Joe Kay is the associate minister at Nexus United Church of Christ, Butler County, Ohio. He also writes a weekly blog at https://joekay617.wordpress.com. His email address is listed on the blog, in case you care to contact him directly.
Posts By This Author
The Dream Is Participatory. Refusing to Get Involved Means Rejecting It
By Adam Jones, Ph.D. (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Some chose to push back against injustice. Others tried to protect the status quo. Many thought they could just be spectators, watching without getting involved. That’s not possible, then or now.
‘I Send You Prophets ...’
Shooting survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., lead the cheers along with 11-year-old Naomi Wadler of Alexandria, Virginia (2nd R) at March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
Movements take time. They have an ebb and flow — two steps forward, one step back. People lose interest or get distracted. Others get tired of struggling. Some say we’ve made a little progress, so let’s stop here.
The Unholy Trinity of God, Guns, and Violence
After each massacre, guns are defended with religious fervor, as though owning a weapon is akin to owning a Bible. We’re told that the problem in our society isn’t unfettered access to weapons, but a failure by godly people to arm themselves and go out and kill the ungodly people. We’re told we need more “good” people buying guns and perfecting their aim so they can shoot all the “bad” people.
Love and Dust
On the surface, the confluence of Valentines and ashes seems to produce an odd and uncomfortable couple, but it’s fitting to have one day of celebrating love in all its forms while also recognizing our mortality.
Love and dust? There’s no better pairing.
White Evangelicals’ Deal with the Donald: A Cautionary Tale
Tony Perkins speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in 2011 in New Orleans. Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com
Lately, we’ve gotten a reminder about what happens when you make a deal that compromises your professed values. The Trump-vangelical marriage is a cautionary tale for us all.
In 2018, May We Be Prophets
How do we become more prophetic?
First, we spend time with God each day growing into the vision. Day by day, we see ourselves and our world through God’s eyes a little more clearly.
Bringing Light to Our Nation’s Very Dark Night
We feel a deep darkness in our world and in our society right now. We can almost taste it, touch it, and smell it. This darkness invades our souls like a damp, long, December night, bringing a chill all the way inside.
When Christians Refuse to Serve Their Neighbor
Jesus actively participated in the lives of everyone whom he met by offering them love, acceptance, and healing. He particularly sought out and served those whom religious folk deemed to be great sinners.
Advent: Hearing God in a Female Voice
Let’s use this Advent — the season that starts with one woman’s courageous voice — to pay closer attention to all the female voices in our world. Let’s honor them and hear God still speaking to all of us through them.
Religion and Power Were Intertwined. Then Jesus Challenged It All.
God’s kingdom is a place of unlimited love and unending compassion. It’s a place where everyone is welcomed — especially the marginalized — and nobody is treated like an outcast.
Reclaiming Thankfulness
Genuine gratitude brings us humility and reconnects us with God and each other —especially those who need us in some way. It erases our society’s illusions about winners and losers. It directly challenges our judgments about who is deserving and who is undeserving. It reminds us of our total dependence on God for everything.
A Time to Build Up
Destroyers lack the patience, persistence, and open-mindedness required to build anything of value. Their egos leave no room for the compromise that is required to create. They have no interest in doing the hard work of recognizing what's good in the world and improving upon what exists.
When's the Last Time You Heard a Sermon About Gun Violence?
The conversation isn’t just about guns, although that’s certainly a huge part of it. We need to look at the bigger picture of how we’ve made violence our norm, how we endorse and encourage it in so many ways.
How Our Lives Fit Together
Grace works that way. People come into our lives unexpectedly and show us things we need to see. Those people and those moments become edge pieces for us, if we let them. It’s good to remind ourselves of that now, when we’re so divided and disconnected that we can’t even see the picture we’re meant to form together. We’ve forgotten that each of us is a piece of something bigger than ourselves.
Dismissing Ignorance in Our Leaders Is a Mistake
It seems that the message people in the pews are hearing is deliberately divorced from Jesus’ values. Being a disciple no longer means sitting at Jesus’ feet, hearing his passionate, God-filled words, and trying to live them.
Where Are the Monuments to Peacemakers?
Image via Gimas / Shutterstock.com
A starting point is recognizing the truth that war is never noble or courageous. Noble and courageous acts occur during war, but war itself is always the ultimate human failure and must never be portrayed as anything else. War is the expression of our worst impulses — killing and maiming one another while destroying the many good things we've built together.
Has Your Pastor Denounced Racism Yet?
Has your pastor addressed the events of Charlottesville directly? Did they say that the racism and white supremacy are evil and contrary to everything that Jesus taught and lived?
We’ve Watered Down Jesus’ Message For Our Own Comfort
Everyone deserves our love, especially those whom the “religious” people deem unworthy — tax collectors, Samaritans, lepers, the homeless, the beggars, the sick, the mentally ill, the despairing.
Your Daily Moment of Awe
Self-care is important. If we lose our enthusiasm and start going through the motions, we’re not much good to anyone — including ourselves. Our love is diminished when we lose our sense of connectedness to the source of love, awe, and wonder. Our lives are diminished, too.
The Collective Nature of Freedom
Liberty and freedom aren’t fancy words or individual guarantees. They’re a process that requires everyone’s participation. We can’t have liberty and justice for all until we’re willing to see the injustice and the lack of liberty all around us, and commit ourselves to doing something about it.