa Preachers Project.

Being a part of the project has been a powerful experience, if only because I’ve frankly felt for a long time that I didn’t know what I was doing there, but now at the end I think, simply put, God did.

Additionally, I received quite the crash-course on the concept of “Law & Gospel,” a thoroughly Lutheran concept, which I, having little-to-no Lutheran theological background, really struggled to grasp at first.

The Iowa Preachers Project (IPP) is led by Dr. Ken Jones (), a retired professor from Grandview University in Des Moines, IA and Reformation scholar, so while the IPP is itself quite ecumenical in participants, its theology is strongly undergirded by Lutheran theology and especially Law & Gospel.

For those unfamiliar, like me, with the concept, I’ll do my best to explain it here simply. And, for my Lutheran or Law & Gospel readers, please forgive me if I’m not getting it quite right. I do welcome your feedback and insights.

But, drawing from Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation from 1518, the Law & Gospel concept is perhaps best and most simply explained in thesis 26:

“The law says ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”

Let me also add this. My only real exposure (if you could call it that) was during my Baptist upbringing and college years, where the Law was regularly discounted. Baptists certainly had (and still have—seeing the news about the SBC banning female pastors) their own version of “law,” but within my sphere of Baptists, there certainly was a bit of antinomianism, to use a big word correctly (I think).

To say it bluntly, the Law & Gospel concept does not dismiss the Law. It simply recognizes that the Law cannot save.

Again, from Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, thesis 1 states:

“the law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance people on their way to righteousness, but rather hinders them.”

In short, the Law cannot save.

And that’s where something clicked for me.

What Law Does

In past Substacks, I’ve explored and interacted with concepts from Critical Theory, beginning with a book titled Critical Dilemma, which while I found intriguing, I felt went too far in frankly a sort of antinomianism.

What I want to suggest here is that Critical Theory (and I’m going to use that as an umbrella term for related concepts such as Critical Race Theory, anti-racism, Queer Theory, and others) functions very much like Law.

And I mean that as both a compliment and a critique.

I say that because Law is not without value.

, again assuming I understand him correctly, argues that the Law is quite good because it points to our need for a Savior. Basically, it shows how it is impossible for us to justify ourselves. I think this is what Luther gets at in thesis 18, that “certain people must utterly despair of [their] own ability before they are prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”

In my time with the IPP, I’ve heard the Law described as a “curb” that keeps us from driving off the road.

In their book Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints), McDonald, Richardson, and Zahl talk about the Law being a good thing.

They write that the Law points out that something is amiss. And when the Law is preached, “we must listen” (46).

CRT as Law

So for instance, in another recent book I read, Black and Catholic, which examines structural racism within the Roman Catholic Church in America, author Tia Noelle Pratt observes:

“Societal systems, whether religious or secular, are organized to create, maintain, and perpetuate the power structures of their founders and successors of the same ilk.” (103)

And again:

“The sociological structure of the U.S. Catholic Church is white and racist. As discussed throughout the following chapters, the church’s structure was constructed this way in order to protect and perpetuate whiteness as the fundamental core of the church.” (12)

What I’m trying to say is that in many respects Critical Theory functions like Law—it names how we should live with one another and identifies where we fall short.

Pratt, using an anti-racist or Critical Race Theory framework, details quite clearly that the Roman Catholic Church is not living up to its own professed beliefs.

It is falling short.

That CRT is able to do this is ultimately a good thing in my opinion.

Again, I go to the words of Disabling Leadership by Draper, Michel, and Mae:

“We do not fear or demonize critical studies, nor do we end in deconstruction alone, but rather we use critical studies to help us describe the kingdoms of this world that will fall before the kingdom of God.” (20)

Author and professor George Yancey has also acknowledged that anti-racism rightly names systemic and structural injustice.1

To again borrow from McDonald, Richardson, and Zahl:

“the Law commands that we love perfectly.” (62)

The Problem of “Do More”

The problem is not that CRT identifies injustice.

The problem is that identifying injustice is not the same thing as redemption.

What Yancey points out is that anti-racism often functions as a kind of law (my words), in that it ends up saying, a la Luther, “do this and live.”

But law, if I’m understanding Luther’s thesis 2 correctly, cannot do that.

And, even worse perhaps, human works which “always appear attractive and good... are ...likely to be mortal sins.” (thesis 3)

Again, McDonald, Richardson, and Zahl write:

“Whether or not an utterance can be called law depends on how it is heard, not how it is meant.” (18)

And:

“Perhaps it is enough to say that the Law reveals that we need to be forgiven; the Gospel announces we have been forgiven. Full stop.” (65)

So this is really it.

While CRT is good in that it names where we have done wrong and need to be forgiven, it offers no forgiveness other than “keep doing this” in hopes that you might live because, ultimately, as my friend, colleague, and fellow IPP graduate says:

“there is no grace.”

Remember thesis 26:

“The law says ‘do this,’ and it is never done.”

And again, from McDonald, Richardson, and Zahl:

“As with all law-based barometers of self-worth ... there is no ‘enough.’” (66)

A Small Example

Let me add one recent example.

Recently, a reader posted a comment on one of my posts questioning why I would be against gerrymandering to counter gerrymandering elsewhere.

“The stakes are too high” was essentially this person’s argument.

The commenter advised me to read voices of color, especially from the Black Church tradition.

When I replied that I actually had read some voices, I was then directed to read more voices, (most of whom I actually have read) and especially CRT-type voices.

Though I refrained from engaging in the conversation further, it felt very much like Law to me.

There was no “enough.” Only more.

Read more.

Do more.

Learn more.

As Yancey has pointed out, it can begin to feel like “do as I say.”

No grace.

Law Can Diagnose. The Gospel Can Redeem.

Again, I want to be careful here and not throw the baby out with the bathwater, sort of like I felt the authors of Critical Dilemma ultimately did.

Rather, what I’m trying to say is that Critical Theory, valuable as it may be as Law, cannot save us, and I think it is sometimes assumed to be capable of such.

But like the Law, when it becomes apparent that one can never fully live up to its standards, people eventually throw up their hands—not necessarily because they reject justice, but because they experience only condemnation and never grace.

And if we know anything about the Gospel, it is this:

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Should we sin so that grace may abound? God forbid (Romans 6).

Should we knowingly participate in racist structures because we are forgiven?

Absolutely not.

But at some point, people want good news. People need good news.

And again from McDonald, Richardson, and Zahl:

“The Gospel is... Good News because it addresses our plight with rescue, deliverance, salvation, and redemption.” (47)

So in the end, I think CRT is important and valuable.

To write it off entirely would be a mistake.

Like the Law, it often tells the truth.

It exposes injustice.

It names sin.

It reveals where individuals and institutions fall short.

But as Draper, Michel, and Mae remind us:

“critical studies alone does not sow the seeds of new life.” (19)

Critical Theory can diagnose.

The Gospel can redeem.

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Chips, Salsa, and Grace

Well do we have any World Cup fans here this morning?

I was watching last night Ronaldo and Portugal and a little bit of Argentina before Messi showed up with his goal. But my son and I have been watching the United States games. He’s less interested in some of the other ones. You know, sitting still for an eight-year-old is hard.

But what I think has been actually quite entertaining is seeing some of the social media stories around foreign fans coming to the United States.

And experiencing American culture for the first time.

So let’s see if we have this for us. I found this on Twitter, or X, I guess as they call it now, and I can’t verify, you know, I can’t independently verify the accuracy of the story, but it’s quite entertaining nonetheless.

So from apparently from the X account of a fan from Japan writes,

Now, for those of us who are regular patrons of Mexican restaurants in the states here, we know that technically the chips and salsa are not free, right?

They’re built into the cost of the meal at some point.

But I still think it makes for an apt illustration of God’s grace.

God’s grace is free, unrequested, and unearned.

The problem, I think, is that God’s grace has often been presented as something we need to earn, to acquire, to deserve.

This has been especially true for those who’ve been considered on the outside boundaries of society, beyond the bounds of so-called respectability.

In early colonial missionary efforts, sharing God’s grace with people often meant forcing Western cultural values upon them while stripping them of their own values, as if God’s grace was only compatible with Western European ideals.

More recently, sharing God’s grace with LGBT people often came packaged with the expectation that becoming Christian meant becoming straight, as if God’s grace were only compatible with heterosexuality.

To say it bluntly, in early colonial missionary efforts, becoming Christian often meant becoming culturally white.

And more recently, for many LGBT people, becoming Christian often meant being required to become straight.

In both cases God’s grace came with additional requirements.

With strings attached.

For centuries, humans have been trying to draw boundaries around God’s grace.

But God’s grace is always bigger than we would expect, always bigger than we could imagine.

Romans: Promise, Not Threat

During my time here this summer I’ve been preaching through the book of Romans.

For one, Romans is the reading from the revised common lectionary.

Second, I’ve never preached through Romans before, and as I shared last week, I’m only here for a short time, so whatever, if it doesn’t go well, I’m gone.

But third and perhaps most importantly for today, I’ve really only ever heard Romans preached as a threat.

So I’ve been approaching each sermon with this question:

What if Romans is not primarily about threats, but about promises?

In his letter to the early church at Rome, Paul is trying to set the record straight about who God’s grace is for and who the gospel is for.

Some Jewish followers of Jesus during that time believed that non Jewish followers of Jesus needed to earn God’s grace through strict adherence to religious rules and practices.

Conversely, other Gentile followers of Jesus, the non Jews, believed that Jewish followers had somehow forfeited their rights to God’s promise.

Both groups were drawing boundaries around God’s grace.

And Paul writes them, he says,

But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart, to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Now again, for those of you who weren’t here last week, Paul uses some dramatic language around slavery and dominion.

And he’s convinced that all humans are slaving excuse me, all humans are serving something, are slaves to something, willingly or not.

And because of God’s grace, he says we are now freed to serve God.

And as Paul later writes in chapter six,

now that we have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage we get is sanctification, the end is eternal life.

From the message translation, if you’re familiar with that translation of the Bible, we get something a little bit more palatable to our modern ears.

It reads

But now that you found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the light of listening to God telling you, what a surprise. A whole healed, put together life right now, and more and more life on the way.

Perhaps what’s so surprising about the things that Paul is arguing for.

Is not simply what God promises, but rather to who God promises it to.

Because throughout Scripture, whenever people started drawing boundaries around God’s promises, they discovered that God’s promises were always bigger than they could imagine.

Isaiah 56

Which brings us to again from our reading this morning from Isaiah fifty six.

And I want to read it again this morning because I think it’s important.

Isaiah fifty six verse three says,

Do not let the foreigner join to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And do not let the eunuch say, I am just a dry tree.

For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant.

I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

The Prophet Isaiah was speaking to a people who had their own assumptions about who did and didn’t belong.

In this case, he was writing about eunuchs.

People who, because of their bodies and their social status, were often viewed as outsiders to God’s promises.

Eunuchs could not have children, and because ancient society placed such an importance on family lineage and descendants, they were seen as people having no future and no hope and no lasting legacy.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that eunuchs were the ancient equivalent of LGBT people today.

The categories are different.

But many scholars and theologians have noted a similarity in that eunuchs occupied a place in society on the margins, they occupied a place on the margins of ancient society.

They did not ex they did not fit the expected norms around sexuality, marriage, and family.

And because they didn’t fit these expectations, these assumptions, many assumed that God’s promises were not really for them.

In much the same way today, many LGBT people have been told that they do not fit, they are outside the bounds of God’s grace, or that somehow God’s promises are not meant for them, but only for other people.

Yet Isaiah speaks directly to those who feared they were excluded.

Do not let the eunuch say, I am just a dry tree.

For Lord says,

I will give them a name better than sons and daughters, an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

God responds not with a condition, but with a promise.

In other words, while people were busy drawing circles, drawing boundaries around God’s promise, God was reminding them that those boundaries were bigger than they could even themselves imagine.

These words from Isaiah remind us that God’s promise is not determined by social status, family lineage, or whether someone fits societal expectations.

God’s promise reaches farther than we ourselves can even imagine.

And that’s much the same point I believe that Paul is making here in the Book of Romans.

Paul says the gospel is not a reward for those who have earned it.

It’s a gift.

It is a gift for those who trust it.

Three Promises

So this morning I want to remind you again of God’s promises.

Of God’s gift.

First, that God’s promise is for all people.

So if you or someone you love is a part of the LGBT community, trust this morning that God’s promises.

God’s promise is for you.

And if you spent years wondering whether God’s grace extends the LGBT people, spoiler alert, I think it does.

And as we’ve seen in Isaiah, God’s grace is not conditional upon adherence to dominant cultural norms, it is for all who trust it.

That’s the promise, the first promise I believe, that God’s grace, God’s promise, is for all people.

But that’s not the only promise that God offers for us this morning.

The Second Promise

The second promise is that God’s promises do not have to be performed.

One of the temptations in churches like ours is to assume that if God’s grace is so important that we must constantly prove that we are gracious, we can begin to treat welcome like a performance, inclusion as an achievement, and acceptance as something that depends on us getting everything right.

Sometimes we act as if God’s grace is fragile, and if if we don’t get everything right, every statement correct, every policy, every conversation, then we can somehow mess God’s grace up.

But God’s grace is not fragile.

God’s grace does not depend on our performance, God’s grace is abundant.

God’s grace was here before us, God’s grace will be here after us.

We do not create it, we do not sustain it, we do not earn it, we simply bear witness to it and proclaim it.

Good news, good news for all.

The promise was God’s before it was ours.

Our task is not to manufacture grace, our task is to trust it and to share it.

Good news of God’s love and welcome.

The Third Promise

There’s one more promise here, and it may be, I think, sometimes the hardest promise to trust.

Third is that God’s promises keep breaking through any boundaries that we ourselves might set up.

If God’s grace is truly grace, then it cannot be reserved for people who already agree with us.

Otherwise, it’s not grace at all, but instead an earned reward.

Which means that even the people we disagree with, even the people who have hurt us, who have disappointed us, who see the world very differently than us, do not have to earn God’s grace before receiving it.

Our role as Christ’s Church, his body on earth then, is not to manufacture grace, but to trust it and to share it.

Which raises a difficult question, I think, I suppose.

Do we trust God’s promise?

Do we trust God’s promise to let God’s grace be as gracious as God wants it to be?

Do we trust God’s promise enough to let God be as gracious as God wants to be?

The promise of Isaiah 56 is not that God finally welcomes the worthy.

The promise is that God welcomes those who assumed they were already outside.

The promise is that God keeps extending grace beyond the boundaries that humans themselves ourselves create.

And once we start talking about grace, all of our human conditions fall away.

Because the moment we decide who can receive God’s promise, it stops being a promise and instead starts becoming a reward.

But God’s grace is not a reward, it’s a gift.

And gifts, by definition, are freely given.

And that brings me to the real question that I suppose for this morning.

Do we trust the promise?

The Hospital Room

At different points throughout my ministry career, I worked on and off as a hospital chaplain.

Early in my training I got the sense that being a chaplain in a hospital was sort of like a mix of being a crisis responder and emotional support presence.

In recent years I’ve recognized a deeper calling, that of being an evangelist, of trying to share God’s love and grace with whoever I encounter.

Some months back I remember seeing a young man in the hospital.

He had a note attached to his door saying, Check with the nurse first.

So I did, and the nurse said that he was a bit hot-headed and stubborn.

Good luck, she essentially said, but as I’ve already said, I enjoy a challenge.

But more I trust that God is already at work ahead of me in that situation.

So I knocked on the door.

Hello, my name is Loren Richmond.

I’m a chaplain here.

Would you appreciate a visit?

I came in and entered the room.

We began having a conversation, and as advertised, he was animated and expressive.

And despite being young enough to be my son, he had already lived a lifetime, and I mean a lifetime of pain and abuse and trauma.

Some of his stories were so shocking and appalling that I wasn’t really sure what was the pain Med’s talking and what was all the way true.

But it became quite clear to me in the moment as I was talking to him that this was a young man who was both desperately trying to outrun his trauma while at the same time desperately trying to not repeat that said trauma in his own life.

And I found myself saying something in the moment that surprised even me.

I kept telling him,

God loves you.

God forgives you.

God loves you.

God forgives you.

God loves you.

God forgives you.

Receive that.

See, this was a young man who was labelled as being far outside by society, by nurses, by his trauma.

That he was desperately, desperately, desperately trying to prove that he was worthy.

He was desperately trying to prove that he deserved a better life for himself.

And he was failing miserably.

What I wanted for him in that moment was not to proselytize him.

I didn’t want to win him over to a certain set of propositions.

I wanted didn’t want him to prove that he deserved love and acceptance.

I wanted to help him see that he could trust God’s promise of grace.

See underneath all the stories, all the bravado, all the pain.

I think there was a simpler question that was resonating from his heart.

Is God’s grace really for me?

And I kept trying to say to him again and again,

Yes, yes, it’s for you.

Yes, for the eunuchs that Isaiah wrote about.

Yes, for the LGBTQ community who has wondered if there’s a place for them in church.

But that’s not even it.

For those of you this morning carrying shame and grief and pain, yes, God’s promise is for you.

For those of you who feel like outsiders, yes, God’s promise is for you.

For those who have spent your entire life trying to prove you belong, yes, God’s promise is for you.

Because the promise of Isaiah 56 is not that God fondly welcomes the worthy.

The promise is that God welcomes those who thought they were outside.

And that’s good news, friends.

That is good news.

Thanks be to God.

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What happens when a book on the unreasonableness of Critical Theory becomes itself, quite unreasonable?

As I shared in a recent post, I came across an intriguing title at my local library in the usually disappointing Religion and Christianity section.

Titled Critical Dilemma: The Rise of Critical Theories and Social Justice Ideology—Implications for the Church and Society by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer, I began the book with some measure of suspicion, especially given the publisher being Harvest Apologetics—a publishing house that certainly sounded conservative-coded.

Early on, I was actually quite impressed.

What I found was what felt like a very honest and accurate assessment of various forms of what the authors call “contemporary critical theory” (CCT): critical race theory, queer theory, and related schools of thought. At times, I was unsure whether they were even proponents of these ideas, based on how carefully and sympathetically they explained them. More than that, I found myself understanding these theories in greater detail than I had before.

Now, before I get too deep into critique, I want to acknowledge a few things.

First, I do think Shenvi and Sawyer make a genuine good-faith effort to describe these theories fairly.

Second, as much as I expected a culture-war diatribe, this was anything but—at least at first.

And finally, they rightly acknowledge the reality of injustice in America, writing:

“Real social injustices do exist. Racism does exist. Sexism does exist. Actual oppression does exist” (19).

And again:

“Too few Americans are sufficiently acquainted with America’s racist history. For those of us who are citizens of the United States, our nation has been marked and marred by the scourge of racism” (42).

I could share several more examples.

But beyond that, the book falls short in a few fairly obvious ways.

First: Less is More Sometimes

Simply put—it’s too long.

As an avid reader, I can often tell when a book begins to run out of gas, so to speak. It’s something I worry about in my own writing and forthcoming book.

This book clocks in at nearly 500 pages and, as much as I appreciated the detail, by the end it became exhausting. I genuinely think a hundred pages could have been trimmed without sacrificing much.

The authors clearly know their material.

But knowing your material and sustaining reader momentum are not always the same thing.

Second: Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater

My deeper concern, however, is that Shenvi and Sawyer become almost too suspicious of CCT—as though it is essentially unredeemable.

I’m not convinced.

Ironically, I think they do a good job naming what concerns me most.

They describe a kind of works-based moral framework in which:

“White privilege is [the] original sin; it has stained [every] White person. It has corrupted… every thought and action and cannot be avoided. Yet [white people] can achieve a ‘clear conscience’ by trying [their] best to disrupt… oppressive behavior, to apologize to people of color, and to ‘do the work’ of unlearning… whiteness” (357).

I hope to write more about this broader dynamic later, but for now I’m reminded of a point made in Disabling Leadership by Draper, Michel, and Mae.1

They write:

“We do not fear or demonize critical studies, nor do we end in deconstruction alone, but rather we use critical studies to help us describe the kingdoms of this world that will fall before the kingdom of God” (20).

And further:

“critical studies alone does not sow the seeds of new life” (19).

That distinction strikes me as exactly right.

Where critical studies can fall short—and where Draper, Michel, and Mae are helpful—is not necessarily in diagnosing injustice but in offering a compelling path toward redemption.

And this is where I think Shenvi and Sawyer overcorrect.

Rather than critically engaging and selectively receiving what may be true or useful, they sometimes seem to proverbially throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don’t think critical studies are always wrong in their diagnoses of injustice. Rather, like Draper, Michel, and Mae suggest, they may struggle to offer redemption beyond forms of moral labor or works-based righteousness.

That, I believe, stands at odds with the gospel.

But even then, I still think there are things to learn from critical studies—provided they do not become our totalizing ideology.2

Third: The Problem of Voice

A third critique.

The authors spend considerable time critiquing critical race theory and Black Christian leaders aligned with aspects of it.

Now, I understand their critique of “lived experience” and agree that truth ought to be identifiable regardless of one’s skin color—those are my words, not theirs.

Regarding lived experience, they lament how it has trumped:

“even… pastors seeking to apply the Bible’s teachings to social issues” (294).

Fair enough.

But even still, I found myself struggling with something.

All this critique of critical race theory and Black Christian leaders is still coming primarily from a white man and a half-white/half-Indian man (Shenvi describes himself this way).

And honestly?

By the end, it just started to feel a bit…icky.

Maybe I’m too shaped by the very critical studies they critique and the prioritization of lived experience.

Maybe.

But I still think that section would have landed far better had portions been written—or at least substantially informed—by African American scholars or pastors.3

Finally: It Goes Off the Rails

And perhaps most disappointingly, the book simply seemed to lose its footing by the end.

On page 405, the authors write:

“Therefore, we urge our egalitarian brothers and sisters in Christ to recognize and reject the underlying assumptions of queer theory. If they don’t, it will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.”

I read widely across the Christian tradition and honestly cannot remember seeing egalitarianism correlated so directly with queer theory.

I can only imagine the eye rolls from someone like , who has advocated for egalitarianism from a deeply orthodox Christian perspective for years.

But I digress.

That was my last highlight before I largely skimmed the rest.

By that point, the book stopped feeling insightful and started becoming the sort of culture-war argument I had worried it might be from the beginning.

Final Thought

I’m not looking for critical studies to be the gospel.

But neither am I willing to say they have nothing to offer altogether.

In fact, what this book has helped me realize is that my own questions are becoming more specific.

If critical studies can help diagnose injustice, where exactly do they fall short?
What happens when critique becomes an identity or ideology unto itself?
And perhaps most importantly, what does redemption look like once deconstruction has done its work?

I hope to explore those questions in some follow-up posts.

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Are We Really Free?

Recently I was having coffee with a good friend, and as we are wont to do, we began talking about what the other had been reading. Myself, as someone who’s a pastor and general church nerd, always tends to read around church or theology or culture. He is a business executive coach, so he often reads about topics such as leadership and coaching and that sort of thing.

And sometimes he even reads beyond those boundaries.

But when he shared the name of the most recent book he had been reading, I was quite surprised. The topic and the title were a bit taboo, in fact.

I was immediately curious.

As someone who cannot, cannot, cannot resist an intriguing title, ⁓ I’ve already, in fact, taken home a book and read it from the church library here.

I was immediately drawn by the title and went to our local library to download the audio version of the book.

The book title is this:

Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power, a method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don’t.

No.

Now I must admit I feel a little sheepish saying those words in church and even especially from the pulpit, but I figure ⁓ this is Pride Month, so we say things that are unorthodox or untraditional, and I can get away with it perhaps.

And if not, I’m only here for, you know, how many more weeks?

As it turns out, this is a sermon about a kind of freedom that most would not understand.

The Patterns We Keep Repeating

Existential Kink is a self-help book by Carolyn Elliott, and she argues that our recurring negative patterns persist because at some level we are unconsciously attached to them. And by bringing these hidden desires into light, they lose their power over us and we become free to live differently.

She’s seeking to build off the words of the famed psychologist Carl Jung.

Who was German, guess, right? So it fits well in this context.

That he said,

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Listening to the author as she reads these words, I couldn’t get away from the question:

What if she’s right?

What if we’re not nearly as free as we think we are?

We say we’re free, but we don’t live like it.

And while Elliot’s language is certainly provocative, I suspect most of us would recognize that same basic premise.

We know what it’s like to find ourselves stuck in these same patterns again and again and again.

We swear we’ll respond differently next time.

We promise we’ll finally let it go.

We tell ourselves that we’re done.

We’re done with that bad habit, that resentment, that way of thinking.

And yet somehow.

Somehow we find ourselves there again and again.

Alas, I found myself there this past week.

Which raises, I suppose, for us a rather uncomfortable question.

Are we really as free as we think ourselves to be?

And if we’re not, what do we do about it?

We often move toward tactics of control and strategy.

We make vision boards, vision statements, we practice visualization, but these can sort of function like wallpaper over a deeper rot.

And until we address these underlying issues, the same black mold will just seep through, infecting our relationships, our actions, and our overall well being.

And perhaps this is where I suppose things get a little interesting, because maybe the deeper issue is not that we need to get a better hold of ourselves, develop better strategies for when we lose our temper, or even become more disciplined versions of ourselves.

Again, none of these are bad per se.

But it’s sort of like wallpapering over the black mold.

It’s not solving the root excuse me, it’s not solving the rot at the core of the problem.

And the deeper question is this:

Why do we keep returning to the things that hurt us?

Why do we keep repeating those same patterns?

Why do we keep finding ourselves stuck again and again in those same places?

In short, why do we say we are free yet live as anything but free?

A Very Pauline Question

I’m only a few chapters into this book and immediately after listening to the introduction I texted my friend and said:

This sounds very Pauline.

Meaning, this sounds very similar to the questions that the Apostle Paul is wrestling with in the book of Romans.

In his own way, I think Paul is asking a very similar set of questions.

Why do humans keep returning to the very things that diminish them?

Why do we say we’re free but keep living as though we’re under the power of something else?

The details, of course, are different.

We turn to vision boards, affirmations, strategies for self-improvement.

Not again that these are inherently bad per se, but Paul’s audience did something similar too, except their move was to turn to strict adherence to religious rules and practices.

The challenge, of course, is that underneath both practices, both moves is the same instinct:

If I can just get myself under control, then I will finally be free.

And that’s the very instinct that Paul here is trying to challenge.

Don’t You Know You’re Dead?

So Paul says something perhaps equally unorthodox and surprising to his hearers.

Don’t you know that you’re dead? he says.

Don’t you realize that the old person you used to be is buried and the corpse of your old self is dead and gone?

I mean he doesn’t quite say it like that.

He says this:

This is what we know that the person we used to be was crucified with him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore because the person who’s died has been freed from sin’s power.

Remember the question we’ve been wrestling with:

Why do we keep returning to the things that hurt us?

Paul’s answer is not what we might immediately expect.

He doesn’t offer a better strategy.

He doesn’t offer a more disciplined approach.

He doesn’t tell us to try harder or to go back to my children’s sermon to pull harder.

Instead, he proclaimed something else.

Something that God has already done.

That the old self is dead.

That the old self has been crucified with Christ.

And that the good news is that in death we are freed from that which once had control or dominion over us.

A few verses earlier, Paul writes that if we are united together in death like Jesus, we will also be united together in resurrection with Jesus.

In other words, Paul isn’t simply talking about self-improvement.

He’s talking about death and resurrection.

He’s talking about God doing something so profound that the person we were once no longer has the final word.

Trust the Promise

We tend to think we’re free from our past self, our old lives, our old habits.

Or perhaps more accurately, we think we can control them.

We think we can manage them, contain them, keep them in check.

Yet for all of our assumptions of freedom and control, we’re often more bound to these old ways than we would care to admit.

And Paul’s entire argument is that the old self is dead and buried, and sin no longer has dominion over us.

Sin no longer has control over us.

Death no longer has dominion.

And the question I invite you to consider this morning is whether we trust that promise to be true.

In his book The Church in an Age of Secular Mysticism, theologian Andrew Root writes that faith is about reception, not right actions or beliefs.

This is quite a contrast to our modern understanding of faith.

And today in some Christian contexts we understand faith as right beliefs, mentally assenting to the right sort of beliefs.

With the assurance that if we just think the right thing or believe the right thing, then we will be okay.

In other contexts, Christian contexts, faith is understood purely as right actions, that if we just do the right thing, then we’ll be the right way.

Again, none of these are bad per se, but they’re both moves of control.

And they can become assumptions that if we can simply get a hold of ourselves, if we can simply believe the right thing or simply behave the right way, then we can steer ourselves in the right direction.

What Paul is saying, what the good news of Jesus is saying, I believe, is something quite different entirely.

It’s saying:

Trust the promise.

Trust that this has already happened.

Trust that the old self is gone and the new self is come.

And to be sure, this is quite contrarian to our modern ears.

Shaped as we are for command and control, our move in most places is just to try harder.

To try harder.

And the good news of Jesus is essentially:

Try less.

I mean, again, the finger traps.

Try less.

Don’t produce, receive.

So then it becomes not about self mastery, but instead death with Christ.

It’s not about more effort, it’s about God’s action.

It’s not about finding ourselves, excuse me, fixing ourselves.

But rather trusting the promise.

And it’s not about I will change, but rather Christ is already changing me.

And that’s good news.

The way Paul describes is one of reception, and it’s only in a life of reception can the unknown be made known, and our cells be made attentive to the dramatic truth of God’s transformative love and grace.

Two Stories

So then in a way it’s not about self control, but rather about accepting our own mortality.

I see us quite often in my work as a hospital chaplain.

Not too infrequently I encounter people who have been hospitalized for what they assume is simply one too many drinks.

They often say the same thing.

This is my wake-up call. I’m going to get my life together. I’m going to get this thing under control.

Rarely, of course, do I get to see the fruit of their actions.

Except one time I did.

And it was not pretty.

It was a middle-aged man, not too much older than me, who had been hospitalized and was in quite bad shape.

He was unconscious and had the telltale signs of a person whose liver had quite literally taken too much.

Yellow and jaundiced, he lay there unconscious in the bed.

And as I sat there and talked with his family and his loved ones and prayed with them and encouraged them, something about his story rang familiar.

Sure enough, looking back in his chart when I was going back to track my meeting with this family and patient, I scrolled down a little bit in the chart notes and I noticed that I had actually seen this same man some months prior.

I remember hearing many of the same things from him.

This is a wake up call. I’m going to get my life together. I’m going to get this thing under control.

Quite clearly he had not.

What he had thought he had control over had in fact turned out to be his slave master.

And why, as unorthodox and pre-modern as those words sound to us today about slavery and bondage, I think in many ways they still ring true.

The man had been unable to admit that alcohol was his slave master, and that he was in bondage to it.

He thought he was free, but he was anything, anything but free.

And this is why I find the path of Alcoholics Anonymous so intriguing.

Each and every time they meet together, they say willingly, they say this:

I’m an alcoholic.

I am defeated.

I’m a slave to this.

Perhaps not so much in those certain terms.

See, us modern people today, we tend to think that if we’re a slave to something, we’re not free.

Paul says quite the opposite.

That when we finally stop pretending that we are in control, when we finally acknowledge our own bondage, we become open to a different kind of freedom.

Not by our own power or efforts or trying harder, but by the power of the one who already conquered death:

Jesus.

And that brings me to a second story.

The first man sought freedom through control.

The second man found freedom through trust.

A few days ago, I think it was driving perhaps to and from church here, that I was listening to an evangelical podcast about a man sharing his story about sex addiction.

And he had tried it all.

More rules.

More control.

More attempts at behavior modification.

None of it worked.

And none of it worked because none of it got to the heart of the matter.

The deeper rot inside of him that was a deep woundedness and brokenness that he could neither fix or control on his own.

One day his wife came home and asked him straight out:

“Is this you?”

Directly confronted with the reality, he did the unthinkable.

He didn’t try to fix things.

He didn’t try to manage.

He didn’t try to control things.

He simply surrendered.

“Yes”, he said.

And in surrendering and admitting that he could not fix things on his own, he joined a recovery group where he opened himself up to the radical and transformative grace of God.

He made himself receptive to this truth.

That when he finally acknowledged his own death and failure, newness could be born within him.

Whereas in the past he sought freedom through control and trying harder, instead he found freedom through trust.

The Good News

Friends, this is the good news of the gospel.

Like this is it right here.

Not that we finally can get our lives under control, but that in Jesus Christ, as we’ve already sang this morning, our chains are broken and we’ve been set free.

Thanks.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

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Ambitious and Impressive

Those are the two words that come to mind when I think about ‘s latest book, A Systematic Theology of Love: Volume 1, God and Creation.

Ambitious because Oord is attempting nothing less than a comprehensive theology centered on love.

Impressive because, whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, it is obvious he has spent decades thinking deeply about God, creation, suffering, and what it means to say that God is love.

I’ll be honest and admit that I struggled through portions of the opening chapters. The early sections are dense and detailed, and at times I found myself weighed down by the sheer volume of theological argumentation.

I’d also acknowledge that I’m not entirely sold on open and relational theology.

But Oord certainly has some compelling ideas.

God as Becoming

One intriguing concept is what Oord calls “gino-theology,” which “describes God’s becoming” (132).

Oord argues for a “becoming” understanding of God as a “dynamic person who engages in moment-by-moment relations with creatures and creation” (129). He prefers this language over traditional “being” language, suggesting that “becoming” language “names what moves” and that God “lovingly becomes” (132).

While I’m not entirely persuaded, I appreciate what Oord is trying to accomplish. He wants a vision of God that is relational, active, and genuinely engaged with creation.

Amipotence and the Problem of Evil

As an open and relational theologian, Oord also argues against omnipotence and in favor of what he calls “amipotence.”

I’m still not entirely sure how to pronounce the word.

I first encountered the idea in his earlier book Pluriform Love, where he began developing the concept. While I remain unconvinced in some respects, I do think it offers a thoughtful response to the problem of evil and suffering, a topic that clearly motivates much of Oord’s work.

As I understand it, Oord’s argument is essentially this: God always acts out of love.

He writes:

“Amipotence says a universal Spirit—One in whose nature love comes first—prompts us to act in good ways and live good lives. This means that God’s nature is the ultimate measure of goodness and the wellspring for the possibility of well-being” (390).

Again, I’m not sure I agree with all of Oord’s conclusions. But I appreciate that he is wrestling seriously with questions that matter deeply to people who suffer.

A Progressive Theology with Content

Another aspect of the book that I found refreshing was Oord’s insistence on theological substance.

Although Oord would certainly be identified as a Progressive Christian—and I suspect would willingly embrace the label—he is also critical of the tendency within some progressive circles to become overly vague or imprecise when speaking about God.

He writes:

“it’s impossible…for progressives to believe in an utterly mysterious God. There’s not content there to believe” (242).

Similarly:

“I also worry about a much less-discussed problem found more often in progressive circles…a God that’s too vague…” (250).

And later:

“Without belief in God, we can’t explain well our intuitions about—and the actualization of—the good, true, beautiful, just, and loving” (395).

I may disagree with some of Oord’s conclusions, but I appreciate his commitment to theological clarity.

Even when I found the book dry or overly detailed—and there were certainly moments when I did—it was obvious that Oord is trying to build a coherent vision rather than simply gesture toward mystery.

Healing, Prayer, and Hospital Rooms

Perhaps the most intriguing section for me came later in the book, when Oord discusses healing and miracles.

As a hospital chaplain who regularly encounters patients and families desperately hoping for healing, I often find myself wondering how best to pray and even what exactly I should be asking for.

Again, I’m not entirely sold on open and relational theology. But I’m also not convinced by the strongest versions of divine sovereignty often associated with Calvinism.

That’s why I found Oord’s discussion so interesting.

He suggests that an:

“amipotent Spirit…wants everyone healed. But miracles require creaturely cooperation or conducive conditions in creation. We should blame neither the cooperating victim nor God when miraculous healing doesn’t occur, or when things don’t align sufficiently” (414).

Whether or not I ultimately agree, I find the proposal thought-provoking.

And honestly, it resonates with some of my own observations.

Beyond my experience in hospital settings, I think about church life as well. I have heard countless Christians confidently declare that “God wants” or “God wills” something to happen.

Yet I also think there are times when human beings genuinely resist or obstruct what God desires.

I’m reminded of Paul’s warning not to “quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).

If that command means anything, it seems to imply that our actions matter.

Final Thoughts

So, I’m still not entirely sure what I think about open and relational theology.

And I’m certainly not sure I agree with everything Oord says.

But that may actually be part of the value of reading him.

Few contemporary theologians push me to think as deeply or carefully about God, love, suffering, and prayer.

I found A Systematic Theology of Love ambitious.

I found it impressive.

And even when I found it frustrating, I found it thought-provoking.

That’s not a bad combination for a theologian.

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“Dark Woke”

Perhaps you’ve heard the term before.

And for those unfamiliar, the term comes from a social media phenomenon and political messaging strategy that emerged following the president’s second inauguration in 2025.

The New York Times described it as an attempt to step outside the bounds of political correctness.

Examples offered feature dark humor, sarcasm, and a willingness to mock or demean opponents in ways that would have been unacceptable to previous generations.

Basically, it’s an abrupt U-turn from the old “when they go low, we go high” approach.

Instead, the mood is often closer to:

When they go low, we go lower.

Now, before we dismiss such thinking too quickly, we should acknowledge why it resonates with so many people.

Younger generations have come of age amid economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, political polarization, and a growing sense that the institutions around them are irreparably broken.

In many ways, we can understand why we got here.

Why people feel this way.

But perhaps what’s most troubling about such an approach is that it’s far deeper than anger and outrage.

As one source noted, younger generations have already tried anger and outrage.

But when they repeatedly saw little, if any, change while watching unjust systems burrow themselves deeper into power and oppression, the mood shifted toward something darker:

Despair.

Nihilism.

A “why even try?” mentality.

A very much “burn it all down” attitude.

Whereas previous generations often worked within institutions to bring about reform, many younger people have become convinced that these institutions—such as the church—are themselves the problem.

Why reform them?

Why not just tear it all down and start over?

But perhaps the most significant shift is this:

Suffering itself has increasingly come to be seen as irredeemable.

Whereas past generations might have seen oppression, persecution, or sacrifice as the cost of pursuing justice—or even something that could move the needle toward change—increasingly suffering is viewed as having no tangible benefit.

Nothing good can come from it.

Nothing can be learned from it.

Nothing can emerge except more pain.

And if suffering has no meaning, then hope itself becomes quite foolish.

Why suffer?

Why sacrifice?

Why risk more disappointment?

Why not simply protect yourself?

After all, if the world is burning and you’ve tried putting out the fire only to get burned yourself, why keep risking your own health and well-being while others are simply fanning the flames?

You might as well grab some chocolate and marshmallows and make some s’mores while everything burns.

Nothing wrong with s’mores, by the way.

It’s obviously a dark and dystopian vision.

But not entirely illogical.

The problem, however, is that it simply produces more of what we might expect:

More disillusionment.

More despondency.

More despair.

And neither human history nor experience suggests that despair has ever built a better future.

So what can we offer instead?

I would posit this morning that we can offer hope.

Christian hope.

Paul’s Radical Alternative

In his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul offers a radically different approach.

Hope.

In chapter five, Paul is telling his readers that because of Jesus, they have access to God’s grace and therefore have peace with God.

But Paul makes a bit of an aside, a bit of a parenthetical reference, as one commentator said.

And from this, two things stand out to me almost immediately.

The first is somewhat shocking:

Paul says that he and his colleagues take pride in their problems.

Other Bible translations say that they boast or even rejoice in their suffering.

The second is that Paul believes all the problems, all the suffering, actually produce hope.

From another Bible translation we read:

“We also boast in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us.”

Paul is saying, as silly as this sounds:

Hope does not make us foolish.

Now this sounds quite silly when we think about all the bad things in our world.

So bad that many have presumed that hope is not simply impractical.

It’s foolish.

It’s flat-out wrong.

Paul Knew Something About Suffering

But lest we think Paul to be some privileged person immune to pain and suffering, he writes elsewhere in the Bible that he’s encountered quite a bit of suffering himself:

“I’ve been imprisoned and beaten more times than I can count. I faced death many times. I’ve been brutally whipped five times. I was beaten with rods three times. I was stoned once. I was shipwrecked three times. I spent a day and a night in the open sea.

I faced dangers from rivers, robbers, people of all kinds, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers on the sea.

I faced these dangers with hard work and heavy labor, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food and in the cold, without enough clothes.”

This is quite clearly a guy who has encountered his fair share of challenge and suffering—or as we might say today, systemic abuse and oppression.

And yet he acknowledges how silly, how foolish he sounds in boasting of all this.

What If Paul Was Right?

But the question, I think, for us to consider this morning:

What if Paul was onto something?

What if he was right?

What if he knew deep down that God could bring life and renewal from even the most painful experiences?

And of course then we might wonder:

How?

How did he know it?

Paul says he knew it because God’s love had been poured into his heart because of the Holy Spirit.

As Christians celebrated a few weeks back at Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, Paul also took comfort in the lasting and abiding presence of the Spirit and God’s love made known through the Spirit.

But as one commentator notes, rather than being destroyed by challenges and experiences, for Paul these instead strengthened his hope.

And he realized that this hope in God does not disappoint.

Rather, he already had a measure of it in the Holy Spirit.

For Paul, he saw the Holy Spirit as a reminder that the same God who gave Jesus life from the dead will give us life too.

And for him, that gave Paul a measure of trust that God is at work amidst all of this.

That God can bring life and renewal from even the most broken, unjust, and painful parts of our lives.

God can bring renewal and life.

I mean, it’s no wonder, right?

It’s no wonder that Paul recognizes the foolishness in all of this.

As another commentator notes:

It is at the place of social failure and ostracism that God is present and active, transforming victims.

The Mystery and Gift of the Cross

See, if I can be so bold this morning, the problem in our culture and in our world today is that we tend to think that pain, suffering, and brokenness are irredeemable.

The mystery and gift of the cross, I believe, is that in the resurrection of Jesus, God said to all that is oppressive, unjust, and evil:

Give me your best shot.

Not only can I take it, but I can actually transform it and bring new and renewed life.

I mean, that’s good news.

Now, to be clear:

Paul is not saying that suffering itself is good.

He’s not saying injustice is good.

He is not saying that we should seek suffering or ignore injustice or allow others to suffer.

Rather, Paul is making a more surprising claim:

Even in the midst of suffering, God can bring about endurance, character, and hope.

Because of this then, let’s live with hope.

Not in our neighbors, ourselves, or our ability to change things.

Rather, let’s hope in God.

Because Paul says God’s hope will not disappoint us.

It will not prove us a fool.

Optimism Is Not Hope

Now again, I want to differentiate between optimism and hope because they’re not the same thing.

I recently spoke to one pastor who described herself as a:

Pessimistic hopeful.

She understood that God’s hope is not about some kind of blind optimism or Pollyanna attitude.

I’m reminded of this poem from Henry Nouwen:

Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes.

Optimism is the expectation that things will get better.

Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God’s promises in ways that lead to true freedom.

The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future.

The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in God’s hands.

All great leaders, all great spiritual leaders, were people of hope.

Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Gandhi, Dorothy Day.

They all lived with a promise in their heart that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like.

Optimism expects circumstances to improve.

Hope trusts God will fulfill God’s promises.

Hope Does Not Disappoint

You know what a powerful thing happens when we begin to live into God’s hope?

God’s love becomes our central and determining motive.

No longer are we dependent on our own ingenuity or efforts.

We’re simply content to share the love and grace of God, as foolish as it may be.

Because we root ourselves, we ground ourselves in God’s love and God’s promise that:

Hope does not disappoint.

There are many in life today who would presume that living with hope is foolish, naive, or even privileged.

Friends, if I may be so bold, I do not believe that is a recipe for hope and well-being.

But hope—that groundedness—that’s what guided so many of the faithful and prophetic leaders of our time.

The Witness of Hope

I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.

The famous civil rights leader had every reason to be cynical.

Churches were segregated.

Laws were unjust.

Racial violence was commonplace.

Yet he continued to hope that the moral arc of the universe was long and bent toward justice.

God’s hope did not disappoint Martin Luther King Jr.

Nelson Mandela, the post-apartheid president of South Africa, had every reason to be cynical.

Twenty-seven years in prison might do that to a person.

Yet he emerged believing that reconciliation was possible.

God’s hope did not disappoint Nelson Mandela.

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal clergy person who was the first gay man to be consecrated as a bishop within the Christian church, had every reason to be cynical.

He endured criticism, rejection, and controversy from fellow Christians, even within his own church.

Yet he stayed believing that the church could be more faithful than it was.

God’s hope did not disappoint Gene Robinson.

The Promise

Now again, let me be clear on this.

The inauguration or fulfillment of our hope may not come on our own timeline and as quickly or immediately as we want it to.

Martin Luther King Jr., even after many victories, still faced an assassin’s bullet that ended his life.

Robinson, even after his historic election, still faced much criticism and prejudice.

And lest we forget, Nelson Mandela sat in prison for twenty-seven years.

We cannot presume that living with hope means everything will be fixed right now or even in the foreseeable future.

Rather, living with hope means trusting that God, even in the midst of pain and suffering, is making things right.

And more, that when we ourselves go through pain and suffering, that suffering will produce endurance, which then produces character, which ultimately produces hope.

God’s hope within us.

I think it’s a bit like Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he referenced the promissory note of the Declaration of Independence.

He said:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—that all men are created equal.”

King trusted in the promise.

The promise that guaranteed unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

He trusted that promise would ultimately be fulfilled despite generations of injustice and broken promises.

Truth be told, in some ways Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is still yet unfulfilled.

There is more hoping and dreaming to be done.

But King himself warned against satisfying our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Our Hope Is Jesus

Our hope as followers of Jesus, as Christians, is in Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified and is now resurrected.

That same God who raised Jesus from the dead will give us life and can bring redemption and renewal to even the most broken, painful, and unjust systems within our own lives and communities.

That’s good news, friends.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

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Conversations in the Car

A few years ago, I started noticing something whenever my kids and I were in the car together: they were far more open to a real conversation than when I was sitting directly across from them.

They would say things that I might never hear face to face.

I’m, um, already seeing some nodding heads in the congregation.

There’s something about standing shoulder to shoulder, moving in the same direction that makes it easier to be honest.

I encounter this dynamic often as a chaplain.

People will tell me things as I sit aside their hospital bed, that I might never hear sitting face to face with them in an office setting or some other context.

For the last year, I have not been preparing messages.

I’ve been listening to the people they were meant for.

Sunday May 31st was the first time I had preached in a church in over a year.

And in that time, I’ve been sitting in the pews like a regular person, listening, talking, interacting, listening with people and their stories.

And from what I’ve gathered from their conversations, there seem to be two overarching questions that people seem to be asking.

First of all, is this God thing even real?

And if this God thing is real, does it even matter beyond Sunday morning?

Because they’re not entirely sure that it does.

And the more I listened to people and their stories, the more I began to wonder if the real challenge facing the church is simpler than we make it to be.

We spend a lot of time talking about doctrine, formation, even compelling preaching.

But I think the more basic question that people actually wrestle with is:

Does any of this actually matter?

Life Works Pretty Well Without God

Throughout his Ministry in a Secular Age series, Andrew Root argues that people have become convinced that life works pretty well without God.

Ryan Burge, a sociologist, has noted that church has increasingly become a luxury good, something nice, but something we don’t really need, much like a country club membership.

People have become convinced that if church disappeared tomorrow, they’d probably be fine.

I mean, remember, that’s what literally happened right during COVID.

It’s not that people reject or are, uh, hostile to faith, but rather they’ve learned that they don’t really need God.

Religion has become obsolete, says sociologist Christian Smith.

And in its place, they’ve made religions of work, sports, especially politics.

And for many, that seems to work.

Until, that is, they find themselves or a loved one in a hospital bed.

The Corinthians Thought They Had Arrived

That’s why I find Paul’s words to the Corinthians so compelling, because Paul seems to be speaking to people who had similarly bought into an alternative religion, perhaps we might say a gospel of acquisition.

And while written to people two millennia ago, I swear, Paul could have written these words to the average American churchgoer today.

You can practically hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice:

Already you have what you want.

Already you have become rich.

Quite apart from us, you have become kings.

In other words:

You’ve made it.

You’ve arrived.

You have everything you need.

Paul keeps laying it on thick:

You are strong, but we are weak.

You are held in high honor, but we are in disrepute.

You are well fed, but we are hungry and thirsty.

At first hearing, it sounds absurd.

Who in their right mind would want to trade places with that?

And yet, by the end of the passage, something really interesting happens.

Paul and his crew, the self-described rubbish of the world, dregs of all things, seem to have something going for them.

After all:

When reviled, they bless.

When persecuted, they endure.

When slandered, they speak kindly.

It’s as bizarre now as it was then.

Maybe more so.

Why Are We Still Searching?

And I think this is Paul’s brilliance.

Because beneath all the sarcasm, Paul is asking a question.

If you’ve arrived, why are you still searching?

If you’ve become kings, why are you still so restless?

If more really delivers, why are you still looking for something else?

Paul never comes straight out and says it, but he lays out the contrast so clearly that his hearers, both then and now, can’t help but wonder:

Maybe these morons know something that the kings don’t.

And maybe I should listen.

Life Before Death

Now, friends, I know we’re preachers.

We care about doctrine.

We should.

We care about theology.

We should.

We care about compelling preaching.

We should.

These things matter.

But if I may be so bold, if this stuff doesn’t have real life implications, then what good is it?

And after a year of sitting in the pews and alongside hospital beds in the ministry of presence, I’m increasingly convinced that what keeps people awake at night isn’t orthodox theology.

Maybe I’m wrong.

But what I think keeps people awake at night is their loneliness, their broken relationships, their seeming inability to stop scrolling and buying and drinking as much as they know they need to stop, but they can’t.

And if our preaching, if our presence doesn’t speak to these things, then what good is it?

The good news can’t just be about life to come, but this life now.

It’s got to offer not just life after death, but life before death.

And you know what the good news is?

It does.

It absolutely does.

The gods of More

The foolishness of the cross is that when we stop chasing salvation through status, through stuff, through success, we discover God meets us precisely where those things fail.

And man, that is good news.

As Andrew Root writes, the gods of more demand that humans do better, be better, acquire more.

But our God...

Our God comes to the brokenhearted, loves the lost, gives rest to God’s children.

And man...

If that’s true, let’s preach that.

Let’s come alongside people and show them not just good theology, but how to live this life now.

The Secret Hope

See, here’s the thing.

While the folks in the pews, I do think, are questioning whether this stuff really matters, whether it’s actually true, I think they’re secretly hoping it really is true.

Like they really want it to be true.

And I think it’s a bit like Paul is doing with the Corinthians.

Calling them rich.

Calling them kings.

Buttering them up in such a way that deep down they know it’s not true.

Like the Corinthians and many of our hearers today, they’re drowning in debt, their relationships are in tatters, their kids won’t return their calls.

And eventually they start wondering:

Maybe I’m not really a king after all.

And that’s where the gospel becomes good news.

Because beneath all this status, all this stuff, all the success, there remains this longing:

I want some good news.

I need some good news.

And Paul says, not that you can have your best life now, but rather:

Even when your life doesn’t look that grand,

Even when you’re quite clearly not a king,

You may in fact be experiencing a bit of the life to come right now.

How foolish.

How moronic.

But when the voices around us insist that fulfillment is found through acquiring more, the gospel says otherwise.

And to borrow from our host, David Zahl:

What a relief.

Because people don’t need more information.

They need good news.

Thanks be to God, we have some.

Amen.

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Rethinking Romans

It’s a well-known movie trope.

Two characters stand facing one another.

One warns the other about what is coming. Maybe it’s revenge. Maybe justice. Maybe consequences long delayed.

The warning is brushed aside or mocked.

And then comes the line:

“That’s not a threat—it’s a promise.”

What makes the scene memorable is that it shifts the conversation.

We move from possibility to inevitability.
From warning to certainty.

And honestly, that’s often how Christians have approached Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Short of the book of Revelation, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans—or simply, Romans—has to be one of the “scariest” books of the Bible to read, or especially, to hear preached on a Sunday morning.1

Depending on the Christian context we come from—or perhaps no Christian background whatsoever!—we may carry stronger or weaker associations with this book of scripture.

In many conservative Christian contexts, Romans is often presented through what is called the “Romans Road”—a step-by-step evangelistic method using key verses from Romans to explain salvation.

The Romans Road often begins with Romans 3:23:

“All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.”

Then moves to Romans 6:23:

“The wages that sin pays are death, but God’s gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The fourth stop is Romans 10:9:

“Because if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

And the Romans Road often concludes with Romans 5:1:

“Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

There are other variations as well.

Now, to be clear, I don’t think the Romans Road is entirely wrong.

But often, at least in my own experience, it can feel like mostly threat and very little promise.

Because of this, in more liberal or progressive Mainline contexts, Romans is sometimes avoided altogether—or at least approached cautiously—because it has become so associated with coercive or fear-based forms of evangelism that seem more concerned with securing decisions or winning arguments than sharing the love and grace of God made known in Jesus.

As a Christian, pastor, and preacher—and especially because of my experience with the Iowa Preacher’s Project—I’m increasingly convinced that the gospel is fundamentally about good news for us.

That is, after all, what the word gospel literally means.

To say it differently:

The gospel is about promise.

And Romans, I believe, is ultimately a promise—not a threat.

Take Romans chapter 8 alone.

In this one chapter we encounter at least eight promises:2

#1 No condemnation

“So now there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

#2 Nothing can separate us from the love of God

“Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 39).

#3 Freed from the power of death

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (v. 2).

#4 We are adopted children of God

“You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children” (v. 15).

#5 We are led by the Spirit

“All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters” (v. 14).

#6 Both the Spirit and Jesus are praying for us right now

“The Spirit comes to help our weakness” (v. 26). And also:

“Christ Jesus… is at God’s right side pleading for us” (v. 34).

#7 God is working all things for our good

“We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God” (v. 28).

#8 Nothing coming against us can ultimately win

“If God is for us, who is against us?” (v. 31).

That sounds a lot more like promise than threat.

And so, through the weeks I’ll be preaching in June and July, I’ll be spending time with the Revised Common Lectionary readings from Romans.

My hope is not simply to explain Romans, but to hear it again—not as a weapon or warning—but as good news.

A promise, not a threat.

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A Diamond in the Rough?** (edited to add, it turned out pretty rough itself…)

Recently, while perusing the normally disappointing religion section at my local library, I came across an intriguing title: Critical Dilemma: The Rise of Critical Theories and Social Justice Ideology—Implications for the Church and Society by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer.

I checked it out with more than a little skepticism.

If I’m honest, I expected something closer to a right-wing, culture-war critique of Critical Race Theory and social justice discourse—heavy on hot takes and light on nuance.

So far, it’s been anything but.1

And to be clear, I’m not approaching this as someone hostile to conversations about race, power, injustice, or historical inequity.

What has interested me as I’ve read on was instead a different question:

How do certain theoretical frameworks shape the way we understand institutions—especially institutions like the church?

While I’m not yet sure I’ll agree with all of Shenvi and Sawyer’s conclusions, I’ve been struck by the seriousness of their work.

More Nuanced Than I Expected

Their treatment of what they call “contemporary critical theory” (CCT) stretches more than 200 pages before even reaching any of their critiques.

This is no strawman effort.

To be honest, I haven’t done a tremendous amount of reading in the anti-CRT world, short of Susan Neiman’s Left Is Not Woke, in which she boldly argues that the modern progressive “woke” movement has little to do with the foundations of the traditional liberal left.

I’ll skip a broader evaluation of Neiman for now, but one line stuck with me:

“If everything is power, does the concept have no bounds?” (63)

The same question about power lingered in my mind while reading Critical Dilemma.

What I’ve generally understood about critical theories is that power tends to be a central concern. What I hadn’t fully grasped, however, was just how thoroughly this lens of power shapes the interpretation of reality itself.

The other day, while reading Critical Dilemma, it struck me:

If unequal outcomes necessarily imply inequality, then of course Christianity did not “win” because it was true, but because it possessed power and cultural hegemony.

Again, Shenvi and Sawyer write:

“If we assume that equitable treatment would result in everyone achieving the same outcome, then unequal outcomes can only be the result of inequitable treatment” (134).

A few weeks later, at the same library, I grabbed the book Black and Catholic by Tia Noelle Pratt off the shelf. She makes this assertion:

“The legacy of this systemic racism is found not only in the disproportionately low number of Black Catholics in the United States but also in the dearth of Black priests and vowed religious'“ (16).

Now, it is entirely possible that I—or Shenvi and Sawyer—simply misunderstand these theories.

But honestly, I don’t think so. Looking at Pratt’s quote for example, she asserts that a lack of Black people in Catholicism means racist structures. Now, to be fair, there may be deep structural racism within Catholicism. I’m not disputing that. What I found compelling is how her words provide a real-life example of what Shenvi and Sawyer discuss.

So, if anything, I’ve found myself understanding them better through reading this book. And interestingly, there were moments where I almost wondered whether the authors were more sympathetic toward CCT than opposed to it.

That’s part of what has made the book so compelling to me.

It is nearly 500 pages long and engages all the notable figures—Kendi, DiAngelo, hooks, and others—with considerable nuance and detail.

Andrew Root and the Logic of “More”

But while reading, something from Andrew Root’s latest book, Baal and the Gods of More, kept coming to mind.

To be fair, Root spends most of his time critiquing the church’s obsession with growth, especially since 2000. But he also critiques what he calls the “identitarians,” those who continually urge the church to “do better.”

Root shares a story—I honestly can’t remember whether it is real or imagined—but recounts the following:

“This pastor has shaped his leadership around his hope that the church is moving into declension. He says that the church has hurt too many people. ‘What needs to expand,’ he explained, ‘is our awareness of all the trauma the church has caused. All the people it has hurt. My leadership has nothing to do with growth; I want the opposite of growth. I want the church to diminish. That’s what I’m after’” (26).

I’ll admit, Root’s critique of the “identitarians” did not always feel fully integrated with his larger critique of evangelical growth culture.

But where I do think the connection becomes clearer is here:

Both the “identitarians” and the “techno-optimists,” as Root calls them, remain caught in the same logic of more.

For the techno-optimists, it is more growth, more scale, more innovation.

For the identitarians, it can become more recognition, more affirmation, more awareness.

As Root laments:

“We can’t signal our recognition and affirmation enough…to ever satisfy people” (117).

Again, there is no such thing as enough.

And reading Critical Dilemma, that logic suddenly made more sense to me.

Sawyer and Shenvi write:

“Based on these [critical theory] statements, you cannot—by definition—extend privilege to everyone. You can only eliminate privilege by eliminating oppression, which is the goal of social justice work” (99).

What I’m Wrestling With

So while I will probably write fuller reviews of both Root’s book and Critical Dilemma, I think I’m finally understanding something for the first time.

I can now see how some pastors and church leaders, deeply shaped by this form of CCT, might genuinely conclude that the church achieved its influence primarily through hegemonic power and that, therefore, the morally right response is not institutional renewal but institutional diminishment.

As Root says, that’s why the common thinking amongst identitarians is that they should even “resist… ecclesial structures” (147).2

To them, decline is seen as welcome news.

To be clear, I’m not saying every advocate of critical theory or social justice work arrives at this conclusion. Nor am I suggesting that churches should avoid hard conversations about power, exclusion, or injustice.

In fact, one of the more refreshing things about Critical Dilemma is that Shenvi and Sawyer are themselves quite direct about the reality of injustice, writing:

“real social injustices exist. Racism does exist. Sexism does exist. Actual oppression does exist” (19).

I’d completely agree.

What I’m wrestling with instead—particularly the tendency to interpret institutions primarily through the lens of power and oppression—is whether certain theoretical assumptions can make it difficult to imagine the church as anything other than a problem to be managed, resisted, or dismantled.

And maybe that’s the question I’m really trying to ask here.

Am I missing something?

Because at least right now, I don’t think I am.

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