The policy choices that led to the winter storm disaster in Texas are a moral evil. In this sermon, I argue why.
A Unitarian Universalist Response to Evil
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Truth and Lies
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We are arguably living through the great age of propaganda. The rise of social media and its resulting social fractures and competing claims of truths led to a dynamic that played out in the recent presidential election and its aftermath.
How can we find the truth at such a time? And how can direct experience of awe and wonder help us to discover it?
Pre-inauguration Prayer
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A prayer prior to the Inauguration of President Joe Biden.
1876, 1968, and Today: The Need for a Radical King
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In this sermon, I reflect on how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. combined the prophetic with the pastoral in his effort to dismantle white supremacy. He taught that our efforts towards a more spiritual life for ourselves and more just society for all can only be pursued together.
The Senate Should Expel Senators Cruz and Hawley
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Note: I wrote this op-ed on Friday and sent it to the Houston Chronicle with the intention of sending it on to the Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch if the Chronicle declined to run it. Since writing it the editorial boards of all three newspapers have written editorials calling for resignations and so I have decided to just post it to my blog. The Chronicle’s op-ed calling...
Stirring the Embers
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Fire, like our connection to the divine, needs to be nurtured, needs to be maintained, if it is to continue. This is a helpful lesson to remember during these difficult days. For it prompts the question: In these times when it can feel like the fires of our spirits flag, what shall we do to maintain them?
Truth and Reconciliation: An Open Letter to President-Elect Joe Biden
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The United States needs to establish a National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation if it is to ever address systematic racism, rural poverty, and white supremacy.
Varieties of Populism in the United States
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Next Monday, November 16th, at 6:30 p.m. Central, I will be giving an online lecture at Rice University on “Varieties of Populism in the United States.”
Sermon: Foundations
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Over the years, I have tried to follow the injunction, attributed to Karl Barth but probably apocryphal, to preach with “the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” Not being a Christian, I have never taken the injunction literally. Rather I have understood it to mean, root yourself in your tradition, ground yourself in the goodness of the Earth, and from that foundation offer up what...
Move to Amend: The Immorality of the Climate Crisis and Corporate Rule
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On October 6, 2020, I was part of a panel discussion organized by Move to Amend on The Immorality of the Climate Crisis and Corporate Rule. The moderator was Greg Coleridge other panel participants were Shannon Biggs (Movement Rights), Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap (Move to Amend), and Casey Camp Horinek (Ponca Nation of Oklahoma). Here are my remarks: