What distinctive gifts does the church bring to the table? What can we offer, right now, in this moment in history? What gifts of the church are suited well for what we need?
Debra RienstraApril 6, 2024
But what to do with this whiz-bang of a passage from Mark, where Jesus instructs the disciples about impending doom?
Debra RienstraNovember 11, 2023
“I’m angry. I’m sad. I feel as if we’ve reached the end of an era with this bunch, and I don’t know what’s next.”
Debra RienstraJune 10, 2023
Depending on which corners of the church you hang around in, you might notice anything from heavy-duty activism to climate denial. So I’ve been wishing for a long time for hard data. What are the numbers on what actual church people are actually doing and…
Debra RienstraFebruary 18, 2023
We’re all speculating here, I guess, with the understanding that the speculation is itself a process of hope: what do we long for? what outcomes can we imagine and, through that imagining, help enact?
Debra RienstraJanuary 4, 2023
I want to focus on the power of meaning-making narratives. In the wearying events of the last few years, we’ve seen two tiny little denominations struggle to figure out (once again) what narrative we are living into. Is the future of our denominations a game…
Debra RienstraJuly 9, 2022
The most amazing thing about this passage, at least to me, is the evident fact that God is longing, too.
Debra RienstraMarch 19, 2022
The birth of the child is the focal point of God’s communion with the whole of creation. This is the deep wisdom of the doctrine of incarnation: the person Jesus is the crucial stitch uniting heaven and earth, spiritual and physical, entirely and forever.
Debra RienstraDecember 25, 2021
Mark Wallace, Swarthmore professor of religion and environmental studies, takes this scriptural moment as much more than an exercise in symbology. Instead, in his 2019 book, When God Was a Bird, Wallace argues that the baptism narratives are quintessential manifestations of a second incarnation. Just…
Debra RienstraDecember 11, 2021
