My evening devotional project has consisted of reading Ellen G. White’s Conflict of the Ages series, since I have not read them all the way through, and they are considered landmark texts in the Adventist faith. The Acts of the Apostles is the fourth in the series and is one of the least cited or quoted from the series. I was personally interested to see what insights I could gain into the apostolic quests and whether or not this book lived up to the hype. […]
Reframing a biblical case for same-sex marriage from an academic standpoint
After spending years hearing people glibly declare, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” or slinging around certain key “proof” texts from the Bible, I was longing for a book that would delve into the Bible’s complexity and actual ambiguity regarding LGBT individuals and relationships. The Bible study I undertook for myself in 2012 showed me that my own understanding of the Bible is steeped in assumptions about language, history, and context, and some of that has shifted since the original text was written. […]
An affirming LGBT Christian palate-cleanser
After the Andrew Marin debacle, I was ready to read something a little more…affirming and unconditional, shall we say. I’ve been convinced for the last several years that same-sex marriage is not something that is automatically going to keep people out of heaven. The Bible verses that people have used to “proof-text” against same-sex marriage are often passing references that stand out of context from a chapter in the Bible about something else entirely. My spouse recommended Matthew Vines’ God and the Gay Christian, and […]
A disappointing and sneakily non-affirming book
Disclaimer: I wrote this review last month. I had no idea that the world would turn on itself on June 11, 2016. I still have no words. But after reading about the massacre of 49 individuals–most of whom were LGBT people of color–it’s so clear to me that there is still a lot of hate that bred the kind of culture that would allow this massacre to happen. I hope and pray that the sneaky and overt homophobia that has characterized the Christian Church for […]