Dear friends, Like you, I have been shocked and saddened, grief-stricken and outraged, by the violence in Charlottesville and, increasingly, around our country and globe, the “normalization” of extreme and bigotted rhetoric, and the rise of neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Again like many of you, I have wondered how, beyond prayer and lament, to respond. Toward answering that question, I’ve put below a statement I’ve written with Prof. Rolf Jacobson, my former colleague at Luther Seminary and good friend. You can access and sign the actual petition by clicking on this link. It is addressed to Lutheran clergy not to...

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Dear Partner in Preaching, There’s something kind of funky going on here. I’d call it sinister except it’s just too incredibly human, and for that reason understandable, to attribute motives to it. But human or not, understandable or not, it can have devastating consequences. And so it’s worth talking about. It’s actually something of a two-step waltz. The first step is to decide what you think God should be (and that is usually something that affirms what we already think, feel, believe and/or have done). The second is to judge all others – and that includes their beliefs about God – by this same...