The Fault in our Discipleship

Hate crimes perpetrated by fellow Christians. The recent attacks in Atlanta committed by a young Evangelical. Christian insurrectionists storming the capitol. These incidents and others have stirred me to evaluate my own ministry as a full time Christian worker. How has my theology, my discipleship or my service to Christians allowed these things to exist…

Owning a Share in Communal Sin

Why should I repent of sins committed against Native Americans more than 100 years ago? I wasn’t there. I’ve never stolen anyone’s land. Many of us who grew up in western culture see ourselves as an individual thread rather than as part of a communal fabric. We fail to recognize that we are woven together…

I Think I’m A Pharisee (but that’s OK, Jesus was too)

I suspect Jesus was a Pharisee. Not in the figurative way we use the word, as in telling someone who says one thing and does the opposite “you’re such a Pharisee.” But I think Jesus literally belonged to the first century Jewish sect of the Pharisees. Think about it. The synagogue was a structure that…

Politics and Religion at the Dinner Table Part VI

(Image: George Leile. First American Missionary. Pencil drawing by Janine Bessenecker.) The Corporate-Capitalist Non-Profit Expanded and adapted from Overturning Tables by Scott A. Bessenecker. Copyright (c) 2014 by Scott A. Bessenecker. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com The Western Hemisphere in the late eighteenth century was convulsing. A slave revolt in Haiti plunged that…

Politics and Religion at the Dinner Table Part V

Adapted from Overturning Tables by Scott A. Bessenecker. Copyright (c) 2014 by Scott A. Bessenecker. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com From Prophets to Profits Where did we get the conviction that if we just had more money we could begin a new poverty alleviation program or expand our church or nonprofit? As Protestantism…