How My Mind Has Changed
Why I came back around to repentance
First I needed to meet a progressive, gracious God.
An epidemic of moral injury
Christians have an opportunity to transform a faith that has fueled genocide, slavery, war, and kleptocracy.
How I changed my mind about same-sex marriage
It began when I realized the church has always had a process for changing its mind.
I had to learn to love the church
Then I had to learn to love God.
We have to be willing to begin again
This is true of failures in writing, in faith, in life itself.
I’m a philosopher. We can’t think our way out of this mess.
I’m throwing in my lot with the poets and painters, the novelists and songwriters.
The surprising gift of knowing my vocation
How I became the kind of person who wants to do the work to which she’s called.
There’s no theological education pipeline anymore
It’s been replaced by a thriving irrigation hose.
My mind and what she remembers
When I can't figure out what something means, I give the problem to my mind.
How do we know Black lives matter to God?
I used to wonder about the propriety of faith in a White Jesus. Now I struggle with the efficacy of faith at all.
Brought to life by Christ
Theology was not optional for me as a child. It was a matter of life or death.
Finding God outside the church walls
The Spirit is God’s wild card, played over and over again when old forms fail.
Do I consider myself a Christian?
I know one thing: there is holiness.
Caught up in God
Early on, I got caught up in the logic of the Spirit—and in the steady beat of black life.
Global engagement
The Vietnam War forced Protestant ethicists to consider Catholic teachings about war, and I learned much from Catholic colleagues. My outlook was also changed by ecumenical contacts of another kind.
Prayer as crucible
This is not a classic conversion story, let alone a pietistic revulsion against the intellect. It is an account of how prayer has the power to change one's perception of the theological task.