Don't Dis the Myths

I'm a big fan of myths, but one should be honest when dealing in myth. Myths are beautiful, speak a poetic language, engage the imagination, & point toward realities mere facts hint at only clumsily...don't dis my myths. 

Remind me if you wish that stories of global floods, virgin conceptions, spending half a week in a fish, conversing with snakes & donkeys, giants being angel-human hybrids, & people living hundreds of years are myths, but then let's sort out what the myths can teach us about life. Of course they didn't happen, but how DO they happen in us & in our lives? (dw)

The Bible isn't what most people assume it is.

 The Bible isn't what most people assume it is.

The [Christian] Bible is the Hebrew bible plus a 4th century anthology of mid-1st to early 2nd century literature (New Testament). The Bible is written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and most of the Greek texts were written by Aramaic speakers. It is unlikely that anyone in the NT ever met Jesus (as every NT text is written 20-100 years after Jesus' execution and the earliest writer definitely never met him). The texts are oft' copied and edited and translated, and no original documents have survived. We have translated copies of edited hand copied copies of documents that no longer exist. I love the Bible but for the human product that it is. I do not consider it divine, inerrant, magical, or beyond question or critique. The Bible we have is the result of 4th century church leaders addressing 4th century questions and needs with tales and traditions that are 200-700 years old at that time. The literature was written by Jewish people to Jewish people and was canonized by people who hadn't been connected to Judaism for 4-5 generations at least. These are important things to remember when tempted to say "the Bible says" or the "the Bible clearly teaches"...the Bible isn't univocal, isn't super clear on much, and is the result of a long process involving many voices, agendas, experiences, needs, desires and even multiple time periods, locations, and languages; and, we can't cross reference a single biblical sentence to an original document. Love the Bible, but don't use it as a weapon and don't let it be weaponized against you. It's just not built for that. (dw)

Global Justice Institute TDOR Public Statement

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

November 20, 2024 

TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 

 

Every year, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is observed on November 20. The week leading to TDOR is Transgender Awareness Week.  

 

GLAAD states on their website that TDOR is the “annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of 

anti-transgender violence.” 

 

An HRC report states that of the 36 transgender persons murdered in the last year, 78% identified as women, 61% were women of color, half were Black women, over 54% were under the age of 35, 22% were killed by intimate partners, and 9% were killed by a friend or family member.  

 

It is clear that Anti-trans violence involves intersections of misogyny, racism, and domestic violence. 

 

When Transgender people are demoralized and targeted by preachers and politicians, it fuels the unreasonable hatred against them. 

 

During this year’s Transgender Awareness Week, according to LGBTQ Nation, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia reportedly threatened to assault Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware if Ms. McBride were to make use of the women’s facilities at the Capitol. 

When asked if she had indeed made such a threat, MTG, without denying the report, said simply, “I shouldn’t have to” fight someone for using, in her opinion, the “wrong” restroom. 

 

This sort of threatening language makes Transgender people less safe. Sarah McBride is a person, and someone elected by her district to represent them in Congress. She is also a history maker as the first transwoman elected to Congress. Ms. McBride shouldn’t have to worry for a second that she might be bullied by a fellow Congressperson.

 

Today, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced a ban on transwomen using the women’s restrooms at the Capitol. Despite his very recent claim that everyone is treated with dignity and respect on Capitol Hill, this anti-trans bathroom policy seems disrespectful to transgender people in general, and to Ms. McBride in particular.  

 

When questioned by reporters about McBride specifically, LGBTQ Nation reported that the Speaker said, “For anyone who doesn’t know my established record on this issue, let me be 

unequivocally clear: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.” He wrongly claimed that his view is the teaching of scripture.

 

Mike Johnson is entitled to his prejudices and to his limited and outmoded understanding of gender, but he should not use his biases to discriminate against a duly elected member of the House of Representatives. And for this discrimination against and disrespect of Transgender persons to occur on TDOR is not only insulting, it also illustrates what fuels violence against Transgender people and why TDOR and Transgender Awareness Week are needed. 

 

The Bishops of the Global Justice Institute, under the leadership of Presiding Bishop Pat Bumgardner, call on all people of goodwill, and especially all people of faith to apply the Golden Rule toward our Transgender siblings.  

 

We ask that people who claim to embrace a religious tradition remember that love and kindness are the guiding themes of most religions, and to realize that Transgender persons are no less entitled to kindness than anyone else.  

 

And finally, we call on all supporters of the Global Justice Institute to continue your support during these uncertain and, for many, perilous times, and to join us in praying for the safety of Transgender people and all members of the LGBTQ community going forward.  

 

“…there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” St. Paul 

 

 

Wishing you blessings of hope and resilience, 

 

 

+Bishop Durrell Watkins  

on behalf of the Global Justice Institute’s Council of Bishops  

 

 

+Bishop Pat Bumgardner, Presiding Bishop & Executive Director 

+Jim Merritt, Auxiliary Bishop 

+Robert Griffin, Auxiliary Bishop 

+Durrell Watkins, Auxiliary Bishop

Theism Isn't the Only Way to Explore the Sacred

 The God of my understanding and experience is a presence and a power, not a person, not a potentate.  

Love at its most perfect; that’s God.

The field of unlimited possibilities; that’s God. 

What’s really real; that’s God.

 

Light and air, water and star dust, and echoes of the big bang all coming together as you and as me; that’s God.

 

The Substance and Fabric and Vitality of life; that’s God.

 

The indescribable More; that’s God.

All-in-all; that’s God.

 

Or rather, those are the ways that I experience, understand, and try to discuss the 

unnamable Something that must be pondered but can’t be dissected, 

 

That can be experienced intimately but never known completely, 

 

That requires awe but not submission, 

 

That inspires love and never cruelty, 

 

That is part of everything but cannot be limited by anything. 

 

And I call that, for lack of a better word, God...

 

We’ve been to the moon. The internet connects us instantly to people across geography and time zones. We transplant organs. We have nano robots that do medical procedures from inside bodies. We cloned a sheep. We fly in the air. Every day.

 

We can live underwater for big stretches of time. 

We synthesized insulin. We can help a lot of people live past 100.

 

There are over 700,000 humans alive right now who are more than 100 years old. There are more centenarians on the planet than there are people living in Denver.

 

We know that homo sapiens (that’s us) have been around for 200,000 years with hominin ancestors going back 5 million years or more (maybe 10).  

 

We live on a small planet in a modest solar system that is one of 400 billion solar systems in a galaxy that is one of 2 trillion galaxies in a vast and expanding universe that is at least 13.8 billion years old and might actually be eternal (always is but never began).

 

The old guy on a cloud passing judgement, pulling puppet strings, deciding when people die, granting favors to the deserving few – 

 

is a mental image we inherited from a world that thought earth was flat and at the center of the universe. 

 

For God to be relevant and real to us, we MUST liberate Her from the middle ages and recognize the divine as part of the fabric of the universe that we actually inhabit. 

 

So, if God isn’t a superhero, but is the air we breathe and the light we see by and the electricity in the room and the love we feel more deeply than we can describe…

 

then we can pray to that God because that God is always with us, exactly where we are; 

we are part of its vastness; it individuates as us. The universe explores and knows itself as us.

 

So, yes we pray. We turn within, because God is there; or we turn outward, because God is there, or we turn to the Great Teachers (like Jesus), because God is there, or we turn to the traditions, because God is there, 

 

or we turn to one another, because God is there. That’s how and why we pray, because there’s not a spot where God is not. 

 

We aren’t calling out across a great canyon, we’re tapping Love itself on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, can I have a hug?” 

The answer is always yes.

(excerpts from Nov. 17, 2024 homily at Sunshine Cathedral)

 - dw

Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses

Pro-Gay, Pro-Trans, & Pro-Choice, with Bible Verses (by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins)

On the sub/Reddit thread “Gay Christians” a straight identified poster asked, “Is being gay ever approved or said as okay by God or Jesus in the bible? Is transitioning to a different gender a sin? And do you (a gay Christian) believe in abortions (why or why not)? It would be nice for scripture to be included [in your response]. Asking because I’m curious.”

A day later, the OP (original poster) had received 25 responses, including this one from me:

The very few verses used to condemn LGBTQ people are all in the context of violence or exploitation. Love is never condemned.

We now know that gender isn't binary so "transitioning" is just a matter of coming to terms with one's gender experience & identity & then living in one's truth. Eunuchs in the Bible were considered a sort of third gender and Isaiah says they have a special place in God's all-inclusive house of prayer.

I am pro-choice. I believe everyone should have bodily autonomy. In the creation myth Adam is just a body until the breath of life enters him. His life begins with the ability to breathe on his own, not with simply being formed.

Those biblical nods were because you asked for them. I actually do not limit my moral reasoning to ancient texts that have been interpreted in countless ways & used to justify such horrors as war & slavery. I study scripture but I don't use it in place of independent thinking.

That said, I will add a verse that I find to be true, not because it's in a sacred book but because it has proven to be healing in my own life: "God is Love & WHOEVER lives in love lives in God & God lives in them."

What Kind of Church is Sunshine Cathedral?

What Kind of Church is Sunshine Cathedral? (by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins)

Sunshine Cathedral’s theology can be boiled down to “God is the power and presence of love, and that presence is omnipresent, everywhere, fully present.”

 

Every single message you hear at Sunshine Cathedral will feature that simple but powerful and life-changing idea: God is omnipresent Love.

 

Just as our worship is a blend of many ideas, experiences, and traditions, so also is our theology the product of blending. We are historically affiliated with Metropolitan Community Churches, a movement started by a gay, defrocked Pentecostal minister (Troy Perry) with a primary outreach to LGBTQ+ people and an enthusiastic affirmation of LGBTQ+ people as children of God designed to be exactly who they are.

 

We are also affiliated with the International Council of Community Churches, the Divine Science Federation, and the International New Thought Alliance. For decades, we have embraced the principles of Progressive Christianity, the principles of New Thought, and the openness of spiritual humanism. 

 

Progressive Christianity simply says questions are more important than the answers we come up with, that everyone is loved by God, that other religions also have wisdom and holiness, that science is important and not at odds with spirituality, and that scripture can be understood in a variety of ways and the best ways are those that promote justice, tolerance, goodwill, and peace.

 

New Thought began as an American healing movement in the 19th century. Their guiding

principles were the omnipresence and goodness of God, the power of thoughts, feelings, and

attitudes to help shape our experiences in life, and the use of affirmations and visualization to make prayer more effective.

 

Finally, spiritual humanism is also part of the air we breathe at Sunshine Cathedral. Spiritual humanism affirms the innate goodness and the potential of human-beings, allows for spiritual community, spiritual experiences, and a variety of opinions about the existence and nature of divinity.

 

Examples of spiritual humanists (who might have also been Christian or Jewish or Muslim, etc.) include Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, or the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism Mordecai Kaplan. 

 

Spiritual humanists, while not being limited by dogma or creeds, value the individual spiritual experience and the insights that come from it and also value evidence-based science.

 

Sunshine Cathedral is a diverse, joyful, and non-dogmatic community of spiritual seekers where questions are sacred and absolutes are few. What we will declare without waiver or apology is: You are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake.

SunshineCathedral.org

GOD’S MIRACLE, NOT GOD’S MISTAKE

GOD’S MIRACLE, NOT GOD’S MISTAKE

A Durrell Discourse

For years now at Sunshine Cathedral, we have said (repeatedly, often, from pulpit and in print, in lessons and in liturgy), “You are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake.”

After years of using this phrase as a sacred mantra at Sunshine Cathedral, I recently am noticing it popping up on social media. At first, I felt a bit proprietary, as if no other person might have ever thought to string those words together in that order. But then I remembered Ecclesiastes’ wise counsel, “there is nothing new under the sun.” I might have heard it or something similar years before I thought the phrase a product of my own genius. And whether it was me, Zig Ziglar, Mary Baker Eddy or Krishna himself who coined the phrase, what matters is that it is true. I now want everyone saying it, and acting as if the phrase fell from heaven (as perhaps it did).

In my theology, God is really all there is. One Source, One Power, One Presence, One Substance...God is all and in all. That doesn’t mean that we always remember our divinity or that our every act or word is godly, but when we get caught in our dramas and fictions, that doesn’t change the reality that our essence is divine, and what is really Real is what we call God, and what is real about us must be part of God. So, we aren’t mistakes, we are God expressing.

The message of the Incarnation, for me, isn’t that God became human once, but that God expresses in, through, and as all that is, including you and me. Jesus, then, is my reminder that when we are most human, we express divine love.

If I’m part of God, then I am a miracle. If God is love and I am part of God, then my love is God’s love in action. I am, you are, we are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake: That isn’t a slogan to own, but a truth to share. If you see Sunshine folk posting it, feel free to share. It’s a message that needs to be universally embraced.

No matter where you heard it first, I hope you hear it now - you are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake. I especially want my Queer siblings to embrace this truth. We are the Rainbow people of a Rainbow God. Our lives and our love are miracles, never a mistake. Spread the word!

(Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Senior Minister, Sunshine Cathedral)

GOD LOVES YOU, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

GOD LOVES YOU, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

A Durrell Discourse

I’m seeing a lot of “God loves you” talk in these early days of Pride Month. Good! But I am aware that such sentiments may be a bit hollow for those who doubt or who have rejected “God.” Of course, divinity need not be limited to an Olympian humanoid figure...God may be a power rather than a person, a presence, the source of all energy which makes up all that is, even a symbol to represent all that is good and beautiful.

I’m in the God business and have dedicated my life to the God-experience, and yet, the God of my understanding is not a person in a great beyond, but rather, the very life that I know as my life, the heartbeat of the world I see, the substance of worlds that I can scarcely imagine. God isn’t something apart from me, but Something I am a part of...forever.

Ultimate Reality is too big (even “big” is too small a way to describe It) for us in our physical state to comprehend, so we are left with the god of our understanding (our various understandings). In a sermon once, Rev. Shelley Hamilton said, “God is the search for God.” I can’t know exactly what she meant, but that phrase has stuck with me for almost 30 years, and how I understand it is that we experience God according to our consciousness (awareness, understanding, life-view). God (Life, Eternity, Reality, Existence) is bigger than anything I imagine, but I experience It as I imagine It.

Rev. David Alexander once said it this way on a podcast, “God is our relationship to the ‘Thing Itself.’” Again, Ultimate Reality, the “Ground of Being” (#Tillich) is known as we experience It, and our experience will be shaped by what we believe about It (and a belief is just a well rehearsed opinion, a crystallized thought). I believe it was Ernest Holmes who said God is personal to the degree that we personalize God...another way of saying, “god is the search for god” or “god is our relationship to the thing itself.”

My non-theistic theology (or more accurately, my monistic theology, or perhaps, Panentheistic theology) means that, for me, God is not loving but is Love itself, not good, but Goodness (All that is good is an expression of God), not powerful, but all Power, not a being, but the Source of being.

If God for you is a loving parent figure on a high mountain - then, let me join with the others who are saying, “God loves you!”

But if God (life, hope, joy, meaning, beauty, the animating spark of existence) is an experience that can’t be fully explained, a presence rather than a person, a Wholeness that includes you or high Ideal that you hold, then let me say it this way: God is Love and it exists in and is expressed through the love you share.

Don’t let religious vocabularies which are limited at best keep you from the euphoria of feeling good enough, empowered, joyful, and vibrant.

God loves you, OR, God is love and dwells richly in and shows up as your love. Either way...Happy Pride!

—Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Sunshine Cathedral

From Trauma to Triumph (A Good Friday Reflection)

From trauma to triumph
by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

“Perhaps Jesus would have preferred less than a long night of trauma in Gethsemane or less than three days in the tomb. Yet, in the midst of the dark hours…and…the lonely days and nights…life and light were active and miracles were happening…It is in the midst of weakness that you are made strong. In fear-filled times you are given courage. In trauma you are brought into serenity. In discouragement you find faith.” Mary L. Kupferle

I do not for a single moment believe that Jesus was predestined to be tortured to death. Jesus was killed by imperial powers the same way many others were. What is worthy of celebration isn’t that Jesus was tortured to death, but that the cruelty that tried to silence him and stifle the hope he gave to so many, failed. Yes, he suffered, but he still lives…in story, in song, in scripture, in ritual, in our imaginations, in every act of kindness, empowerment, mercy, and justice that we perform in his name. God doesn’t send the horrors, but God gives us the courage to face them, and miraculously, to even rise above them. Good Friday doesn’t enshrine trauma, it points toward triumph. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Hope will prevail. Miracles are at hand. And so it is.

Tenebrae Service at Sunshine Cathedral tonight at 7 pm (4/19/19)

1480 SW Ninth Ave

Fort Lauderdale

SunshineCathedral.org 

Musings of a Pro-Choice Pastor

Pastor Durrell says: “If you celebrate Abraham’s ’faithfulness’ for being willing to slaughter his own child,
If you are unaware of or unconcerned about Jephthah’s sacrificing his own daughter,
If you use Sodom and Gomorrah (a story void of love or romance or attraction) to condemn gays but have no problem with Lot’s willingness to sacrifice his daughters to a rape gang only later to commit incest with them himself,
If you ignore the passage in Exodus that says if two men fighting cause a pregnant woman to miscarry, a fine must be paid - unless the WOMAN is inured, then its ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot’,
Or if you’re Christology involves the belief that a deity required the brutal execution of ’his’ (sic) Son (and that’s somehow a good thing)...
Then your opposition to a woman’s freedom to make her own procreative health choices is not about the bible. There are child sacrifices in sacred scripture that you find laudable, and there is no passage forbidding fetus removal or early pregnancy termination.
Your belief may be sincere and even passionately held, but a biblical mandate it is not.
Please stop using religion to colonize women’s bodies.
Let’s create a world where the need for abortion is rare. In the meantime, men should not ever get the final decision about women’s choices.” (dw)

#ProChoicePastor

Lots of Feels as EDS’ St. John’s Chapel is Deconsecrated Today

The Philadelphia Divinity School and the Episcopal Theological School merged in the 1970s to become the Episcopal Divinity School. EDS had diverse faculty (Episcopal, Presbyterian, Jewish, Asian, African American, Caucasian, men, women, gays, lesbians, lay, ordained) and a diverse student body (Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran, UCC, Unitarian Universalist, MCC, Seventh Day Adventist, Baptist, Anglicans from Kenya, Uganda, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc), and it was part of a world class consortium (The Boston Theological Institute) which included Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard.

EDS was a special place dedicated to anti-oppression work, to an inclusive gospel, to sharing the all-inclusive and unconditional love of God.

And, more than a school, it was a community. One never really was graduated from EDS. One was degreed, but never felt the need to “leave.” One to three times a year, every year since I earned my DMin there, I would go “home” to EDS.

EDS lives on in the ministry of the church I pastor and in parishes, Cathedrals, Chaplaincies, service organizations, the diaconate, classrooms, and hearts all over the world.

Last year, EDS was closed down (unnecessarily, in my view, and in ways that many of us resisted). EDS’ name and money still exist as EDS@Union (basically the Anglican house of studies at Union Theological Seminary in NYC, my other beloved theological alma mater). If the merger had been done more transparently and honestly (by EDS trustees), and if EDS could have retained a degree program (MATS or DMin maybe), I think it would have been something I could have celebrated (two great schools joining forces), and/or if they had kept one or two EDS faculty (they sacked them all) that would have been at least kind (and bridge building). Instead, the merger feels more like loss and has caused grief for many.

These thoughts are with me as St John’s Chapel on the campus of what was EDS in Cambridge, MA is deconsecrated today. God bless the EDS diaspora and the EDS energy that still flows through so many ministries.

I've Seen ( and experienced) Resurrection

Resurrection Narratives symbolize (for me) the possibility of renewal:

I’ve seen churches that were facing extinction experience a revival of passion and purpose and become thriving faith communities again.

I’ve seen people who were rejected by their families form new families of choice that were loving, functional, joyful, and life-giving.

I’ve seen people who were not the best parents get a second chance and prove themselves to be absolutely heroic grandparents.

I’ve seen old emotional wounds finally heal.

I’ve seen people who dropped out of school go back 50 years later and finish what they started.

I’ve seen people accomplish in wheelchairs more than they ever did when they had stronger bodies.

I’ve seen people face their addictions and live in freedom.

I’ve seen people outlive their prognoses by decades.

I’ve seen victims transform into survivors, and then into helpers who show others how to survive.

I’ve seen people come out and live in the powerful truth of their gender identity or their sexual orientation and realize that what they once thought of as a problem is in reality a great blessing.

I’ve seen people who had no self esteem come to believe that they are indeed God’s miracle and not God’s mistake!

#Resurrection #Renewal

Is the Bible Just a Bunch of Fairy Tales?

I am often asked if the bible is "just" a bunch of fairy tales or "just" some old stories. For a lover of stories, "just" seems misplaced. 

Religion is mythological. Myths are meant to help us get at truth, not facts. 

Bible stories, for me anyway, are allegories for life. I honestly couldn’t care less if not one thing in the Bible ever literally, factually happened...because in my experience, what the stories are trying to communicate are true and timeless and relevant for my life. I’m Joseph. I’m Jacob. I’m Mary. I’m Elizabeth. I’m Miriam. I’m Aaron. I’m Elijah. I’m Amos. I’m the serpent. I’m Eve. I’m Noah. I’m Peter. I’m Paul. I’m Stephen. Each story shows me who I am, or who I have been, or who I can be. Each story shows mistakes I’ve made or are likely to make. Each story shows me that redemption is possible, that I am more than what I currently know and more than what I’ve done so far. So, they are true for me, even if they are not factual (and, honestly, I doubt if many of them are entirely factual).

Remember the famous editorial in the 1897 Sun answering the question “Is there a Santa Claus?” When “Virginia” asks if Santa is real, the writer explains that what Santa represents (hope, generosity, kindness, goodwill, etc.) is very real and very much needed. “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” is the most remembered line from that piece. There isn’t a man living at the North Pole, flying with magic reindeer tossing presents under trees, but there is a human urge and need to care for others, to express love, to be generous...we need, and in our best moments believe in everything Santa is supposed to be. So, Santa is true, while not being factual. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Marcus Borg said there are three phases to faith development:

1. Precritical.
They sold it, we bought it. We accept the stories as they are, taking them as literal facts with no need to question them. This is how we start out.

2. Critical.

Things don’t make sense and we have a lot of questions. We start to not believe some of the stories. Walking on water? Lazarus coming to life after 4 days of decomposition? Abraham willing to slaughter his son? People in the desert being cured of snake venom by looking at a serpentine tchotchke? At the critical level, we start to call “bullshit.” [Of course Borg didn't say "B/S". The categories are his; the explanations of them in this piece are mine]

Most people get stuck at the first or second level. But Borg says there’s an important third. We have to go through 1 and 2 to get to #3, but 3 is the goal.

3. Post-critical.
That’s where we reclaim the stories and find new meaning and relevance in them. We don’t take them literally, but we no longer need to toss them out entirely. We read them and breathe new life into them and let them be free of the bondage of literalism and they become alive for us and fresh and exciting.


Sometimes people fear that expanding their understanding of and relationship to the bible is akin to giving up on God. One - don't worry about that. Two - we all give up old notions of God as we grow. We've all cast upon the garbage heap of life old gods (or understandings of the divine) that no longer serve us. Meister Eckhart wrote, “I pray God to make me free of God.” When God is presence and power and goodness and possibility rather than a person (with personality quirks), that may not be abandoning God as much as simply letting God be bigger for us...beyond description and images. Graven images of God are too limiting, that’s why the Decalogue discourages us from having them.

And what of the biblical Jesus? Was he a prophet? A teacher? Philosopher? Rebel? Social activist? Healer? Miracle worker? Revolutionary? Messiah? Divine being? Someone who lived so authentically into his humanity that people thought he must something more?

Jesus himself (in the story anyway) asks the important question: “Who do YOU say that I am?” Following Jesus, in my view, will include seeing Jesus differently over time. Relationships grow and evolve. If Jesus is going to have a primary place in my consciousness, then my understanding of him will probably change over time.  I don’t think we can get it wrong really, unless we stop trying. 

No wonder one is to work out one’s own salvation “with fear and trembling” (h/t the Apostle Paul)! It is a lot of work, and every question leads to more questions, and every answer must eventually be discarded or replaced or upgraded. But that’s the journey. That’s the faith walk. Doubting and questioning and wrestling and wondering...that’s the gig! And that’s what we see in scripture...people working out their stuff and sharing their journey in literary, symbolic, allegorical, metaphorical, mystical, mythical, tragic, comedic, political, ritualistic, poetic, clumsy, smooth, and courageous ways. 

Even if the characters aren’t real (and honestly, some aren't), the writers certainly were real, and the writers are using their characters to tell their stories and when we read and question them, we are adding our own. That’s the magic of scripture. Again, I don’t need one character to be historical in order for their stories to be relevant and powerful and life changing for me. 

Those of us who free ourselves of literalism find the Bible to be new and refreshing...offering something powerful with each new reading. It’s a conversation rather than a crystal ball, a builder’s tool rather than an anchor, an open door rather than a locked one.  So, maybe there was no Abraham. Almost certainly there was no global flood (there may have been a regional disaster). Of course Jonah didn’t live three days in a fish. Snakes and donkeys do not talk and never have. Virgins and 90 year old women don’t have babies. And the resurrection may be more about resurrecting hope and purpose and courage than about one body that was reanimated for a few weeks. AND...none of those “facts” change the truth that I find in each of those stories - truth that is applicable to my life, my journey, my faith. 

Standing in the Need of Prayer

I love the old hymn lyrics: “It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” I happen to be someone who needs (and relies on) the power of prayer.

Skeptics (who can usually count me one of their own, but to their annoyance I also embrace mysticism, optimism, and recurring bouts of faith) will ask me if I really believe that prayer works. My experience is, as they say in 12 step programs, “It works if you work it.” That doesn’t mean that every wish is magically granted or that every difficulty instantly goes away. But lots of overlapping realities make getting support problematic (for me) sometimes. Maybe I don’t know how to ask or maybe I don’t know who to ask, but many times seeking encouragement from a friend (or acquaintance, colleague, or even professional listener of some sort) has left me feeling as lonely or anxious or defeated as if I had never sought it at all. BUT...whenever I have prayed, “Help!” to the seeming nothingness around me, I have almost always found relief. Maybe I am able to rest. Maybe a fresh idea comes to mind. Maybe I see things from a broader and brighter perspective. Maybe I find new resolve. Maybe I just accept that I can’t do much about the problem in that moment and that kind of surrender can lead to peace or at least temporary relief. Once in a while, a miracle (a dramatic change of perception) shows up!

I’ve asked people for  support...sometimes I got it in abundance, other times I got a little and what I got came begrudgingly, still other times I got squat, but when I have asked the god of my ever evolving understanding and experience for support, I have received it. Did the support come from God, my higher Self, my subconscious mind, or are they all the same Thing (or all parts of the same Thing)? I don’t much care. What I know is that prayer has offered relief that didn’t seem to come from anywhere else. 

I think if I were an atheist I would be a praying atheist. My experience of prayer is that encouraging. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep praying. I may not do it the way you do, I may understand the mechanics of prayer differently than you do, but I have come to depend on and be profoundly grateful for moments of prayer. And, as a side note, I find some of the most cathartic prayer experiences happen in the middle of the night, but really, I think any time is a good time for prayer.  

Read the Bible, eh?

A woman in Tennessee said on social media today that all “sins” are equal, and went on to say “homosexuality is the same as murder” at the sin level. I challenged the assumption that love or even attraction could in any way compare to murder. She responded by telling me to read the Bible. My response was probably overly thorough; nevertheless, here is what I said to her:

Where should I start in the bible? Perhaps 1 Timothy 2.12 that says that you as a woman have no business trying to instruct me, a man. Of course, that is the sexism of the culture and times and not a mandate from God, so let's move on.

Should I read the creation myth that has humanity created out of nothingness, or the myth (one page later) that says men were created from dirt and women were created a week later from the man's rib? They can't both be literally factual (neither of them is). Should I read where Cain and Abel took wives (but only their parents had been "created" so far in the tale)? Where'd the wives come from?!! Was God pulling off another creation nearby? Did they hook up with some unmentioned sisters (ick)? Should I read the version that says that Eve was created from Adam, which defies the gender binaries the Christian fundamentalists lift up as sacrosanct.

Perhaps I should read the Sodom and Gomorrah story...a story about angels narrowly escapinig gang rape (which of course is a bad thing but has nothing to do with mutual love or attraction) and continue reading to find Lot (the supposed hero of the story) having incest with his daughters in a cave. Maybe that's not a good story to use for ethical or honorable behavior. 

Maybe I should read about Jephthah who murdered his own daughter because he promised God a human sacrifice. 

Should I read in Ezekiel about a woman's lovers having donkey sized genitals and horse powered emissions? (That's hot, but doesn't support your case). 

Perhaps Ephesians 6.5 ("slaves obey your masters") is a part of the bible you'd recommend (moving on, I'm afraid you wouldn't find anything wrong with that one!). 

What about Deuteronomy 22.28-29 that would force a female victim to marry her rapist? 

Perhaps I should read about the patriarchs like David (who was in love with Jonathan long before he raped Bathsheba and murdered her husband...by the way, his covenantal relationship with Jonathan isn’t the problematic part of his story!), or Solomon with his hundreds of wives and concubines, or Abraham who exploited (to put it mildly) and then abandoned Hagar and their child, but since he sold his wife to a King and was willing to murder his only child, his character was always a bit sketchy. 

You see, I am familiar with the texts, familiar enough to know that same-gender love and mutual attraction are never condemned in scripture (and, even if they were, we'd still have to explore the issue). Rape and exploitation (i.e. Temple prostitution) are condemned (obvs), but love never is. In fact, even Paul (whose condemnation of idolatry in Romans 1 is misused to torment gay people) said that love fulfills the law! Maybe YOU should read the bible, and question it, and wrestle with it, and ask questions of it and about it...and stop using it as a crutch to support your prejudices and superstitions.

Why is 45 Stirring Up “Merry Xmas” BS in October?

If we’re going to be a Xian Theocracy, let’s do it properly. I’m going to insist that ppl wish me a Holy Advent, a Glorious Epiphany, a Meaningful Lent, a Joyful Easter, an Uplifting Ascension, a Powerful Pentecost, and a Righteous Reign of Christ Sunday. If its about “xian values”...Xianity is more than Xmas!

Also, Christmas is Dec 25-Jan 5. It offends Baby Jesus if you wish me a Merry Xmas too early, and it breaks his heavenly heart if you forget to wish me xmas blessings on Dec 26, 27, 28, etc. So, do follow the Christmastide precisely, won’t you?

Onerous? Silly? Fine. Then let’s forget it and let those who wish to do so offer the polite and inclusive “Happy Holidays”...And while we’re at it, let’s NOT be a xian theocracy or any other kind of theocracy...they tend to be oppressive. 

#What45DoesNotKnowAboutReligionIsALot 

#Stick2Presidenting 

#ActuallyUMightWant2StartPresidenting 

Removing Hate Symbols Isn't Erasing History

Removing Hate Symbols Is Not Erasing History
Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

I get it...If we grew up in Hot Springs or Augusta or Mobile or New Orleans or Richmond or Memphis...there are things about our home towns we love; and, we don't want to think of our heritage as being cruel or unenlightened (but, no one's story is all nobility, wisdom, and grace). We love our crawfish and our cornbread dressing and our collard greens and our fried okra. We love our gardens and relatively mild winters (very mild in south Florida). We are proud of Vanderbilt, Tulane, Prairie View, Southern, Emory, Rice, William and Mary, and UNC-Chapel Hill. We enjoy the fact that log cabins, grand mansions, and manufactured homes all exist within the same family. We find a Blanche DuBois or Julia Sugarbaker accent to be musical and pleasant to our ears. Some of us like duck, squirrel, and deer hunting (not me, but many do). We may even take pride in the fact that 3 of the last 7 US presidents {Carter (Georgia), Clinton (Arkansas), and Bush 2 (Texas)} all came from our neck of the woods. And as much as we get to take pride in all of that, the truth remains that slavery, treasonous secession, Jim Crow, and vile racist attitudes left over and passed down from that era are also our legacy and inheritance.

Battle flags that have become the banner of every white supremacist organization and statues of Confederate generals are not just "history" to be remembered. They are painful reminders of the worst of our frailties and failings. They hurt people. They remind people that our history includes not viewing all people as fully human, and some evil residue from that time has not been washed from our collective consciousness yet. These monuments aren't gumbo, blue grass, and sun belt football...they are a tableaux of hate, oppression, and injustice. Maybe we can be proud of what's good about the South without needing to feature or revere what was never good.

These symbols of oppression become even more toxic when defended by those who claim to follow the prince of peace, a homeless born child and refugee who grew up in an occupied territory and who was executed in the manner of a run away slave. When followers of Jesus turn a blind eye to symbols of oppression, it taints our religion as well as our culture.

Our feelings may be complex, but let us be open to those who feel unsafe, unwanted, and whose history of oppression are effectively swept aside by statues that honor a time when our ancestors wrongly believed that some humans could be owned. And let us also know that some of these monuments were erected in the 20th century as a nod to segregation, another unfortunate chapter in our national history.

Monuments honoring those who fought for slavery and for treasonous secession are an attempt to rewrite history. Taking them down won't erase history, it will allow for a fuller telling of the whole story.

If we think we need reminders of an evil past, let's put them in text books and museums, not in public squares to insult the descendants of the victims of that past. The mere fact that such monuments are now revered by present day nazis is reason enough to move them from our Southern sunshine.

Yes we have an unfortunate past...let's not build shrines to it in public squares. Confederate idols must go the way of the golden calf. And then, we can celebrate our healing and evolution Southern style...with New Orleans jazz and Memphis blues, with Kentucky bourbon and Texas beer, with Carolina barbecue and sweet iced tea, with Florida stone crabs and deep fried hush puppies. Let's be clear about what is historically worth celebrating, and what is not.

Charlottesville: A Pastoral Statement

Charlottesville: A Pastoral Statement

Dear People of Faith,

The sight of torch wielding white nationalists last night in Virginia must surely disturb and sicken all people of conscience and character. All people of courage and conviction will want to denounce the ugliness that such a spectacle represents.

In addition to our shared outrage at such blatant racist symbolism, let us also realize that such despicable actions are emboldened by dog whistle language that demonizes "the Other", that attacks, vilifies, or seeks to exclude people for how they look, how they identify, how they pray, or who they love. Regardless of who uses this kind of divisive and demeaning language, even if such speakers of spite otherwise share our religious or political affiliations, we must name such language for the vile, vitriolic, verbal venom that it is.

Our nation, our communities, our social media seem too often to ignore or reward the language of racism, the actions of homophobia, the dehumanization of transgender people, the xenophobic threats against immigrants, recycled anti-Semitic code words, and the unfair characterizations of faithful followers of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him). And while we have ignored or fanned the flames of hatred, the peddlers of hate and curators of bigotry have felt it is their time to rise without fear of consequence. President Abraham Lincoln spoke of the better angels of our nature...those angels are fewer or at least less active than we need them to be right now. Let us wake our angels and call them to action!

Today, in Charlottesville, VA, violence has erupted as so often will happen when hate is glorified or left unchecked. Let us wish for healing where the poison of prejudice has flowed too freely, and let us also know that when we turn away from human evil, we are tacitly giving it permission to continue. The xenophobia and homophobia and transphobia and racism we are seeing in public places lately are demonstrations of human evil (or we could say, of soul sickness). We cannot ignore it away; we must call it what it is, and boldly declare in the name of all that we hold to be good and holy that we will not let hate win...we will at very least not allow it to be expressed without challenge.

My dear friends, this is a troubling time and a painful day. This is a day when even God must surely weep.

We can decide and determine that this is also a day of hope, a day when we will choose to recommit to the work of justice and peace for all the children of God, which is to say, for all people.

May hearts that are burdened with fear be healed.
May hearts that are infected with hate be healed.
May hearts that are sluggish with indifference be healed.
And let us pray with Jesus, "Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil."

In the weeks, months, and even years ahead, let's be faithful to worship together, work together, pray together, and even play together so that we can build up a community of justice-love that can offer hope and healing to a hurting world. Such healing is still very much needed.

Yours in shared service,

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Senior Minister

How I Came to Believe in God

A question was asked on Facebook: "To my friends who claim a faith, how did you come to believe in a deity?"

Of course, many people answered, and as you would expect, the answers varied greatly. Here was my reply:
"Raised in a religious home and culture, a supreme being seemed an a priori fact. That same religion condemned me for my same-gender loving orientation and it's god which condemned me for being gay was apparently unable or unwilling to zap me straight. That led to deep questioning and searching...so for me, it wasn't about coming to believe that there was a deity, but trying to summon the courage to decide if possibly there wasn't one. In my search I came to believe that God is the search for God...the search for meaning, the ways we try to mine the depths of ultimate reality, is what we mean by 'god.' It may or may not be self-aware, but the questions are energizing even if they can't be answered. And anyway, it's become easy for me to accept that all that is makes up a whole, and the whole must be greater than the sum of its parts. To call it 'god' and explore ways to be nurtured and empowered by it is the religious quest, and so, I remain a religious person with more questions than answers but a 'faith' (trust) that we don't need the answers to be alright. We're all on a path and we will all reach whatever there is to reach." (dw)

My Prayer on this National Day of Prayer

The National Day of Prayer is held annually on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952.

Let us pray for the United States of America:

O God whose kin-dom knows no geographical borders, we affirm today that your benevolent omnipresence enfolds and includes all life. And we take great comfort in that truth today; and comfort is needed.

The politics of self-interest which would deny care to some who need it most frightens us, and so we pray - God have mercy.

The politics of division, where large segments of the human family are dehumanized and demonized, leaves us desperately sad. God have mercy.

The politics of domination makes us anxious and concerned. God have mercy.

Attitudes which seek to exclude people because of who they love, how they identify themselves, how they pray, or where by accident of birth they started life seem to run rampant, and so we pray - God have mercy.

Violence is ever with us. God have mercy.

Mistrust plagues us individually and collectively. God have mercy.

Racism infects our hearts and our institutions. God have mercy.

Xenophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and heterosexism all seem to be experiencing a collective and unholy revival. God have mercy.

Our very earth seems to be at risk, and not only of being harmed, but of having that harm ignored for profit. For our earth, our mother, our home we pray - God have mercy.

Mass incarcerations, the threat of war, illness, poverty…there are so many needs to address. For those trying to address them, please give them wisdom and strength and courage.

We know all nations face times of economic difficulty, or conflict, or vulnerability in the face of natural disasters, and we know that you have blessed the human family with resilience and the grace to hope even in the most dire of circumstances, and so we remember today that whatever frightens us will not last forever, but dignity and grace and the possibility of healing will last. We know that faith, hope, and love all endure, and that the greatest of these gifts is love. Let us today embrace the power of love. Let us love ourselves, and our neighbors, and our enemies, and our country, and our world and may this love bring healing wherever, whenever, and however it is most needed.

On this day of prayer, let us also call to mind people of faith: those who embrace Judaism, those follow the way of Jesus, those whose prophet is Muhammad, those who identify as Sikh, those who seek enlightenment as Buddhists, those who worship as Hindus, those who keep the traditions of the native ancestors of this land alive, those whose faith is in human potential, those who place their faith in science, those who faith is unnamed but no less dear and sustaining to them…may our various faiths bring out the best in us and help us see and honor the best in one another.

God bless this country and help us be kinder, more inclusive, more just, more peace loving, and more willing to assure the well-being of all who call this land their inherited or their chosen home. God, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen. 

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister

Sunshine Cathedral 

As sent out via Constant Contact