as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, February 23, 2025 This past week the President’s supporters recognized Black History Month with an event at the White House. While there, they celebrated the appointment of noted conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to the position of FBI Director. In the past, Patel has “talked about going after” the President’s enemies. In footage...
as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, February 5, 2022 It is good to be back in the pulpit. I miss you when I am gone. Not that I particularly went anywhere. I spent most of the last month holed up in my home office working on finishing the manuscript for the book I have been writing on populism and religion. I am grateful to have had the support of this congregation...
In this sermon in honor of MLK's birthday, I consider where we might find revolutionary love today.
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.
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...
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.
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...
And as we traverse the water of time, whether the waters be smooth or rocky, we must each answer the questions: What is worth saving? What must be let go?