Joy Anyway!
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To enrich your practice of Advent …
This beautiful piece by Steve Bell beautifully captures the spirit of Advent waiting -- not as passive biding time, but as "keening for the dawn."
Part of my annual advent ritual over the last decade or so is to listen to this amazing choral work by Morten Lauridsen:
If you haven't discovered Matthew Myer Boulton's SALT Project podcast, don't miss his current series: Strange New World: Understanding Christmas. It is stellar. Here's a link: https://www.saltproject.org/podcast-strange-new-world /. DON'T MISS THIS!
Finally, my favorite verse of my favorite Christmas carol is this:
Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name
Here's a sweet rendition:
Sending Advent joy to all ...
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Faith After Doubt: Four Stages Charts
Folks who listen to Faith After Doubt as an audiobook have been asking for the charts in the Appendix. Here are two:
Overview of the Four Stages
ap 1a
Integration of Stage Theories
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Thanksgiving Resources
Sarah B. Anderson wrote a simple and beautiful Thanksgiving liturgy you can use around your table this week. You'll find it here:
Thanksgiving Liturgy
Here's another simple Thanksgiving prayer that I often use as a table grace. I call it "Web of Life (Table Grace)". You can invite everyone to respond to the prompt "For the web of life of which we're part" with the words "We give thanks with all our heart."
For this breath, for this heartbeat
For this meal with these companions
For the web of life of which we’re part
We give thanks with all our heart.
For sun and rain, for soil and season,
For ocean, mountain, forest, meadow,
For the web of life of which we’re part
We give thanks with all our heart.
For all to whom this food connects us
From field and farm to store and table
For the web of life of which we’re part
We give thanks with all our heart.
And if someone says something offensive, false, or harmful during the meal, here's a simple script to invite them into something more constructive:
They: [something offensive, false, harmful)
You: Wow. I see that differently.
They: What do you mean?
You: I don't want to interrupt this beautiful thanksgiving meal with an argument, but if you're interested in how your comment makes me feel and why I see things differently, feel free to ask me in private later on.
Then, later, if the person approaches you in private, you can say:
A lot of discussions turn into arguments where egos clash, relationships are damaged, and everyone leaves with their heels more dug in. I'm really not interested in that. One option would be for us to set up some ground rules or guidelines to help our discussion. Would you be open to that?
Then, you can suggest some guidelines like these:
The Six Commitments of Common Good Communication
I'd also suggest you put a time limit on your first conversation - say 20, 30, or 40 minutes. Better to end on a good note than get tired and slip into unhealthy ruts.
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ANNOUNCING: Do I Stay Christian? (May 2022)
Coming May 24, 2022: 
When my first book came out back in 1998, you didn't hear words like "deconstruction,""exvangelical," and "postChristian" as part of everyday conversation. But over the last 20+ years, we've witnessed a sea-change in the Christian community, here in the US and in many other places as well.
Over these years, we've seen the Religious Right become more strident and powerful, creating alliances with white supremacists, climate change deniers, and more recently, anti-masker/anti-vaxxer insurrectionists.
We've seen parallel trendlines of decline emerging among Roman Catholics, Mainline Protestants, and Evangelicals/ Charismatics/ Fundamentalists/ Pentecostals, as increasing numbers of younger Christians drop out of their parents' traditional expressions of Christianity.
We've seen repeated reports of sexual scandals and revelations of widespread sexual abuse and coverup that have eroded the moral authority of Christian leaders in the minds of everyone except many of those leaders themselves. And we've watched those same leaders further squander their dwindling reserves of moral authority as they lined up to support -- or refused to denounce -- big lies, wild conspiracy theories, authoritarian conmen, anti-science fantasies, and other expressions of moral and intellectual decay.
Along the way, we've seen the curtain pulled back on surprising numbers of megachurch pastors, exposing them as power-hungry, money-hungry, narcissistic, and abusive behind the scenes. As a result, more and more of the religious industrial complex looks more and more like a big scam.
Over these two decades, more LGBTQ people came out of the closet. Gay marriage became legal. For women, glass ceilings began to shatter across our culture -- albeit slowly. Yet large percentages of Christians doubled down on male domination and LGBTQ stigmatization. Similarly, as thousands of us took to the streets to assert the dignity of Black, Asian, Indigenous, and other people of color's lives, many of these same Christians showed that they were more interested in preserving white supremacy than dismantling it.
As a result, staying Christian feels increasingly compromised, even dirty, a cover for siding with regressive attitudes and perpetuating systems of harm.
But this depressing picture is not the whole story. Just as a dark night makes the stars shine bright, hopeful signs of spiritual renaissance are popping up across the Christian landscape ... among a small but growing number of pastors, priests, scholars, writers, activists, nuns, friars, popes (!), and other leaders, and also among simple, down-to-earth, good-hearted people for whom Jesus' core message of revolutionary love has become a guiding light for daily life.
Some have found or formed creative faith communities where they can walk a new path of deeper contemplation, spiritual activism, and more expansive theology. Others have dropped the Christian label while becoming more Christ-like than they've ever been in their day-to-day way of life.
So here we are. Millions of us are asking the question, "Do I stay Christian?"
Frankly, I am among them. Some days, I think the "brand" of Christianity is unsalvageable, and I suspect that the religion's ugliest, most dangerous days are ahead of us, so it's best to get out now. Other days, I think things may finally be getting bad enough that more Christians will be ready to face and embrace the changes we need, so I should stay in the struggle as an insider.
That's why I wrote this book, Do I Stay Christian?
In Part 1, I answer the title's question with a firm "No." I survey the ten strongest reasons I've encountered to leave the faith. In Part 2, "Yes," I explore ten reasons why some Christians are choosing to stay, even in light of the problems we faced in Part 1. Then in Part 3, I ask the question "How?" -- whether we stay or go, how are we going to live?
When I saw the beautiful cover art by Young Jin Lim, I felt that in a few simple lines, he had captured the emotion that many of us feel. Is it time for us to migrate away from Christianity entirely? Or is it possible for at least some forms of Christianity to experience a breakthrough and evolve into something the world needs and we need?
Taken together, Faith After Doubt (January 2021) and Do I Stay Christian? (May 2022) provide an overview of my work over these last 20+ years. I hope you will find both books helpful -- for your own spiritual journey, and also for those you love.
Faith After Doubt is available now, and Do I Stay Christian? is available for pre-order. They would make great Christmas gifts to give or receive for those with "ears to hear" and "eyes to see."
Here's the Table of Contents for Do I Stay Christian?
Introduction: A Religion Is Many Things
Part I: No
1. Because Christianity Has Been Vicious to Its Mother (Anti-Semitism)
2. Because of Christianity’s Suppression of Dissent (Christian vs. Christian Violence)
3. Because of Christianity’s High Global Death Toll—and Life Toll (Crusader Colonialism)
4. Because of Christianity’s Loyal Company Men (Institutionalism)
5. Because of Christianity’s Real Master (Money)
6. Because of the White Christian Old Boys’ Network (White Patriarchy)
7. Because Christianity Is Stuck (Toxic Theology)
8. Because Christianity Is a Failed Religion (Lack of Transformation)
9. Because of Christianity’s Great Wall of Bias (Constricted Intellectualism)
10. Because Christianity Is a Sinking, Shrinking Ship of Wrinkling People (Demographics)
Part II: Yes
11. Because Leaving Hurts Allies (and Helps Their Opponents)
12. Because Leaving Defiantly or Staying Compliantly Are Not My Only Options
13. Because . . . Where Else Would I Go?
14. Because It Would Be a Shame to Leave a Religion in Its Infancy
15. Because of Our Legendary Founder
16. Because Innocence Is an Addiction, and Solidarity Is the Cure
17. Because I’m Human
18. Because Christianity Is Changing (for the Worse and for the Better)
19. To Free God
20. Because of Fermi’s Paradox and the Great Filter
Part III: How
21. Include and Transcend
22. Start with the Heart
23. Re-Wild
24. Find the Flow
25. Re-Consecrate Everything
26. Renounce and Announce
27. Stay Loyal to Reality
28. Stay Human
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Appendix I: How to Get the Most Out of This Book
Appendix II: Images You Can’t Unsee (Addendum to Chapter 2)
Appendix III: Do I Stay in My Denomination?
Appendix IV: A Letter to Pastors (Addendum to Chapter 26)
Appendix V: Additional Resources
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