We should probably talk about what kind of world we’re trying to create.

I saw a billboard from Regent University that said, “Christian Leadership to Change the World,” and my immediate thought was, That is one hell of a hoax.

Not because I believe Christian leadership is inherently problematic. I actually believe leadership informed by the teachings attributed to Jesus could have an extraordinary impact on the world. The problem is that what we call “Christian leadership” in America often has very little to do with the actual characteristics we associate with Jesus. We have managed to build an entire leadership culture around Christianity while simultaneously redefining Christian leadership to accommodate behavior that would seem completely incompatible with the person Christians claim is the model.

And Donald Trump is probably the most obvious example.

There are millions of Christians who have embraced Trump as some kind of Christian leader, despite the fact that much of his public behavior bears little resemblance to the qualities they claim Christianity requires. The response is usually some variation of, “God uses imperfect people.” And yes, of course God can use imperfect people. Nobody is arguing that human beings have to be perfect before God can use them. But there is a difference between acknowledging human imperfection and using “God uses imperfect people” as a theological excuse to avoid accountability for someone’s character, conduct, or consequences.

That distinction matters.

Because if Christian leadership means nothing more than believing in God, attending church, quoting Scripture, or claiming to be a Christian, then the phrase has become almost meaningless. We could put the word Christian in front of virtually anything and call it Christian leadership. Christian business leadership. Christian political leadership. Christian education. Christian government. Christian nationalism. Christian influence. But adding the word Christian doesn’t automatically make something Christlike.

That’s where I have a problem with the slogan.

If we’re going to say that Christian leaders are being prepared to “change the world,” then I want to know what they’re being prepared to change it into. Are they being taught that leadership is about acquiring power, protecting institutions, influencing elections, building wealth, gaining access to political authority, and creating a culture where people who agree with you are considered righteous and everyone else is considered a threat? Or are they being taught what it means to exercise power responsibly, challenge injustice, tell the truth when the truth is inconvenient, care about people who cannot benefit them, and recognize the humanity of people whose beliefs and experiences are different from their own?

Because those are two very different visions of Christian leadership.

And this is where American Christianity has gotten itself into trouble. We have become far too comfortable evaluating Christian leaders based on whether they affirm our beliefs and far too uncomfortable evaluating them based on what their leadership actually produces. We will overlook dishonesty if someone is fighting for our political interests. We will excuse cruelty if it is directed toward people we believe deserve it. We will defend arrogance if it comes from someone who has the right theology. We will call someone “anointed” because they are successful, influential, wealthy, powerful, or politically connected, even when their behavior contradicts the values we supposedly learned from Jesus.

That isn’t Christian discernment. That’s tribalism wearing religious clothing.

And Trump didn’t create that problem. He exposed it.

He exposed just how easily some Christians can separate the person they worship on Sunday from the behavior they will defend on Monday. They can talk about humility while celebrating arrogance. They can preach forgiveness while demanding punishment for their enemies. They can talk about the sanctity of life while demonstrating remarkably little concern for the lives of people who are poor, displaced, incarcerated, undocumented, marginalized, or otherwise inconvenient to their political agenda. They can condemn sexual immorality while overlooking sexual misconduct when the person committing it is politically useful.

Then they call it Christian leadership.

At some point, we have to be honest about what we’re doing.

If the standard for Christian leadership is simply whether someone identifies as Christian, then we have reduced Christianity to a credential. And a credential doesn’t tell us anything about character.

Jesus, at least according to the Gospels, offered a very different way of thinking about leadership. He challenged religious authority. He consistently moved toward people that respectable religious society had pushed away. He criticized public displays of religious righteousness. He talked about money and power with a level of directness that would make many modern churches uncomfortable. He repeatedly connected greatness with service rather than status.

Yet somehow, modern Christian leadership often seems far more interested in who gets to sit at the table than in who has been excluded from it.

That’s the contradiction I can’t ignore.

I don’t have a problem with Christians wanting to change the world. I have a problem with Christians assuming that changing the world automatically means making the world conform to their beliefs, their politics, their morality, and their understanding of who belongs. There is a difference between transforming the world and controlling it.

And perhaps that’s the question we should be asking before we celebrate anyone as a Christian leader: What does their leadership do to other people?

Not what Bible verses do they quote. Not how often do they pray. Not whether they call themselves a Christian. Not whether they can fill a stadium, win an election, build a university, run a corporation, or command a congregation.

What happens to people under their leadership?

Do people become more compassionate, more honest, more courageous, and more committed to justice? Do they become more capable of seeing the humanity of people who are different from them? Are they encouraged to think critically, ask difficult questions, and challenge the leader when necessary? Or are they taught that loyalty is more important than truth and obedience is more important than conscience?

Because Christian leadership that requires people to surrender their critical thinking isn’t leadership I want anything to do with.

And if we’re going to put Jesus in the title, then Jesus should actually have something to do with the definition.

So when I see a sign that says “Christian Leadership to Change the World,” I’m not impressed by the slogan anymore. I want to know what kind of leaders you’re producing and what kind of world you’re sending them out to create.

Because the world doesn’t need more people who know how to use Christianity to acquire power.

It needs people who understand what to do with power once they have it.

Blacklisted Saint

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I watched Stephen A. Smith sit down with Cari Champion and Jemele Hill, and I am going to start where my mind went while watching it: Stephen A. Smith is an a**. Not because he is outspoken. Not because he has strong opinions. Not because he is willing to say things other people are afraid to say. I actually appreciate people who are willing to speak plainly and stand behind what they believe.

My problem is that Stephen A. has spent years making a career out of his mouth while seemingly refusing to accept the accountability that comes with having a reckless one.

There is a difference between being outspoken and being reckless. There is a difference between having an opinion and repeatedly saying things about other people without appearing to seriously consider the consequences of those words. There is a difference between being provocative for television and developing a professional identity in which controversy becomes part of the product, while accountability becomes something you negotiate after the fact.

Stephen A. Smith knows the power of his microphone. He knows that when he says something, it travels. He knows that his opinions can become headlines, social media arguments and national conversations. He knows that his words can affect how millions of people perceive the athletes, entertainers, journalists and public figures he discusses. He has benefited enormously from that power.

So I don’t want to hear that he is simply being Stephen A. when somebody finally asks him to answer for what Stephen A. said.

At some point, “that’s just how I am” stops being an explanation and becomes an excuse.

And that is what I found particularly revealing about the conversation with Cari Champion.

Champion challenged his recollection of their professional history, and rather than demonstrating much curiosity about why she experienced that history differently, Stephen A. seemed much more interested in defending his version of events. That is not unusual for him. He’s a debater. He knows how to construct an argument and defend his position. But there is a problem when the instinct to win the argument becomes stronger than the willingness to examine your own contribution to the situation.

Accountability does not require you to agree with every criticism somebody makes about you.

It requires you to be willing to consider the possibility that they may have a point.

That seems to be where Stephen A. struggles.

And I think that matters because this is not simply about one conversation or one disagreement. It is about a larger cultural pattern involving Black men and Black women, particularly when Black men have accumulated status, money and influence.

There is a particular kind of arrogance that can develop when a Black man becomes successful in an institution that historically excluded Black men from positions of authority. The accomplishment is real, the barriers were real and the pride in that achievement is understandable. But sometimes that success begins creating a protective bubble around the person who achieved it. People stop challenging them. People begin laughing at things they should question. People excuse behavior they would condemn in someone else. Eventually, the person can start confusing being respected with being beyond reproach.

And Stephen A. has certainly earned a level of professional respect. But respect is not immunity.

His Blackness does not make him immune. His success does not make him immune. His intelligence does not make him immune. His platform does not make him immune.

And being right sometimes certainly does not make him immune.

What bothers me about the broader reaction to men like Stephen A. is that we sometimes treat accountability as though it is an attack on Black male achievement. It isn’t. I can celebrate a Black man’s success and still tell him that he is wrong. I can acknowledge the racism he has had to navigate and still tell him that his behavior toward a Black woman deserves examination. I can respect someone’s professional accomplishments without becoming a member of their fan club.

That is where I think Black solidarity gets distorted.

We have been taught to protect Black people from white scrutiny, which makes sense historically. But sometimes we take that instinct and turn it inward, creating a culture where successful Black people are protected from scrutiny altogether. We become more concerned about preserving the image of Black excellence than we are about asking whether the person representing that excellence is actually behaving excellently.

I am not interested in that kind of solidarity.

And I certainly don’t think Black women should have to participate in it.

Because Black women have historically been expected to absorb a tremendous amount of crap from Black men in the name of protecting the community. We are expected to understand the pressure Black men face. We are expected to forgive their mistakes. We are expected to support them publicly even when we disagree privately. We are expected to understand their anger while being careful about expressing our own.

Then when a Black woman finally says, “You hurt me,” or “That’s not what happened,” or “You need to take responsibility for what you said,” suddenly she becomes divisive.

Suddenly she is tearing down a Black man.
Suddenly she doesn’t understand what it means to support the community.

No.

Sometimes supporting the community means refusing to let one of its members become so powerful that accountability feels like disrespect.

That brings me to the other part of this conversation that I think deserves serious attention: Stephen A.’s argument about strategy.

His willingness to engage conservative figures and enter spaces where he knows there will be ideological disagreement can absolutely be defended as strategic. There is nothing inherently wrong with talking to people you disagree with. Black people have always understood the value of access. Sometimes you need to get into rooms where you would not otherwise be invited. Sometimes you need to reach people who will never come looking for you. Sometimes you have to understand that influence requires more than preaching to people who already agree with you.

I am not opposed to strategy.

But strategy has to be measured against what it costs.

If you enter a room because you intend to challenge the people in it, that is strategy. If you become so invested in maintaining your invitation that you stop challenging them, that is capitulation. If you engage an audience because you believe they need to hear another perspective, that can be strategic. If you begin modifying your perspective because you need that audience’s approval, then the question becomes whether you are still using the platform or whether the platform is using you.

That is the uncomfortable question.

And I think Jemele Hill was asking some version of it.

Because there is a difference between being willing to engage people across ideological lines and becoming so comfortable with access that you stop asking what your proximity to power is costing you.

Black people have always had to navigate that tension. We know what it means to be strategic because we have rarely had the luxury of being anything else. Our ancestors understood it. Civil rights organizers understood it. Black journalists understood it. Black women have understood it particularly well because we have spent generations navigating institutions where speaking too loudly can cost us opportunities and speaking too softly can cost us ourselves.

But strategy should never require self-erasure.

And that brings me right back to Stephen A.

Because if you are going to make your mouth your profession, then your mouth has to be accountable to something beyond your ego.

• You cannot spend years telling everybody else what is wrong with them and then suddenly discover that accountability is unfair when somebody turns the microphone around.

• You cannot demand that athletes answer for their decisions while refusing to answer for your own words.

• You cannot build an empire on criticism and then act surprised when people criticize you.

• You cannot make controversy part of your business model and then complain when the consequences of that controversy follow you home.

At some point, the reckless mouth has to meet the responsible adult.

And that is the part I don’t think Stephen A. has figured out.

I don’t need him to stop talking. In fact, I don’t want him to. His ability to speak boldly is part of what made him successful. What I want is for him to understand that having the courage to say something is only half of the equation. The other half is having the humility to sit with what happens after you say it.

That is accountability.

And accountability is not humiliation. It is not cancellation. It is not an attack on Black men. It is not an attempt to destroy Black excellence.

Accountability is what we owe one another when we actually believe our communities matter.

Which is why I am less interested in whether Stephen A. Smith is likable than I am in whether he understands the responsibility that comes with being influential.

Because the bigger problem is not that Stephen A. has a big mouth.

The bigger problem is that he seems to believe the size of his mouth should determine the size of everybody else’s response.

It shouldn’t.

• You can have the microphone.

• You can have the platform.

• You can have the millions of dollars.

• You can have the audience.

And Black people can still look at you and say, “Sir, you were wrong.”

That should not be an act of betrayal.

It should be a reminder that no matter how successful we become, we are still accountable for the way we use our power, our words and our influence.

And maybe that is the part of Black success we don’t talk about enough.

Yes, getting the microphone is an accomplishment.

Learning when to put the thing down and listen is leadership.

(For your reference the video included below)

Blacklisted Saint

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There is something about a long public prayer that makes me wonder who exactly we are talking to. I am not talking about prayer itself. Prayer can be deeply personal, intimate, grounding, and meaningful. I am talking about what happens when prayer becomes a public performance and the number of words somehow becomes a measure of spiritual depth.

Sometimes public prayer stops sounding like a conversation with the divine and starts sounding like a speech delivered to an audience. We talk about God, talk to God, and then spend considerable time reminding God who God is. We tell God that God is powerful, mighty, faithful, sovereign, omniscient, omnipresent, and worthy of praise. We remind God of everything God has already done and everything God is capable of doing.

I have to wonder why we feel the need to explain God to God.

If we actually believe that the divine is all-knowing, then God does not need an introduction. God does not need a résumé of divine attributes. God does not need to be reminded of God’s own history, character, power, or identity. That seems less like a need of the divine and more like a need of the person praying.

That is where I think human insecurity enters the conversation.

We have been taught to associate length and eloquence with spiritual authority. A short prayer can somehow feel inadequate, while a twenty-minute prayer filled with scripture, religious vocabulary, repetition, and dramatic pauses is treated as evidence that someone is deeply connected to God. We have created an entire language around prayer that can make the person praying sound more impressive without necessarily making the prayer more meaningful.

It gets even more interesting when there are multiple people praying.

Now we can end up with what I would call the prayer Olympics. One person prays for five minutes, and the next person somehow needs to pray for ten. Someone quotes a few scriptures, so the next person quotes even more. Someone calls God by several biblical names, and the next person seems determined to introduce every name for God they have ever heard. Before long, the prayers become longer, louder, more elaborate, and increasingly disconnected from the simple act of communicating with the divine.

Nobody wants to be the person who prayed the shortest prayer.

Nobody wants their prayer to sound less spiritual than the one that came before it.

So the words keep coming, even after the actual prayer has been said.

At some point, we have to ask whether we are still praying or whether we are demonstrating our ability to pray in public.

That distinction matters.

There are long prayers that are beautiful because they come from a genuine place. There are moments of grief, crisis, celebration, gratitude, and communal suffering that naturally require more words. Sometimes people need to sit in a sacred moment together and express everything they are carrying. I have no issue with that.

The problem is not necessarily the length of the prayer. The problem is when length becomes performance.

When prayer becomes an opportunity to demonstrate how spiritual we are, it begins to serve the audience as much as, or perhaps more than, the divine. The vocabulary becomes part of the performance. The cadence becomes part of the performance. The repetition becomes part of the performance. Eventually, the prayer can become more about showing people what our relationship with God sounds like than actually experiencing that relationship.

And I think that is where some of the word salad comes from.

Human beings often use excessive language when we are trying to establish certainty, authority, or credibility. We repeat ourselves because we are afraid the first statement wasn’t enough. We add more words because silence makes us uncomfortable. We elaborate because we want people to know that we know.

Religious spaces are not immune to that human behavior.

Sometimes we are not really talking to God. We are talking about God in God’s direction while making sure everybody else is listening.

That is not necessarily divinity. That is humanity.

Even Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, challenged the idea that prayer required excessive words to be heard. The issue was not that prayer itself was wrong. The issue was the assumption that more words somehow made prayer more effective.

Maybe we should reconsider what we have been taught about what makes a prayer “good.”

Perhaps a prayer does not have to be impressive to be meaningful. Perhaps it does not have to contain a dozen scriptures, multiple names for God, elaborate theological language, or a crescendo worthy of a Sunday morning worship service.

Maybe “Thank you” is a prayer.
Maybe “Help me” is a prayer.
Maybe “I don’t understand” is a prayer.
Maybe “I am afraid” is a prayer.
Maybe silence is a prayer.

If we believe that the divine already knows who the divine is and already knows what we need, then perhaps we can stop trying so hard to impress God with our vocabulary.

We can also stop trying to out-pray one another.

Your prayer does not become more powerful because it is longer than mine. My prayer does not become more spiritual because I can quote more scripture than you. Neither of us becomes more connected to the divine because we managed to hold the room hostage for twenty minutes.

Prayer is not supposed to be a competition.

It is supposed to be a connection.

And maybe the most honest prayer is not the one that uses the most words. Maybe it is the one that requires us to stop performing long enough to actually be present.

Because if we are going to talk to the divine, perhaps we should actually talk to the divine instead of giving God a lecture about God.

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Black people are being found hanging from trees again. In just the past several months, multiple cases involving Black people found hanging from trees or in circumstances that evoke America’s history of racial terror have drawn national attention. Some have been officially classified as suicides, while others remain under investigation. But regardless of the official explanations, the growing number of cases demands that we stop treating them as isolated incidents and start confronting what this pattern means.

I am going to say what many people are uncomfortable saying: Black people don’t hang themselves from trees. I am not saying that Black people cannot die by suicide. We absolutely can. Black people experience depression, trauma, grief, despair and hopelessness just like everyone else. But a Black person found hanging from a tree carries a historical significance in this country that cannot simply be dismissed with a medical determination or a police statement.

For generations, trees were transformed into instruments of racial terror. Black people were lynched from trees while white communities gathered to watch. Sometimes photographs were taken and distributed as souvenirs. Sometimes families were forced to witness the murder of their loved ones. Sometimes the bodies were left hanging as warnings to everyone else in the Black community. Lynching was not simply murder. It was a message, and the message was that Black life could be taken publicly and violently without consequence.

That history matters now.

When Black people begin appearing in the same horrifying circumstances again and again, we cannot be expected to separate what we are seeing today from what happened to our ancestors. The tree is not an ordinary location in Black American history. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of racial terror this country has ever produced. So when another Black person is found hanging from one, Black communities are going to ask questions. We should.

In recent months, we have seen cases involving people including Kyle Bassinga, Juliana Umba Nzita, Tonea Nicole Miller, Jerard Jackson, Justice Kai James and Tasia Fortune. Some of these deaths have been ruled suicides, while others have generated questions from family members and communities. Fortune, a 29-year-old Black mother of four, was found hanging from a tree behind a vacant house in Jackson, Mississippi, in August 2026. Her death remains under investigation, and her family has questioned the circumstances surrounding her death. And most recently, Demetrius Fleming was found hanging in Roanoke, North Carolina.

Trey Reed’s death in Mississippi also became a national story after the Black college student was found hanging from a tree in 2025. His death was ultimately ruled a suicide, but questions surrounding the circumstances continued to generate public concern. The fact that an investigation reaches a particular conclusion does not mean families lose their right to ask questions or that the public must stop examining circumstances that appear troubling.

This is where I differ from those who immediately accuse Black people of being paranoid whenever we question an official explanation. Our history gives us every reason to scrutinize institutions that have not always protected us. Black people have experienced generations of racial violence that was ignored, minimized or deliberately concealed. There were times when the authorities knew exactly what happened and chose not to act. There were times when Black families knew something was wrong but had neither the power nor the resources to force the truth into the light.

So when someone tells us, “The police said it was suicide,” that does not automatically end the conversation for me. An official determination deserves consideration, but it should never be treated as infallible. Investigations can be flawed. Evidence can be missed. Witnesses can be overlooked. Families can identify inconsistencies that deserve further examination. The proper response to questions is not ridicule. It is transparency.

And yes, I am calling what is happening a resurgence of lynching.

I understand that some people will object because the word lynching carries a specific historical definition. But I am using the word deliberately because I believe we have become too comfortable limiting racial terror to the photographs in our history books. Lynching was never only about the method of killing. It was about racialized violence, terror, power and the dehumanization of Black people. When Black people are repeatedly found hanging from trees in a country with this history, I believe we have an obligation to examine whether we are witnessing something more than a collection of unrelated tragedies.

I am not interested in protecting anyone’s comfort at the expense of Black people’s safety. If these deaths are suicides, then investigate them thoroughly and provide the evidence that establishes that conclusion. If they are homicides, then call them what they are and pursue justice. If racial violence is involved, then we need to be honest enough to name it. What Black families should not have to do is accept an explanation simply because an institution has issued one.

There is also something psychologically significant about repeatedly seeing Black bodies hanging from trees in a country where Black people were once terrorized through public hangings. Trauma does not disappear because generations have passed. Historical memory lives in families, communities and cultural consciousness. We know what those images mean because our ancestors lived through them. We know that those trees were once places where Black people were murdered specifically because they were Black.

That is why I refuse to tell people they are overreacting when they see a pattern and become alarmed. Maybe every case will ultimately have a different explanation. Maybe some will indeed be determined to be suicides. But the answer cannot simply be, “Stop asking questions.” The answer has to be, “Let’s investigate.”

Because if there is nothing to hide, transparency should not be frightening.

Black people have spent generations being told to trust institutions that did not always deserve our trust. We have watched our communities endure racial violence while people insisted that we were exaggerating, imagining things or refusing to move on from the past. Then history eventually exposed what we had been saying all along.

So no, I am not going to look at a Black person hanging from a tree and pretend the history of lynching is irrelevant. I am not going to dismiss the fear and suspicion of Black families as hysteria. And I am not going to accept the idea that asking hard questions is somehow disrespectful to law enforcement or medical examiners.

Our demand is simple: investigate these deaths seriously, examine the evidence independently when necessary, listen to the families, and tell the truth about what happened.

Because history has already shown us what happens when Black people stop asking questions about the violence committed against us. We don’t get safety. We get silence.

And I refuse to be silent while Black people are once again being found hanging from trees.

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Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80, after a brief battle with cancer.

And while the world remembers the music, the movies, the rhinestones, the wigs, the jokes, and that unmistakable Tennessee voice, I want to remember something else. I want to remember Dolly Parton as someone who understood what it meant to use her platform to make room for people who were often pushed to the margins.

That matters to me.

Because being an ally isn’t about putting a rainbow on your social media profile during Pride Month. It isn’t about making a statement when it is convenient or supporting marginalized people only when there is no social cost attached. Allyship is about what you consistently communicate through your words, your actions, your resources, and the way you treat people whose lives may look nothing like yours.

Dolly had a complicated relationship with politics. She often avoided partisan labels and deliberately stayed away from political fights. But she also understood that you didn’t have to become a political firebrand to practice compassion. Sometimes it begins with something as simple as recognizing another person’s humanity and refusing to participate in their dehumanization.

Dolly was vocal about Black Lives Matter, and I think that part of her legacy deserves to be remembered. In 2020, during the racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, Dolly was asked about the Black Lives Matter movement. Her response was direct: “Of course Black lives matter.” She also acknowledged why protesters were making themselves heard, felt, and seen.

That matters because Dolly was not a Black woman, and she wasn’t speaking from the experience of being Black in America. She could have avoided the conversation entirely. Instead, she acknowledged that something was happening to Black people that demanded attention. She didn’t have to pretend to know everything about the Black experience to understand that racial injustice was real.

And let’s be honest: Dolly’s audience wasn’t exclusively made up of people who wanted to hear that message. She came from rural Tennessee. She built one of the most successful careers in country music, a genre that has historically been associated with conservative white America. She had every opportunity to offer a vague statement about loving everybody and move on. Instead, she said Black lives matter.

That doesn’t make her a civil rights organizer, and we shouldn’t rewrite her history to make her one. But it does make that moment significant. She had a platform, she knew the cultural space she occupied, and she chose not to use that platform to dismiss people who were demanding justice.

Dolly also welcomed LGBTQ+ people into her world at a time when doing so wasn’t always comfortable in conservative Christian and country-music spaces. She became an icon to many LGBTQ+ fans, supported same-sex marriage, spoke positively about LGBTQ+ people, and pushed back against discrimination. She didn’t require people to become more acceptable to her before extending them dignity.

And I think that is where Dolly’s example becomes particularly interesting for those of us who have watched Christianity get weaponized against marginalized people.

Dolly could be connected to her Christian faith without making condemnation the center of it. She could come from a deeply religious and conservative culture without believing that everybody outside of that culture needed to be corrected, controlled, or excluded. She understood that faith could be personal without becoming a weapon.

That’s an important distinction.

Because I have met plenty of people who will tell you they love everybody while simultaneously supporting policies, churches, systems, and theology that make life harder for marginalized people. They will pray for people instead of helping them. They will talk about God’s love while withholding compassion. They will insist that everyone matters while becoming strangely uncomfortable when somebody specifically says that Black lives matter.

Dolly seemed to understand that compassion has to move beyond words.

She didn’t just sing about people.
She did something for people.

Dolly grew up poor in Appalachia, one of twelve children, and she never seemed to forget what it meant to come from very little. Through the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, she helped put hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children around the world. She invested in the community where she grew up, created jobs, supported disaster relief, contributed to medical research, and used her wealth in ways that reached far beyond herself.

She understood something that many people with extraordinary wealth forget: you don’t have to leave your people behind just because you made it out.

Her generosity wasn’t simply about writing checks and taking pictures. She created opportunities. She invested in children. She helped communities rebuild. She used the resources she accumulated through her success to make somebody else’s life better.

And perhaps that is the part of Dolly’s legacy that deserves more attention.

We live in a world where people can say all the right things and still leave marginalized people hungry, unhoused, excluded, undereducated, underfunded, or unheard. We have become very comfortable with performative compassion. We can post a quote about kindness in the morning and participate in someone’s exclusion by lunchtime.

Dolly seemed to understand that kindness without action doesn’t go very far.

She also demonstrated something else that I think is important: you don’t have to be perfect to be willing to do better.

When the name “Dixie” became increasingly recognized for its connection to the Confederacy and its painful racial history, Dolly changed the name of her attraction from Dixie Stampede to Dolly Parton’s Stampede. Rather than spending all her energy defending the old name or insisting that people were being too sensitive, she recognized that something had become a problem and made a change.

That is a lesson in itself.

Sometimes growth looks like being willing to say, “I didn’t understand that before, but I understand it now.”

We don’t need allies who pretend they have always gotten everything right. We need people who are willing to listen, learn, adjust, and keep moving toward greater compassion.

And that is why I don’t think we need to turn Dolly Parton into a saint now that she’s gone. We don’t have to canonize celebrities simply because they died. We can acknowledge the complicated parts of a person’s life while still giving credit for the good they did.

Dolly wasn’t a radical political organizer. She wasn’t going to agree with every progressive position. She deliberately avoided partisan politics for much of her career.

But allyship doesn’t require perfection.

I don’t need every ally to have the same politics, vocabulary, background, or theology that I have. I need them to recognize my humanity. I need them to be willing to listen. I need them to believe marginalized people when they say something is hurting their community. And when they have influence, I need them to understand that influence can be used to create space rather than take it away.

Dolly didn’t have to become somebody else to make room for somebody else.

She could be a woman from rural Tennessee. She could be deeply connected to her Christian faith. She could love country music and still understand that LGBTQ+ people deserved dignity. She could be politically complicated and still recognize racial injustice. She could be wealthy without forgetting what poverty felt like. She could become one of the biggest names in entertainment without losing sight of ordinary people.

She didn’t have to abandon where she came from to expand who she was willing to stand beside.

And maybe that’s the lesson.

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It’s TFC for ME!

Fresh off DAI Fest 2026 in Atlanta, I can say it with my whole chest: it’s TFC for me!

There is something powerful about experiencing The Faith Community (TFC) beyond a screen and actually being in the room with the people, the energy, the worship, the conversations, and the vision. DAI Fest 2026 is not another church conference. It’s more like a reunion. It’s stepping into a community that understands that faith can be both deeply spiritual and deeply human.

For me, TFC represents what can happen when Christianity is centered on its most important teaching: love. Under the leadership of Pastor Kristian A. Smith, this community has built its theology and culture around what it calls Greatest Commandment Theology: loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves. TFC describes this as the framework that shapes its biblical interpretation, relationships, conversations, worship, and community life.

And that is what makes TFC different for me.

There are churches, and then there are communities that feel like breath, like water, like home. For me, The Faith Community is exactly that; an oasis for people tired of harmful theology, exhausted by performative religion, and hungry for a love ethic that actually looks like Jesus.

TFC is not just a congregation; it’s a movement. A necessary one. A courageous one. One that refuses to play small, stay silent, or bow to traditions that harm more than they heal.

Pastor Kristian is a shepherd for the wounded and a guide for the free. He doesn’t preach from a place of ego or performance. Kristian teaches from experience, compassion, and conviction. He speaks to the ex-churched, the over-churched, the mis-churched, and the spiritually homeless. His voice cuts through the noise of empty religiosity and calls people back to what actually matters: love, justice, and human dignity.

He doesn’t just preach freedom, nah, he embodies it. His leadership is gentle but strong, challenging but inviting, prophetic yet deeply pastoral. In a world full of spiritual leaders who manipulate, shame, or control, Pastor Kristian offers something revolutionary: a safe place to question, heal, grow, and become whole.

At the core of TFC is Greatest Commandment Theology (GCT) which is a spiritual framework anchored in Jesus’ own words:

• Love God.

• Love your neighbor.

• Love yourself.

Not in theory. Not in selective application. Not in “love your neighbor unless…” or “love yourself once you get it right.”

It shapes the sermons, the interactions, the culture, the community, the witness, and the worship.

It’s theology that liberates, not suffocates.
Theology that stretches, not constricts.
Theology that brings people closer to themselves and to God; not to fear, shame, or disconnection.

When theology is centered on love, everything changes.

Your lens changes.
Your relationship with God changes.
Your relationship with yourself becomes kinder, gentler, more truthful.
You begin to realize that holiness isn’t rooted in perfection, but in wholeness.
And wholeness becomes the goal, not performance.

One of the most transformative aspects of TFC is its intentional integration of therapy and theology, embodied beautifully in the partnership of Pastor Kristian and his team.

At TFC, mental health is not spiritualized away. Therapy is not treated as a failure of faith. Instead, it’s honored as sacred, necessary work. The TFC leadership team brings trauma-informed care, emotional intelligence, and clinical insight into the life of the community, helping people understand how deeply faith and mental health are connected.

The Faith Commuity dismantles the dangerous idea that prayer alone fixes everything. This community models a healthier truth: the Divine works through therapy too. Faith supports the healing that happens in therapy instead of undermining it. Spiritual language is cleaned of shame and replaced with compassion, self-trust, and emotional honesty.

This integration creates a culture where people don’t have to choose between loving God and caring for their mental health. Where healing isn’t rushed. Where trauma isn’t minimized or reframed as spiritual weakness. Where the mind, body, and spirit are all honored.

Let’s be honest: church hurt is real. Spiritual trauma is real. Manipulative theology disguised as “holiness” is real.

TFC stands boldly and unapologetically in the gap for those who have been wounded by theology weaponized against them. The mission is simple and sacred:

• Deconstruct harmful theology.

• Rebuild healthy spirituality.

• Restore people to themselves.

This is a community for the church-wounded, the spiritually curious, the deconstructing, the reconstructing, and the ones who were told God would be mad at them for being human. At TFC, harmful doctrines are named, challenged, and dismantled; not to destroy faith, but to save it.

Here, liberation matters more than loyalty to broken systems. People are encouraged to think, feel, question, and grow. Theology is no longer a weapon; it becomes a tool for freedom.

This isn’t the kind of place that tells you who to be.

It’s the kind of place that empowers you to discover who you already are and to love that person deeply and unapologetically.

Why It’s TFC for Me

Because I’m not looking for a "church" that teaches me how to pretend.
I want a church that empowers me to just be.
A church where love is not conditional, weaponized, or selective.
A church where theology is not trauma disguised as truth.
A church where the pastor leads with transparency and compassion.
A church where the message heals, not harms.
A church where the mission is liberation, not limitation.

TFC is a place where the heart can breathe again.
Where faith can expand.
Where community feels like solace and strength.
Where God’s love is not a tool of control, but the foundation of freedom.

And that’s why…it’s TFC for me.

Click HERE for more information about TFC!

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Christianity is supposed to be a faith. At its heart, faith is supposed to involve trust, trust in God, trust in grace, trust in what one believes to be true, and trust that one’s relationship with the divine can withstand questions, uncertainty, and honest wrestling. Yet for many people, Christianity has not been experienced primarily as an invitation to trust. It has been presented as a system of consequences, where believing correctly and behaving correctly determine whether a person will be rewarded or punished eternally.

That creates a fundamental tension within Christianity. If faith is supposed to be rooted in trust, why is fear so often used to produce and maintain belief?

For generations, many Christians have been taught that questioning their faith is dangerous. They are warned about hell, eternal separation from God, divine judgment, Satan, backsliding, deception, and the consequences of leaving the church. Doubt is sometimes treated as a spiritual failure rather than a natural part of being human. Questions can be interpreted as rebellion, and changing one’s beliefs can be framed as evidence that a person has been deceived.

Eventually, people may stop asking questions, not because they have found answers, but because they have become afraid of where the questions might lead.

That distinction matters.

There is a significant difference between believing something because you have examined it, wrestled with it, and ultimately found it meaningful, and believing something because you are terrified of what might happen if you don’t. Both people may sit in the same church, recite the same creed, and participate in the same rituals. Internally, however, their experiences can be completely different. One may be motivated by trust while the other is motivated by fear.

Fear is an incredibly effective way to produce compliance. When people believe that questioning a particular doctrine could result in eternal punishment, there is very little incentive to investigate that doctrine honestly. The risk feels too great. It becomes easier to accept what the religious authority says than to confront the possibility that the authority might be wrong.

This is especially powerful when people are taught that the consequences are eternal.

Think about the psychological weight of being told that you have one life to get your beliefs right, that the wrong decision could result in everlasting punishment, and that even questioning the system may put your soul at risk. At that point, the person isn’t simply being invited to have faith. They are being asked to make a decision under the pressure of eternal consequences.

And when fear becomes the primary motivation, obedience can easily be mistaken for faith.

A person can follow every rule and still be afraid. They can attend church every week, read their Bible, pray regularly, give money, serve others, and publicly profess unwavering belief while privately wondering whether God is angry with them. Their behavior may look like devotion, but underneath it may be anxiety, uncertainty, and an overwhelming desire to avoid punishment.

Fear can make people obedient. It cannot necessarily make them convinced.

That is one of the problems with a Christianity that relies heavily on fear. It can create people who are more concerned with avoiding punishment than developing genuine spiritual conviction. Instead of asking, What do I believe and why? they learn to ask, What am I allowed to believe without putting my soul in danger?

Those are very different questions.

A faith that cannot tolerate questions eventually teaches people to fear their own minds. People become afraid to acknowledge contradictions, afraid to admit uncertainty, afraid to reconsider beliefs they inherited as children, and afraid to say that they no longer understand God the way they once did. Rather than creating spiritually mature adults who can wrestle with difficult questions, the system can create adults who have learned that intellectual honesty is dangerous.

But genuine faith should have room for uncertainty.

If faith requires absolute certainty about everything, then very little faith is actually required. Faith becomes meaningful precisely because there are things we cannot completely prove or control. There is room for mystery, doubt, questions, and continued exploration.

That doesn’t mean every belief is equally valid or that questions automatically make someone right. It simply means that a healthy spiritual framework should not have to threaten people into staying intellectually committed to it.

This is where Christianity has an opportunity to examine itself honestly.

What would Christianity look like if fear were no longer its primary recruiting tool? What would happen if people were not threatened with hell for questioning doctrine? What would happen if doubt were treated as part of spiritual development rather than evidence of spiritual failure? What would happen if people were allowed to leave without being told that they had chosen eternal destruction?

More importantly, what would remain?

If Christianity has something genuinely transformative at its center, removing fear should not destroy it. There should still be love, compassion, justice, community, forgiveness, meaning, and a vision of how human beings might live together. There should still be something compelling about the teachings of Jesus that doesn’t depend on threatening people with eternal punishment.

That is the test.

Because love that requires a threat is not experienced as love. And faith that exists primarily because someone is terrified of the alternative begins to look less like trust and more like survival.

Christianity should be able to stand on what it claims to be, not merely on what people have been taught to fear.

If someone chooses Christianity because they genuinely trust it, find meaning in it, and believe its message reflects something true and good, that is faith. But if someone remains because they are terrified that questioning, leaving, or changing their mind will result in eternal punishment, then fear is doing the work.

And perhaps that is the conversation Christianity needs to have, not whether people believe, but why they believe.

Because Christianity was supposed to be about faith.

The question is whether we’ve allowed fear to become its foundation.

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Christians love to talk about suffering as if it is a badge of honor. The more you endure, the more faithful you must be. The more you sacrifice, the more spiritual you must be. The more you tolerate, the more God must be pleased with you. And then they turn around and wonder why folks aren’t interested.

Maybe people aren’t rejecting Jesus. Maybe they’re rejecting the version of Christianity being advertised.

For many people, Christianity has been presented as an endless lesson in endurance. Suffer through the bad marriage. Stay in the toxic church. Forgive the person who keeps hurting you. Keep giving when you’re exhausted. Keep serving when nobody appreciates you. Don’t complain. Don’t question. Don’t leave. Just pray about it. Carry your cross. God is testing you. Your suffering has a purpose.

At some point, people are going to look at that message and ask a perfectly reasonable question: Why would I sign up for this?

There is a difference between acknowledging that suffering is part of life and romanticizing suffering as a spiritual achievement. Jesus never promised his followers a pain-free existence, but Christianity has often turned suffering into something almost aspirational. Pain gets spiritualized. Oppression gets renamed perseverance. Dysfunction gets called a test of faith. Boundaries get labeled selfishness. Leaving gets called backsliding.

And sometimes the people preaching the loudest about enduring suffering are the people who aren’t enduring it themselves.

That matters.

Because there are people sitting in churches right now who have been taught to distrust their own discomfort. They know something is wrong, but they’ve been told that questioning it means questioning God. They recognize manipulation, but they’ve been told that confronting it means they’re rebellious. They are exhausted, but they’ve been told that exhaustion is evidence of their faithfulness.

We should stop confusing suffering with holiness.

Some suffering is simply suffering. Some pain is the consequence of bad decisions, abusive systems, unhealthy relationships, poor boundaries, injustice, or circumstances nobody chose. Not every painful experience is a divine assignment. Not every hardship is a test sent by God. And not every situation requires you to stay in it long enough to prove your faith.

Sometimes the faithful thing is leaving.
Sometimes the faithful thing is saying no.
Sometimes the faithful thing is getting help.

Sometimes the faithful thing is admitting, “This is hurting me, and I don’t believe God requires me to keep hurting.”

That doesn’t make someone weak. It makes them honest.

The obsession with suffering can also distort the very message Christians claim to believe. If the Gospel is supposed to be good news, why does so much of the Christian sales pitch sound like bad news? Why are people repeatedly warned about what they’ll have to give up, endure, sacrifice, surrender, tolerate, and suffer before they’re ever told about freedom, healing, community, justice, joy, curiosity, creativity, love, and becoming fully alive?

People aren’t stupid. They can recognize when something doesn’t sound like good news.

And this is where Christianity needs to have an honest conversation with itself. If your theology requires people to remain miserable in order to prove that they’re faithful, perhaps the problem isn’t with their faith. Perhaps the problem is with the theology.

There is a particular kind of religious conditioning that teaches people to be proud of how much pain they can withstand. It creates spiritual bragging rights out of survival. “Look how much I’ve been through.” “Look how much I’ve forgiven.” “Look how long I’ve stayed.” “Look how much I’ve sacrificed.”

But surviving something doesn’t mean God wanted you there.

Enduring something doesn’t automatically make it sacred.

And staying somewhere harmful doesn’t become virtuous simply because you attached Scripture to it.

We also need to stop using suffering to silence people. When someone says they’re hurting, the response shouldn’t automatically be a sermon. Sometimes people don’t need an explanation for their pain. They need someone willing to sit beside them in it without turning their trauma into a theological lesson.

“Everything happens for a reason” can sound profoundly spiritual until you’re the person living through something that makes no sense.

“God won’t put more on you than you can bear” can sound comforting until you’re already overwhelmed.

“Your suffering is making you stronger” can sound encouraging until someone has been strong for so long that what they actually need is permission to rest.

There is nothing inherently noble about being exhausted.
There is nothing inherently holy about being mistreated.
There is nothing inherently spiritual about having no boundaries.

And there is certainly nothing Christian about demanding that people remain in situations that destroy them simply because their suffering makes somebody else more comfortable.

Maybe Christianity would be more compelling if Christians stopped selling suffering as the entrance fee.

People already know life hurts. They don’t need religion to convince them of that. They’ve buried parents. Lost children. Survived abuse. Experienced divorce. Battled addiction. Faced discrimination. Lost jobs. Been betrayed by friends. Sat beside hospital beds. Cried themselves to sleep. Walked away from churches that wounded them.

They know suffering.

What many people are looking for is meaning without manipulation. Community without control. Faith without fear. Spirituality without shame. A relationship with God that doesn’t require them to abandon themselves in the process.

So perhaps the question isn’t, “Why don’t people want Christianity anymore?”

Perhaps the better question is, “What exactly are we asking people to want?”

If what we’re offering is a life where pain is glorified, silence is rewarded, boundaries are condemned, questioning is dangerous, and suffering is treated as proof of spiritual maturity, then we shouldn’t be surprised when people decline the invitation.

But if Christianity can rediscover the difference between acknowledging suffering and worshiping it, something changes.

Because people don’t need another religion teaching them how to suffer.

They need communities that help them remember they are human.
They need permission to heal.
They need permission to question.
They need permission to leave what is killing them.

And if faith is worth anything, it should have room for the possibility that God is not impressed by how much pain we can tolerate.

Maybe God cares about whether we are becoming more whole.

And maybe that’s a message people can actually hear.

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Maybe Being Left-Handed Was Never Just About Which Hand I Write With

August 13 is National Left-Handers Day, and yes... I’m absolutely claiming it. 🙃

I’m left-handed.

For some people, that’s just a random fact tucked away in the “fun facts” category. But for those of us who are lefties, it’s something we’ve been aware of our entire lives. The world quietly reminds us every day that it wasn’t designed with us in mind.

Spiral notebooks dig into the side of our hands. Fresh ink turns into an accidental handprint before we finish writing a sentence. Scissors never seem to cooperate. School desks with those tiny writing arms always seem to forget we exist. Even simple things like can openers, measuring cups, vegetable peelers, and coffee mugs often assume everyone uses their right hand.

Most people never notice these things because they don’t have to. Left-handed people notice them because we live them.

Eventually, you stop expecting the world to adjust for you. You learn to adjust to the world. You find another way. You become creative because creativity is often born out of necessity.

When you’re constantly adapting, you develop a different relationship with problem-solving. You learn flexibility. You learn patience. You learn that just because something wasn’t designed for you doesn’t mean you can’t make it work.

And maybe that’s where the gift begins.

Looking back, I honestly wonder if being left-handed shaped more than just my handwriting. Maybe it shaped the way I see life.

I’ve never been satisfied with easy answers simply because they’re popular. I’ve always asked questions. I’ve always been curious about what exists beneath the surface. I’ve always wondered why people believe what they believe and why certain ideas become accepted as truth without being examined.

I’ve always been more interested in understanding than simply agreeing.

Sometimes that has been misunderstood. Sometimes questioning has been mistaken for rebellion. Sometimes curiosity has been labeled as being difficult.

But asking questions isn’t the same as rejecting truth. Sometimes questions are the very things that lead us toward deeper understanding.

For centuries, left-handedness carried unnecessary stigma. Children were forced to switch hands in school because writing with their left hand was considered improper or something that needed to be corrected. In some cultures, the left hand was associated with bad luck, weakness, or disrespect.

Imagine spending your childhood being told that something completely natural about you was something you needed to overcome.

Thankfully, many of those attitudes have changed. But it makes me wonder how often we still do this in other ways.

How many people have been taught to suppress parts of themselves because they didn’t fit someone else’s definition of normal? How many people have spent their lives trying to become acceptable instead of becoming authentic? How many ideas, gifts, and perspectives have been hidden because people were afraid of standing out?

That’s a much bigger conversation than left-handedness.

It’s about individuality. It’s about courage. It’s about giving ourselves permission to honor the things that make us different instead of constantly trying to make ourselves easier for others to understand.

Only about ten percent of the world’s population is left-handed. That makes us a minority, but it has never stopped left-handed people from making an enormous impact.

Throughout history, left-handed people have been artists, inventors, scientists, athletes, musicians, presidents, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. Their contributions didn’t come from trying to fit into a world designed for someone else. They came from embracing the way they naturally interacted with the world.

Different doesn’t automatically make someone exceptional. But different also doesn’t make someone deficient.

Different simply means different.

And different perspectives are often exactly what move humanity forward.

Every major breakthrough started because someone looked at the world differently than everyone else. Someone questioned the obvious. Someone challenged tradition. Someone imagined another possibility when everyone else accepted the current one.

I’ve spent much of my own life feeling like I saw things differently. Whether it’s conversations about faith, leadership, relationships, healing, or the human experience, I’ve rarely been satisfied with surface-level answers.

I’ve always wanted to know what’s underneath.

What’s driving this?

Who decided this?

Is there another way to understand it?

I’ve learned over the years that not everyone appreciates those questions. Some people are uncomfortable with curiosity because curiosity disrupts certainty. But curiosity is also where growth begins.

I’ve stopped apologizing for seeing the world differently. In fact, I’ve become grateful for it.

The qualities that once made me feel out of place have become some of my greatest strengths. The questions, the curiosity, the willingness to challenge assumptions, and the desire to look beyond what is obvious have all shaped who I am.

I’ve realized that fitting in has never been the goal.

Being authentic is.

National Left-Handers Day isn’t really about celebrating which hand we use to write. It’s about celebrating perspective. It’s about recognizing that the things that make us different often become the things that make us valuable.

The world doesn’t move forward because everyone thinks alike. It moves forward because someone has the courage to think differently.

So here’s to my fellow lefties.

Here’s to the people who’ve spent a lifetime adapting without even realizing how much strength that required. Here’s to those who have learned to create solutions, see possibilities, and approach life from another angle.

Here’s to the people who ask uncomfortable questions, notice what others overlook, and refuse to shrink themselves just to make everyone else comfortable.

Whether you’re left-handed or not, I hope you never apologize for the parts of yourself that make you unique.

The world has enough copies.

It will always need originals.

Happy National Left-Handers Day to everyone who writes with their left hand...

And to everyone who’s ever had the courage to see life from a different perspective.

Maybe that has been our superpower all along.

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In a world that often forces us into “either/or” thinking, it is profoundly liberating to reflect on the teachings of Jesus. His responses to the complex questions and dilemmas of His time reveal a remarkable refusal to be confined by binary thinking. Instead of choosing between two rigid options, Jesus transcended the boundaries of human logic, offering wisdom that challenged the status quo and illuminated a third, often unexpected, way.

Binary Thinking: A Trap for the Mind

Binary thinking thrives on the simplicity of “black or white,” “right or wrong,” “this or that.” It’s an alluring framework in a chaotic world, where clear answers are often sought. But this kind of thinking leaves no room for nuance, complexity, or paradox. It demands a clear “yes” or “no,” often ignoring the broader truth.

Jesus, however, resisted these traps, particularly when His critics or followers attempted to corner Him with such questions. His answers were not designed to validate either side of a dichotomy but to elevate the conversation and redirect attention to higher truths.

Examples of Jesus Rejecting Binary Thinking

1. The Woman Caught in Adultery

When the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, they posed what seemed to be an inescapable dilemma: “Should we stone her, as the law of Moses commands, or let her go?” It was a binary question meant to trap Him. Upholding the law would alienate His followers, while releasing her would seem to condone sin.

Jesus responded with neither option. Instead, He said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). His answer exposed the hypocrisy of the accusers and reframed the situation entirely, pointing to their shared humanity and need for grace.

2. The Question of Paying Taxes

In another instance, Jesus was asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:17). A “yes” or “no” answer would have political repercussions, either aligning Him with Roman authority or marking Him as a rebel.

Jesus responded with profound wisdom: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21). In doing so, He refused to be boxed into their political binary, highlighting the greater truth of allegiance to God over earthly powers.

3. Healing on the Sabbath

The Pharisees often tried to accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath law by healing. For them, it was a binary choice: either honor the Sabbath by refraining from work or break the law to help someone in need.

Jesus reframed the question entirely, asking, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4). His answer revealed the heart of the law as a tool for compassion and justice, rather than rigid legalism.

Why Jesus Rejected Binary Thinking

Jesus understood that binary thinking is often rooted in human limitation. The inability to see beyond the immediate or to grasp the fullness of God’s perspective. His refusal to engage in such thinking teaches us several lessons:

Truth is Multifaceted: Rarely is life as simple as “this or that.” Jesus invites us to embrace the complexity of truth, which often exists in the tension between extremes.

Wisdom Requires Discernment: Instead of accepting the options presented to Him, Jesus modeled the importance of discernment—seeking God’s will beyond human constructs.

Love Transcends Boundaries: Many of Jesus’ answers revealed that love, grace, and compassion often exist outside the binaries we create. His way was always one of inclusion, understanding, and divine perspective.

When in Doubt, Choose Love

If there’s one theme that consistently arises in the teachings of Jesus, it is love. Whether addressing a crowd, responding to critics, or engaging with the marginalized, Jesus consistently prioritized love over law, compassion over condemnation, and grace over judgment. When faced with uncertain or binary decisions, we, too, can follow His example by choosing love.

Choosing love means seeking the well-being of others, even when it’s inconvenient or countercultural. It means setting aside rigid categories and opening our hearts to understanding, empathy, and reconciliation. Love is not a simple answer, but it is always the right one.

Applying Jesus’ Example Today

In our polarized world, we often face binary choices: conservative or liberal, tradition or progress, faith or science, us or them. Yet, the teachings of Jesus challenge us to reject these false dichotomies. Instead of asking, “Which side is right?” we might ask, “What is love calling us to in this moment?”

Jesus’ way encourages us to embrace complexity, to seek wisdom in nuance, and to lead with love. It’s not about choosing sides; it’s about living in the light of a truth that transcends human boundaries.

Maybe Jesus came to show us that the divine image is bigger than our binaries.

And, perhaps, Jesus never answered binary thinking because the divine was never interested in becoming another box for us to climb inside.

He was the disruption.

And if we truly want to follow Him, perhaps we should be willing to let Him disrupt the categories we have built around Him.

As we navigate the challenges of our time, may we remember that Jesus never answered binary thinking. Instead, He invites us to a deeper, more faithful way of seeing the world. And when in doubt, may we always choose love.

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There is a reason religious institutions have historically been selective about the kinds of questions they encourage. Religion can accommodate questions about personal experience, purpose, morality, and spirituality, but questions that examine the historical development of religious beliefs can become much more uncomfortable. The moment we begin asking how a doctrine developed, who decided what a particular passage meant, what evidence supports a traditional interpretation, or whether a belief has actually existed in its current form for as long as we have been told, we move from the territory of faith into the territory of investigation. That is where data becomes a threat to dogma.

This isn’t because data disproves God. It doesn’t. Data cannot settle every question human beings have about existence, meaning, consciousness, or the divine. What data can do is challenge claims that human beings make about God. That distinction is critical because religious communities have often blurred the line between God and their interpretation of God. A challenge to a doctrine is treated as a challenge to Scripture, a challenge to Scripture is treated as a challenge to faith, and a challenge to faith is eventually presented as a challenge to God. Once those categories become indistinguishable, questioning religious authority becomes almost impossible without being accused of questioning God Himself.

Dogma thrives in that environment because dogma depends upon certainty. It takes a particular interpretation, tradition, or theological conclusion and elevates it beyond examination. Once something becomes dogma, the question is no longer whether the belief is supported by evidence or historical context. The question becomes whether you are willing to accept it. This is one of the reasons religious certainty can be so powerful. It removes the burden of investigation. Someone else has already decided what the text means, what God intended, what history tells us, and what conclusions you are permitted to draw. Your responsibility is simply to believe.

Data interrupts that arrangement because it forces us to look at the information beneath the conclusion.

When we apply that principle to Christianity, we discover that the Bible has a history. It was not delivered to humanity as a finished book in the form that modern Christians recognize today. The texts were written across different periods and circumstances, in ancient languages, by different authors and communities. They were copied and transmitted through generations, translated into other languages, interpreted by different communities, collected into various canons, and debated by religious authorities. None of this automatically invalidates the Bible. What it does is remind us that Scripture exists within human history and therefore can be studied historically.

That becomes a problem for simplistic religious claims because historical investigation introduces complexity where dogma prefers certainty. Instead of simply saying, “The Bible says,” we have to ask what the original text actually says, which manuscript tradition we are relying upon, what the language meant in its original setting, who the intended audience was, what circumstances produced the text, and how later communities interpreted it. Those questions are not signs of disrespect toward Scripture. They are the kinds of questions that serious engagement with ancient literature requires.

Yet religious environments sometimes teach people that asking these questions is dangerous. A person who investigates biblical history may be told that they are allowing doubt to enter their mind. Someone who reads scholarship outside their denomination may be accused of being deceived. Someone who questions a traditional interpretation may be told that they are questioning God. In some communities, intellectual curiosity is treated as a spiritual vulnerability because the answers produced by investigation may not reinforce the conclusions people were taught as children.

This is where data becomes especially disruptive. It doesn’t necessarily tell people what to believe; it gives them information that allows them to evaluate what they have already been told. That is a fundamentally different kind of authority. A person who believes something because an authority figure told them to believe it is dependent upon that authority. A person who has investigated the historical evidence, considered competing interpretations, examined the arguments, and reached a conclusion for themselves has developed a different relationship with belief. They may still believe deeply, but their belief is no longer dependent upon ignorance.

Religious history provides countless examples of beliefs that were once treated as obvious, permanent, or divinely established but later changed. Christians have disagreed for centuries about salvation, baptism, communion, biblical authority, the role of women, divorce, slavery, the nature of hell, predestination, spiritual gifts, and countless other theological questions. Different Christian traditions have frequently appealed to the same Bible while reaching radically different conclusions. That history alone should make us cautious about treating every modern interpretation as though it dropped directly from heaven.

This is particularly important when religious communities claim that a particular position has always been the Christian position. History can test that claim. Sometimes it confirms it. Sometimes it complicates it. Sometimes it disproves it entirely. A doctrine can be deeply important to contemporary Christianity while still having developed through a long historical process. A practice can feel ancient while having changed significantly over time. An interpretation can be considered orthodox within one tradition while being rejected by another. Data doesn’t care how familiar a belief feels. It asks what the historical record actually shows.

The same principle applies to the institutions that interpret religion. Churches are human organizations, regardless of how sacred their mission may be. They have leaders, structures, traditions, financial systems, cultural influences, political relationships, and institutional interests. Religious leaders can be sincere and still be wrong. Churches can do extraordinary good and still cause harm. A doctrine can be comforting and still be historically inaccurate. A tradition can be meaningful and still have been shaped by cultural assumptions that its followers no longer recognize.

This is one of the places where religious dogma becomes particularly dangerous. When an institution convinces people that its interpretation is synonymous with God’s interpretation, the institution becomes almost impossible to challenge. A pastor doesn’t have to demonstrate that a particular teaching is correct if questioning the teaching has already been defined as rebellion. A church doesn’t have to examine criticism if criticism can be dismissed as persecution. A doctrine doesn’t have to answer historical questions if those questions can be characterized as attacks on faith.

Data breaks through that protective barrier by separating the claim from the person making the claim.

A pastor can say that something is biblical, and we can still examine the interpretation. A church can say that something has always been taught, and we can still investigate its history. A theologian can offer a particular interpretation, and we can compare it with other scholarship. None of this requires disrespect. It requires intellectual honesty.

The irony is that many religious people say they believe that God is truth, yet they sometimes become frightened by the process of discovering what is true. If God is truly concerned with truth, then honest investigation should not be treated as an enemy. If a belief is sound, examination should give us greater confidence in it or at least a more mature understanding of it. If examination exposes weaknesses, contradictions, historical inaccuracies, or assumptions that were previously hidden, then perhaps the problem is not that someone asked too many questions. Perhaps the problem is that the belief depended upon people never asking them.

This is why I don’t believe the answer to religious dogma is simply abandoning faith. That is too simplistic. There are people who have examined the historical, scientific, and philosophical questions surrounding religion and still maintain some form of faith. There are others who have concluded that traditional religion no longer works for them. Both responses are possible because investigation does not dictate the outcome. It creates the conditions under which a person can make a more informed decision.

What matters is that people are allowed to investigate without being manipulated by fear.

A faith that requires people to remain uninformed is not demonstrating strength. It is demonstrating dependence upon information control. A religious tradition that can only survive when its followers are discouraged from reading outside approved sources, questioning leadership, examining history, or considering alternative interpretations is not necessarily protecting truth. It may simply be protecting itself.

And that is the real reason data is a threat to dogma.

Data makes inherited beliefs visible. It allows us to see where they came from, how they changed, who interpreted them, what assumptions shaped them, and how they have been used. It gives people the ability to distinguish between what Scripture actually says and what somebody says Scripture says. It creates space between God and the people who claim exclusive authority to explain God.

For some people, that space will feel terrifying because certainty has always been the foundation of their faith. For others, it will feel like freedom because they can finally ask questions they were previously afraid to ask.

Maybe that is what religious maturity actually looks like: not having an answer for everything, but being willing to investigate the answers we have inherited. Maybe faith does not become weaker when we examine it. Maybe it becomes more honest.

Because if something is true, it should not need our ignorance to survive.

And if what we have been protecting all along is not God but our interpretation of God, then perhaps data isn’t the enemy of faith at all.

Maybe, data is simply the thing that finally gives us permission to tell the difference.

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Every culture has its symbols.

Some have flags. Some have monuments. Some have sacred texts.

And then... there’s Alabama’s folding chair.

On August 5, 2023, the Montgomery Riverfront became the stage for something far bigger than a brawl. What unfolded wasn’t just another viral video; it was a collision between history, power, race, and collective memory.

As ESSENCE so brilliantly captured the cultural weight of the day:

People who watched the footage weren’t simply reacting to punches being thrown. They were reacting to context.

A Black riverboat co-captain was doing his job, trying to maintain order, and was met with hostility, disrespect, and violence. For generations, Black people have been expected to absorb these moments quietly, to stay calm, wait their turn, and trust systems that rarely offer protection. Watching a person’s dignity being tested on that dock felt painfully familiar, exposing an old American story in real time.

And then... someone picked up a white folding chair.

Within seconds, an ordinary piece of plastic and metal became cultural folklore.

The chair became a symbol, not because of the object itself, but because of what millions of people immediately attached to it. It became a vessel for centuries of racial tension, collective exhaustion, and resistance colliding with the present. It represented the exact moment an everyday item transforms into a symbol of standing up in the public imagination.

Then came the internet, turning a moment into mythology.

Black communities have long used humor as a survival tool, a way to process pain, expose absurdity, and reclaim moments that might otherwise be defined strictly by trauma. The memes, artwork, and costumes weren’t a celebration of violence; they were commentary. People were laughing because humor is often how we carry the weight of things too heavy to hold all at once. The memes became therapy, the jokes became commentary, and the chair became shorthand for a conversation America still refuses to finish.

Some people are uncomfortable with that.

Good.

Symbols are supposed to make us uncomfortable. They force us to ask why certain moments resonate so deeply while others fade away. A folding chair should have remained a folding chair. Instead, it became a mirror, carrying the weight of history, the frustration of the present, and forcing us to ask what happens when old wounds show up in new moments.

Today, whether you call it “Happy Chair Day” or “Chairteenth,” it is less about a fight on a dock and more about remembering a cultural reckoning. It reminds us that history doesn’t always announce itself with a monument or a speech.

Sometimes history shows up on a riverfront… carrying a white folding chair.

So as we remember: May we continue to laugh. May we continue to think. And may we never confuse the symbol for the deeper story it reveals.

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In 1851, a physician named Samuel Cartwright invented a so-called mental illness called Drapetomania. According to him, enslaved Black people who wanted to escape slavery were mentally ill.

Read that again.

The desire to be free was treated as a disease.

Think about how absurd that is. People were kidnapped, bought and sold, beaten, raped, separated from their children, forced into unpaid labor, and denied every basic human right imaginable. Yet the “problem” wasn’t slavery. The problem, according to those in power, was that enslaved people wanted to leave.

This is how oppression protects itself. It doesn’t simply use violence. It also creates stories that make resistance seem irrational.

Drapetomania wasn’t real medicine. It was propaganda dressed up in scientific language. It gave slaveholders and society a way to portray the enslaved as defective instead of acknowledging the evil of the institution itself.

History is full of moments like this.

Power often labels resistance as pathology. Those who challenge abusive systems are called unstable, angry, divisive, rebellious, or dangerous. The labels change, but the strategy remains remarkably consistent.

This is why we should always be skeptical when institutions define dissent as dysfunction.

Whether we’re talking about slavery, religion, politics, or other systems of power, one question is always worth asking:

The story of Drapetomania reminds us that institutions can misuse science, theology, psychology, and education to protect themselves. Just because something carries the language of expertise doesn’t mean it carries the weight of truth.

The enslaved were never mentally ill for wanting freedom.

They were profoundly human.

And perhaps one of the most dangerous things any oppressive system has to face is a person who refuses to believe they were born to remain in chains.

This is one of the oldest tactics of oppressive systems. Rather than address the injustice, they question the sanity, motives, or emotional stability of the people resisting it. If those crying out for justice can be portrayed as irrational, then those in power never have to seriously engage with what they’re saying.

Although Drapetomania has been thoroughly discredited, the pattern it represents has never truly disappeared. We still live in a culture where Black people are often viewed as the problem when we refuse to quietly accept injustice. Whether we are protesting racial violence, challenging discrimination, or exposing inequities in education, housing, healthcare, or the criminal legal system, the response is often less about the issue itself and more about our reaction to it.

We’re told we’re too angry, too emotional, too divisive, or too focused on race. People ask why we can’t just move on, as though the greater problem is our willingness to name injustice rather than the injustice itself. Our passion is scrutinized more than the systems we are challenging.

There is an unspoken assumption that if we continue to fight for justice, something must be psychologically wrong with us. It’s a modern echo of the same logic behind Drapetomania. The labels have changed, but the instinct remains. Instead of diagnosing our desire for freedom, people question our emotional health, our motives, or our ability to “let things go.” Too often, society is more comfortable believing that the person exposing injustice is broken than admitting that the system itself is.

This is why history matters. Drapetomania isn’t just an odd historical footnote. It exposes how easily institutions can weaponize science, psychology, and other forms of authority to preserve themselves. It reminds us to be cautious whenever those with power dismiss resistance as irrational instead of honestly confronting the conditions that gave rise to it.

The enslaved were never mentally ill for wanting freedom. They were responding in the most human way possible to an inhumane system. Likewise, there is nothing mentally unhealthy about refusing to accept racism, inequality, or oppression today. Sometimes the healthiest response to an unhealthy society is to refuse to normalize it.

Perhaps the question has never been why oppressed people keep fighting for justice. Maybe the real question is why so many people continue to believe there must be something wrong with those who insist that every human being deserves to live with dignity, equality, and freedom.

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Women spend an incredible amount of energy judging one another, often without realizing we’ve been conditioned to do it. We notice who has the better wardrobe, who looks younger than her age, whose skin is flawless, who lost weight, who gained it, who has the “right” curves, whose career is taking off, whose children seem perfectly behaved, and whose life appears effortless from the outside. Comparison has become so normal that many of us mistake it for observation.

The painful irony is that while women are measuring themselves against other women, the rest of the world is measuring us too.

Women’s bodies are debated in politics, scrutinized by the media, policed by religion, and monetized by industries worth billions of dollars. Our emotions are dismissed as hormones. Our pain is too often minimized in medical settings. At work we’re expected to be competent without being intimidating, confident without being “bossy,” nurturing without being weak, and ambitious without being selfish. We are expected to excel professionally while carrying the invisible emotional labor of our families and relationships, all while looking like none of it requires any effort.

No one can live up to those expectations because they were never designed to be attainable. They were designed to keep women chasing an ever-moving definition of perfection.

When you spend your life trying to become enough, you rarely stop to consider that you already are.

That may be the greatest tragedy of all. So many women have become experts at identifying their flaws while remaining completely blind to their power. We criticize the bodies that have carried us through decades of living. We apologize for wrinkles that simply reveal we’ve smiled, cried, and survived. We hide stretch marks that tell stories of growth. We fight gray hair as though aging is somehow a personal failure instead of a privilege denied to so many.

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that the evidence of a life well lived was something to be ashamed of.

What if we’ve been asking the wrong questions? Instead of asking whether we’re attractive enough, successful enough, or productive enough, perhaps we should ask why our worth has become so entangled with performance in the first place. Who benefits when women believe they are never quite enough? It certainly isn’t women.

Entire industries are built on convincing us that confidence is always one purchase away. Buy this cream. Follow this diet. Wear these clothes. Fix your face. Hide your age. Erase the evidence that you’ve lived. The message is relentless: if you just improve yourself a little more, then you’ll finally be worthy.

But worthiness has never been something you could buy.

The truth is that women have always been powerful, yet we’ve been taught to direct that power inward through self-criticism instead of outward through creativity, leadership, compassion, and change. We create families, businesses, communities, art, movements, and solutions. We nurture relationships, hold people together during unimaginable loss, and somehow continue showing up even when our own tanks are empty. Whether a woman has children or not, there is something profoundly creative about the way women move through the world. We build. We restore. We imagine. We heal.

And yet so many women stand in front of a mirror and reduce themselves to the shape of their waistline or the lines around their eyes.

Imagine what could happen if we reclaimed even a fraction of the energy we’ve spent criticizing ourselves. Imagine if women stopped seeing one another as competition and started recognizing each other as reminders of what is possible. Imagine if we celebrated resilience more than beauty, kindness more than perfection, wisdom more than youth, and authenticity more than appearances.

The world has spent centuries teaching women to shrink themselves. To be quieter. Smaller. More accommodating. More beautiful. Less demanding. Less visible. It has been a remarkably effective lesson.

Who cares if your laundry isn’t folded today? Who cares if dinner came from a takeout spot because life was overwhelming? Who cares if your body has changed after years of raising children, surviving illness, grieving loss, or simply getting older? None of those things diminish your humanity, and none of them diminish your power.

You are not valuable because you are flawless. You are valuable because you are alive, because you create, because you love, because you endure, because you keep beginning again.

The world will always find new reasons to evaluate women. We don’t have to participate in that system anymore. We can choose to look at ourselves with the same grace we so freely extend to the people we love.

This year, I hope more women stop chasing perfection and start reclaiming their power. I hope we become less interested in meeting impossible standards and more interested in living authentic lives. I hope we stop seeing cellulite, wrinkles, acne, gray hair, and exhaustion as evidence that we’re failing and start seeing them for what they really are: signs that we have lived.

You are more than a body to be judged. You are more than a list of accomplishments to be measured. You are more than the opinions other people hold about you.

You are a creator.

It’s time to start seeing yourself that way.

Blacklisted Saint

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One of the most frustrating conversations I continue to have is the insistence that Black people can be racist. Usually, the argument comes from people who define racism as simply disliking someone because of their race. By that definition, anyone can be racist.

But that’s not how racism actually operates in society.

Racism is not just personal dislike, bias, or prejudice. Racism is prejudice backed by power. It is a system that advantages one group while disadvantaging another. It is embedded in institutions, policies, practices, and cultural norms. It affects where people live, how they are educated, how they are policed, how they are hired, how they are paid, and how they are treated when they walk into a room.

Black people can absolutely be prejudiced. We can have biases. We can make assumptions about people from other racial groups. We can say hurtful things. We can discriminate on an individual level. None of those things are okay.

But prejudice and racism are not identical.

A Black person refusing to date someone because of race is prejudice. A Black person making negative assumptions about white people is prejudice. A Black person expressing distrust toward another racial group may be prejudice. Those attitudes, of course, should be examined and challenged.

However, none of those things create systems that deny housing loans, suppress voting rights, create employment disparities, shape sentencing outcomes, or determine who is more likely to be viewed as a threat. Individual bias is harmful, but it does not carry the same societal weight as systemic racism.

That’s where many people get stuck.

When Black people talk about racism, we are not simply talking about hurt feelings. We are talking about structures that have existed for generations. We are talking about systems that were intentionally built and maintained to distribute resources, opportunities, and protections unevenly. We are talking about realities that continue to produce measurable disparities long after the laws that created them have been removed.

Some people hear that and immediately respond, “So you’re saying Black people can’t do anything wrong?”

No.

That’s not what I’m saying.

Black people are human. We are capable of the same flaws, biases, and prejudices as everyone else. The question isn’t whether Black people can hold negative views. The question is whether those views are reinforced by a system that gives Black people collective power over other racial groups in the way racism has historically functioned in America.

The answer is no.

This conversation often becomes emotional because many people want racism to mean nothing more than interpersonal meanness. If racism is simply being unkind to someone because of race, then everyone is equally guilty and equally responsible. That definition feels more comfortable because it removes discussions of power, history, and accountability.

But comfort has never been the same thing as truth.

When a Black person expresses frustration with white people, that frustration may be unfair, generalized, or prejudiced. Again, it should be examined. But it does not carry the force of centuries of institutional power behind it. It does not determine whether white communities receive investments. It does not shape school funding. It does not influence whether white families can build generational wealth. It does not create barriers to political participation.

The reality is that racism is bigger than individual attitudes.

Yes, it is possible for a Black person to be prejudiced. It is possible for a Black person to be biased. It is possible for a Black person to discriminate against someone on a personal level.

But racism is not simply about personal feelings. It is about systems of power and the ability to enforce those prejudices on a societal scale.

Words matter. Definitions matter. If we refuse to distinguish between prejudice and systemic racism, we end up treating every uncomfortable interaction as equivalent to generations of structural inequity.

And those things are not the same.

Understanding that distinction isn’t about excusing anyone’s behavior. It’s about being honest about how racism actually works.

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For generations, Eve has carried a burden that was never hers alone.

Her name has become synonymous with temptation, disobedience, and the fall of humanity. She has been portrayed as the one who brought sin into the world, the one who could not resist, the one who led humanity away from God.

But there is a question we have not asked enough:

Why did Eve become responsible for Adam’s choice?

Because Adam was there.

We often talk about the fall of humanity as the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit. We focus on the serpent’s deception, Eve’s choice, and the consequences that followed. But there is another moment in the story that deserves our attention because it reveals something just as powerful about the human condition.

It is what happens after the mistake.

God asks Adam, “Where are you?” Then comes the question that exposes everything: “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Adam’s response is fascinating because it is not a denial of what happened. He admits the action, but he refuses ownership.

“The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

The words are subtle but revealing. Adam does not simply say, “I ate the fruit.” Instead, he creates distance between himself and his decision. He places the responsibility on Eve, but he also points toward God: the woman you gave me.

The implication is clear: “This happened because of what you gave me.”

Before humanity ever experienced exile from the garden, we witnessed another kind of separation: the separation between our actions and our accountability.

Then Eve does the same thing.

“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The serpent did deceive her. Eve’s explanation is not false. But it is still a deflection. The story becomes a chain of passing responsibility from one person to another. Adam points to Eve. Eve points to the serpent. Nobody stands in the moment and says, “I made a choice.”

And perhaps that is the part of the story that mirrors us the most.

Blame is one of humanity’s oldest survival strategies.

When we are confronted with our failures, our first instinct is often not transformation but protection. We defend our image. We protect our pride. We search for someone or something else to carry the weight of our choices.

We see it everywhere.

A person hurts someone and explains why they were justified. A leader causes harm and blames the people who questioned them. A community causes damage and blames those who speak about it. A system fails people and finds a way to make the victims responsible for their own suffering.

The question is rarely, “Who is responsible?”
The question becomes, “Who can we blame?”

This is why accountability is such a radical act. It requires us to stop running from the truth about ourselves. It requires humility. It requires us to acknowledge that we can be both wounded and responsible, influenced and still accountable, imperfect and still capable of change.

In one sentence, Adam transferred responsibility away from himself and placed it on Eve. But he did more than blame a woman. He suggested that the very gift God gave him had become the problem.

And somehow, throughout history, Eve inherited the shame for both of them.

This is one of the most revealing patterns in human history: when accountability is uncomfortable, society often finds a way to place the burden on the most vulnerable person.

Women have repeatedly been expected to carry responsibility for things that were never theirs alone.

Women are told to manage men’s desires.
Women are blamed for the consequences of men’s choices.
Women are questioned for speaking too loudly, leading too boldly, dressing too freely, or taking up too much space.

Meanwhile, men’s actions are often explained, excused, or separated from their character.

The story of Adam and Eve has sometimes been used to reinforce this imbalance. Instead of asking why Adam refused accountability, many traditions focused on why Eve was tempted.

Instead of examining Adam’s silence, they examined Eve’s voice.
Instead of confronting Adam’s choice, they questioned Eve’s influence.

And that matters because the stories we tell shape the societies we create.

When we repeatedly portray women as the source of danger, we create cultures where women must constantly prove they are trustworthy. When we repeatedly portray men as victims of female influence, we create cultures where men are not expected to practice the same level of self-control and accountability.

But Genesis itself offers a different invitation.

One of the most powerful things about the Genesis story is that God does not begin by asking Adam for an explanation. God asks a question.

“Where are you?”

Maybe that question was never only about location. Maybe it was about awareness.

Where are you in relation to truth? Where are you in relation to responsibility? Where are you in relation to the person you are becoming?

Because the opposite of blame is not punishment. The opposite of blame is presence. It is the willingness to stand honestly before ourselves and others.

For generations, we have debated whether Eve was the problem. We have built entire theologies around her mistake. But perhaps the deeper lesson is not about finding the person to blame.

Perhaps Genesis is showing us something far more uncomfortable:

Humanity’s first response to wrongdoing was not accountability.

It was avoidance.

And the question the story leaves us with is not simply, “Who ate the fruit?”

The question is:

Eve did not need to carry Adam’s accountability.

And women today should not be asked to carry the consequences of choices made by men.

A theology that requires women to be smaller so men can remain comfortable is not reflecting the heart of God. It is reflecting the fears and biases of humanity.

One of the ways this ancient pattern still lives on is in the expectations placed on women within many churches.

From an early age, girls are taught to dress modestly so the boys won’t stumble. Women are told to cover their bodies so men won’t be distracted. The responsibility for male self-control is quietly transferred onto female shoulders.

Think about that for a moment.

If a man struggles with lust, why is the first question so often, “What was she wearing?” instead of, “Why isn’t he responsible for governing his own desires?”

It echoes Adam’s response in the garden.

“The woman...”

Once again, the burden shifts.

Women become caretakers of male behavior, expected to manage men’s thoughts, emotions, and temptations. The message, whether intentional or not, is that men are naturally less accountable for themselves, while women are responsible for creating an environment in which men can succeed spiritually.

That is an impossible burden.

It also creates a strange contradiction. Churches often proclaim that men are called to lead, yet in practice they sometimes treat men as though they lack the discipline to take responsibility for their own eyes, thoughts, and actions. At the same time, women are expected to shrink themselves, silence themselves, and even clothe themselves around men’s perceived weaknesses.

This isn’t elevating men. It is excusing them.

Nor is it honoring women. It is making them responsible for sins they did not commit.

When women are continually told to accommodate men, the underlying assumption is that male comfort takes precedence over female freedom. Women learn that their bodies are problems to be managed rather than gifts to be celebrated. They are taught that their presence is potentially dangerous, while men’s responses are understandable, even expected.

That is not accountability.

It is blame dressed up as discipleship.

Perhaps it is time for the church to recover the forgotten lesson of Genesis. Adam was not judged because Eve existed. Adam was held accountable because Adam made a choice.

If we truly believe every person is morally responsible before God, then we should stop asking women to carry the weight of men’s self-control.

The church should be forming men who can say, “My choices are my own.”

Instead, too often, it has continued Adam’s first instinct:

“The woman...”

The question Genesis leaves us with is not, “Who caused the fall?”

The deeper question is:

“Who is willing to tell the truth about their own role in it?”

Because healing begins when we stop searching for someone to blame and start practicing the courage to be accountable.

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People spend a lot of time searching for the perfect house. We compare floor plans, neighborhoods, school districts, and property values. But one thing you can't always see before you move in is the quality of the people living around you.

Having great neighbors is underrated.

From the moment we moved into our home, we quickly became aware of how wonderful our neighbors are. It wasn't because they were constantly in our business or because we were together every weekend. It was something much simpler than that.

They are great neighbors because they are wonderful people. They aren't religious, and didn't need “Jesus” to make them kind and caring. They simply are.

They're the kind of people who wave when you drive by. They stop to have conversations. They check on one another. They celebrate each other's victories and show up during difficult times. They understand that being part of a neighborhood means more than sharing a street; it means sharing humanity.

Long before our house fire, we knew we had something special.

Then life tested all of us.

When our home caught fire, our neighbors didn't suddenly become caring people. They simply continued being who they had always been. They checked on us, looked after our property, offered support, and reminded us that we weren't walking through one of the hardest seasons of our lives alone.

Their kindness wasn't performative. It wasn't for recognition. It came naturally because that's the kind of people they are.

In a world where we're often told to keep to ourselves, our neighbors have reminded us that community still matters.

Being a good neighbor isn't about living in the same subdivision. It's about choosing kindness. It's about paying attention. It's about seeing people instead of simply living beside them.

You can't buy that.
You can't build it with expensive landscaping or beautiful homes.

It comes from people who genuinely care about other people.

We’ve realized that one of the greatest blessings about our home isn’t the house itself. It’s the community that surrounds it.

Good neighbors make a neighborhood feel safe.

Great neighbors make it feel like home. 💜

So today, we’re grateful…not just because of how our neighbors showed up after the fire, but because they had already shown us who they were from the very beginning.

They’ve reminded us that there are still good people in this world. People who care without being asked. People who show kindness without expecting anything in return. People who make ordinary days a little brighter simply by being themselves.

Having great neighbors is underrated.

But if you’ve ever been blessed with them, you know they’re one of life’s greatest gifts.

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One of the most common claims in Christianity is, “I just follow the Bible.” It sounds simple. Noble, even. It suggests certainty, faithfulness, and obedience. But the moment you begin reading the Bible honestly, from Genesis to Revelation, you run into a problem.

There is no way to follow every command, every law, every instruction, every moral expectation in the Bible and still love everyone.

In fact, there are moments when you can’t even love yourself.

That statement may sound provocative, but it deserves more than a knee-jerk reaction. It deserves honest reflection.

The Bible contains some of the most beautiful words ever written about compassion, mercy, justice, forgiveness, generosity, and caring for the vulnerable. Those passages have inspired hospitals, civil rights movements, charities, and countless acts of extraordinary kindness.

But the same Bible also contains commands to destroy entire cities, regulations permitting slavery, laws that subordinate women, harsh punishments for religious and moral offenses, and passages that have been used for centuries to justify racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, and countless other forms of oppression.

People often respond by saying, “Well, you have to understand the context.”

Exactly.

The moment you begin distinguishing between cultural commands and timeless principles, you’ve already acknowledged something important. You’re not simply following the Bible.

You’re interpreting it.

Everyone does.

No one follows every biblical command literally. No one.

Most Christians eat shellfish without hesitation, wear clothing made from mixed fabrics, trim their hair, work on Saturdays or Sundays depending on their tradition, borrow and lend money with interest, and ignore countless Old Testament regulations. Yet many insist that other verses remain permanently binding.

That isn’t biblical literalism.

It’s interpretation.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Interpretation is unavoidable. The real question isn’t whether you interpret Scripture. The real question is what guides your interpretation.

Is it fear?
Tradition?
Power?
Or love?

Jesus himself complicated the idea of simply “following the Bible.” When asked about the greatest commandment, he didn’t recite hundreds of laws. He reduced everything to two: love God and love your neighbor.

According to the gospel accounts, he even said that all the Law and the Prophets hang on those two commands.

That should make us pause.

Because if your reading of Scripture consistently produces contempt instead of compassion, exclusion instead of embrace, or cruelty instead of kindness, then something has gone terribly wrong.

Many believers are told they must love everyone while simultaneously believing that certain people are inherently less acceptable to God. They are encouraged to forgive without limits while supporting systems that shame, exclude, or marginalize others. They are told to love the sinner while often withholding the very dignity that makes love possible.

There is perhaps no phrase that captures this contradiction better than, "Hate the sin, love the sinner."

It sounds loving. It sounds compassionate. But when you really examine it, the phrase falls apart.

Imagine telling someone, "I love you, but I hate something fundamental about who you are." Imagine hearing that from someone you trust. Would that feel like love? Or would it feel like rejection wrapped in religious language?

The problem is that people are not just collections of behaviors. Our choices, our relationships, our identities, our experiences, and our humanity are deeply connected. You cannot continually condemn something that is deeply tied to a person's sense of self and expect that person to experience your words as love.

We would never accept this logic in other situations. Yet somehow, this phrase has been used to justify treating people as less than whole while claiming compassion.

Love that requires someone to separate themselves from a part of their humanity in order to be accepted is not the kind of love most people are seeking.

And perhaps the deeper question is this: Why are we so comfortable calling something love when the person receiving it experiences it as rejection?

If someone repeatedly tells you that they love you while also insisting that something about you makes you unacceptable, the burden should not only be on the person being criticized to understand their intentions. The person offering that "love" should also examine the impact of their words.

Because love is not just about what we mean.

Love is about what we create.

Does it create safety or shame?
Does it create belonging or isolation?
Does it restore dignity or remove it?

A love that requires someone to hate themselves before they can be accepted is not love at all.

Those ideas don’t coexist as easily as we’ve been taught.

The conflict doesn’t stop with how believers view others. It often turns inward.

Many Christians grow up believing they are fundamentally broken, desperately wicked, or worthy of eternal punishment apart from divine grace. They learn to distrust their own minds, suppress honest questions, ignore their intuition, and feel guilty for simply being human.

When your identity is rooted in the belief that you are lovable only because God tolerates you, genuine self-love becomes almost impossible.

Self-compassion begins to feel like pride.
Healthy boundaries feel selfish.
Confidence feels arrogant.
Curiosity feels rebellious.
Even joy can feel suspicious if it isn’t wrapped in sacrifice.

That isn’t emotional freedom.

It’s survival.

This is why so many people struggle to love themselves despite spending decades in church. They’ve been taught humility but often experienced humiliation. They’ve been taught surrender but sometimes learned self-erasure. They’ve been taught obedience but not always wholeness.

Perhaps that’s why love cannot simply be measured by obedience to a rulebook.

Love requires empathy.

It requires wisdom.
It requires discernment.
It requires seeing the inherent worth of every human being, including yourself.

If your theology requires you to diminish someone else’s humanity, it has moved away from love.

If your faith teaches you to fear people before you know them, it has moved away from love.

If your beliefs leave you hating yourself, silencing your questions, or believing you’re unworthy of dignity, then they have moved away from love too.

Maybe the goal was never to follow the Bible as though it were a flat rulebook.

Maybe the goal is to wrestle with it honestly, to recognize its complexity, and to allow love, not fear, to be the lens through which we read it.

Because in the end, the most important question isn’t, “Did you follow every verse?”

It’s this:

Did your beliefs make you more compassionate? More just? More merciful? More willing to honor the dignity of every person, including yourself?

If the answer is no, then perhaps the issue isn’t how faithfully you followed the Bible.

Perhaps it’s that somewhere along the way, we confused devotion to a particular interpretation of Scripture with the practice of love.

And those are not the same thing.

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Not everyone will understand why people are drawn to you. Some will assume it’s your personality. Others will think it’s your talent, your influence, your confidence, or your charisma. But sometimes it has nothing to do with any of those things.

Sometimes it’s because you are a door.

A door is more than a piece of wood on hinges. A door is access. It is an invitation. It is the space between where you are and where you could be. A door represents possibility. It leads somewhere.

There are people whose very presence opens something in you. They don’t just give information; they unlock revelation. They don’t simply encourage you; they awaken something that was already waiting inside you. They don’t create your destiny, but they give you access to see it differently.

Some people are doors.

Maybe that’s why certain people have always been drawn to you. Not because you have all the answers, but because something shifts when they encounter you. Conversations become deeper. Fear begins to loosen its grip. Questions they were afraid to ask finally find a safe place to exist. Possibilities they never imagined suddenly seem attainable.

You open up something.

Being a door doesn’t mean everyone will walk through.

Some people will stand at the entrance, peek inside, and walk away because what’s on the other side requires change. Others will admire the doorway but never cross the threshold because familiarity feels safer than freedom. And some will spend years knocking on the door while resisting the very transformation they’ve been asking for.

A door cannot force anyone to enter.

It can only remain open.

That’s an important lesson for anyone who serves, teaches, coaches, mentors, parents, or leads. Your assignment is not to drag people into their next season. Your assignment is simply to be the doorway God created you to be. The decision to walk through belongs to them.

Every open door presents a choice:

Every open door presents a choice:
Freedom or fear.
Growth or comfort.
Healing or familiarity.
Transformation or stagnation.

Doors lead to expansion.

Every door invites you beyond the limits of what you’ve known. It calls you out of comfort and into possibility, out of fear and into faith, out of confinement and into a life with greater vision, greater purpose, and greater freedom.

That’s why doors can be intimidating. Expansion always requires leaving something behind. You cannot enter a new room while clinging to the old one.

I am a door.

I create access to expansion. I invite people into a larger way of thinking, a deeper way of loving, and a freer way of living. What lies behind me isn’t about me; it’s about what becomes possible when someone has the courage to walk through.

Some will hesitate. Some will turn back. Some will remain where they are because stagnation feels safer than growth.

But others will step through.

And when they do, they’ll discover what every door has been promising all along:

Expansion.

Too often we long for open doors while refusing to leave the room we’ve outgrown. We ask for new opportunities but cling to old identities. We want another dimension without taking the step that gets us there.

The door isn’t the miracle.

Walking through it is.

Maybe you’ve spent your life wondering why people seem to gravitate toward you. Maybe you’ve questioned why strangers tell you their stories or why your words seem to awaken something in others.

Perhaps it’s because you carry access.

Not access to yourself, but access to another way of seeing, another way of living, another dimension of possibility.

If that’s true, then honor the gift. Stay open. Stay authentic. Stay available.

But also remember this: not everyone who encounters the door will choose to enter.

And that’s okay.

Your purpose isn’t measured by how many people walk through. It’s measured by your willingness to remain what you were created to be.

I am a door.

There is something behind me.

There is something I open that no one else can open quite the way I can. I carry a unique invitation into healing, freedom, wisdom, and possibility.

The question isn’t whether the door exists.

The question is whether you’ll have the courage to walk through it; or whether you’ll close it and remain exactly where you’ve always been.

Blacklisted Saint

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One of the most fascinating books in the Bible is also one of the most misunderstood.

For centuries, Christians have insisted that the Song of Solomon is really about Christ and the Church. Entire books have been written explaining that every kiss, every embrace, every garden, and every description of the lovers’ bodies points to some deeper spiritual reality.

But there’s one problem.

That’s not what the book says.

If you picked up the Song of Solomon without a study Bible, a sermon, or centuries of commentary whispering in your ear, you’d probably come to one conclusion:

It’s a love poem.

Two lovers pursue one another. They flirt. They admire each other’s bodies. They express longing, desire, anticipation, and delight. They celebrate intimacy without shame. The language is sensual, poetic, and beautifully human.

Nothing in the text tells us to decode it.
Nothing tells us the lovers secretly represent Jesus and the Church.
Nothing tells us we’re reading prophecy instead of poetry.

So how did we get here?

Long before Christianity, some Jewish interpreters began reading the Song of Solomon as an allegory of God’s covenant relationship with Israel. Later, Christian theologians adopted a similar approach, interpreting it as Christ’s love for the Church. Over time, those interpretations became so influential that many believers have never been encouraged to read the book on its own terms.

Some commentators even assigned symbolic meanings to the lovers’ body parts. The woman’s breasts have been interpreted as the Old and New Testaments, faith and love, or Jews and Gentiles. Every embrace became a doctrine. Every kiss became a lesson in salvation.

But at what point do we stop reading the text and start reading our discomfort into it?

Yes, human love can certainly remind us of God’s love. Healthy relationships can reveal something about covenant, commitment, and faithfulness. Jesus Himself used marriage as an illustration at times.

But there’s a difference between drawing inspiration from a text and claiming the text was written as a coded message.

Perhaps we’ve been so uncomfortable with sexuality that we couldn’t simply allow the Bible to celebrate it.

The church has often taught people to distrust their bodies while simultaneously proclaiming that humans were created in the image of God. We’ve treated desire as something suspicious instead of something that, when expressed with love, mutuality, and integrity, can be deeply beautiful.

Song of Solomon challenges that discomfort.

It reminds us that attraction isn’t inherently sinful.
Romance isn’t inherently worldly.
Desire isn’t the opposite of holiness.

The lovers delight in one another’s bodies without shame. They celebrate beauty without guilt. They don’t apologize for being human.

Maybe that’s exactly why this book belongs in Scripture.

The Bible isn’t only a collection of laws, prophecies, and theological arguments. It’s also a collection of poems, songs, stories, wisdom, grief, celebration, friendship, lament, and love.

Not every page exists to explain a doctrine.

Sometimes Scripture simply reflects the fullness of human experience.

We’ve become so conditioned to search for hidden meanings that we’ve forgotten the beauty of the obvious.

Maybe God included a love poem because love is worth singing about.
Maybe intimacy doesn’t have to symbolize salvation to be sacred.
Maybe romance doesn’t need to become a sermon to have value.

Not every kiss is a prophecy.

Not every embrace is a theological mystery.

Sometimes a love song is just a love song.

And maybe that’s exactly why it belongs in the Bible.

But here’s the question:

Why does a book celebrating human love make us so uncomfortable that we have to turn it into something else?

There’s a danger in forcing symbolism onto every passage. When we assume everything must have a deeper spiritual meaning, we can miss the beauty of what’s right in front of us.

Song of Solomon celebrates something the church has often struggled to celebrate: embodied love.

The lovers delight in one another without shame. They don’t apologize for desire. They don’t treat the body as an obstacle to spirituality. They rejoice in attraction as part of being human.

Perhaps that’s one reason the book survived. It reminds us that Scripture isn’t only concerned with worship, law, prophecy, and doctrine. It’s also concerned with love, beauty, longing, joy, and intimacy.

Maybe we’ve spent so much time searching for hidden meanings that we’ve overlooked the obvious one.

Maybe God included a love poem in the Bible because human love has value all by itself. Not everything has to be an allegory to be sacred; sometimes, the ordinary beauty of human affection is exactly what makes it holy.

Ultimately, the Song of Solomon reminds us that the most spiritual thing we can do is let the text speak before we try to speak for it. Allowing its raw, romantic passion to simply celebrate the goodness of love in its purest, most human form.

Blacklisted Saint

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