Category: Sermons
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Penal Substitutionary Atonement [Non-Toxic Christianity]
Penal substitutionary atonement says that the violent way that Jesus died was not only unavoidable but necessary because it was God’s plan to absolve us. It ignores the context in which Jesus was killed, because it’s about what God ordained. It ignores the fact that he was tortured and murdered by an empire with seemingly…
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The Doctrine of Depravity [Non-Toxic Christianity]
The notion of depravity says that people are like mud – not worth much except for the stray diamond that may or may not be in it. But the belief that we are all made in the image of God says that people are like riverbeds – mixed up together with gold, lined with stones…
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The Practice of Coming Out
The great thing is that none of us fully know God in God’s entirety, but in relationship with each other, we can exchange whispers of the God we’ve spied along the way, kind of like kids carrying notes to each other about something great to come, or like travelers on a long journey, stopping along…
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No Bumper Sticker Faith [New England Annual Conference Laity Address]
We in New England are not people of a low tide. We are not a people stretched too thin. By nature of who we are, by nature of where we’ve been: what we do sends a strong message to the connection: what we do, even more than what we say.
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Joy in the Time of Herod
We don’t rejoice because things have been easy. We don’t rejoice because everything’s fine. In the time of Herod, it is not a recommendation to be joyful – to rejoice. It’s a necessity.
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A Guided Visioning Exercise re. a Promised Land
And we know that the Promised Land to which we belong, the state of beloved community, the paradise of right relationship with each other and with God, is not new to us, because it was promised the same to our spiritual ancestors. Now, we are on the mountaintop. Here, God invites us to see what…
Ophelia Hu Kinney 