Articles for author: twhoshaw

August 22, 2024

twhoshaw

What makes us human? The Thing.

Mother and Child – Egon Schiele, 1914 A quick thought: One way to think about injustice (what Christians often call “sin”) is as what happens when we deny what is intractable, insistent, human: violence/sexuality. One way to think about the “conversions” of both Saint Paul and Saint Augustine is as types of fleeing from one or another of those things or “the thing.” What would happen if we started where Ibram Kendi does in Stamped from the Beginning, with the refreshing assumption that nothing is wrong with us? In this context, what would happen if we acknowledged, soberly and honestly,

July 18, 2024

twhoshaw

Political Desire: A Challenge for U.S. Democracy

Political desire into democracy will not go. Political desire feeds on the ideal. It does not compromise. It hates frustration. It must have exactly what it wants, its ideal, or . . . else. Democracy is perpetually threatened by a people’s political desire. Saint Paul offers us something different: a redeemed political desire.

June 17, 2024

twhoshaw

Possessed by “Demons”

A sermon based on the Gospel of John 19:25-29 (FYI: the word “home” is NOT in the Greek text): * As Jesus is dying on the cross, the disciple he loves—the boy he loves—the one, we are told, who is responsible for the Gospel of John, is on his mind. In the final moments of Jesus’ life, his beloved’s future is his ultimate concern. We don’t know the identity of the man Jesus loved, but what we do know is that he is the only disciple Jesus is explicitly said to have loved. We also know that he is the

May 15, 2024

twhoshaw

Rest From Cruel Dominion: Embracing Mercy on the Sabbath Day

A Sermon Based On Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Mark 2:23-3:6 [5/20/24: Sermon writing is a laborious process, and most clergy spend a lot of time, in the midst of hospital visits, countless meetings and emails, and other obligations, getting it just right. I posted my first draft of this sermon, to be given June 2nd, on May 15th. It has undergone a lot of changes, but I think I am hitting the right notes now. **Guiding statement: I propose to preach that we rest from cruel dominion, from thwarting animal justice and restoration, and to the end of becoming compassionate and

May 3, 2024

twhoshaw

The Social Meaning(s) of Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot

Lori Lightfoot’s tenure as Chicago mayor is the subject of Gregory Pratt’s The City Is Up For Grabs, which critiques her leadership as chaotic and ultimately bad for the City of Chicago. Using Lightfoot’s ill-fitting suits as a metaphor, this analysis examines her portrayal as a complex political figure, both empowered and constrained by intersecting social perceptions of gender, race, and authority.

April 12, 2024

twhoshaw

The N*ew* in the Un*Holy*

* In a recent dream, I was surprised by the appearance of the Greek word for S/spirit, πνεῦμα. It was a well-planned move, coming just after what was a disturbing scene. Another surprise: the ν and εῦ of πνεῦμα reversed places. A third surprise: the meaning of the new word, πεῦνμα, was explicitly spelled out in the dream. In the lexicon of the dream, πεῦνμα means companionship. ** In dreams, unconscious thoughts are translated into consciously recognizable/acceptable forms. The goal of the dream is not to disturb consciousness (because the purpose of dreams is to keep us asleep). If consciousness

March 24, 2024

twhoshaw

Serious Reading

* In her recent book, Who Is Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler asks us to think critically about gender. Thinking critically about gender entails actually reading texts that seriously investigate and explore the (dis-)contents of gender. Butler explicitly defines what is at stake in the practice of reading, namely “democratic life”: Reading is not just a pastime or a luxury, but a precondition of democratic life, one of the practices that keep debate and disagreement grounded, focused, and productive. Judith Butler, Who Is Afraid of Gender? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), 18-19. The specific point Butler is making

March 20, 2024

twhoshaw

Advocates of Grace

A Gay Sermon based on Exodus 32:1-14 and Matthew 22:1-14 *** I started preaching when I was 17 years old. I preached with some regularity at a small church, in a small town, in Oregon, close to the Idaho border. There was a retired pastor in that church, and by that time he had lost his eyesight entirely. One Sunday he approached me after worship. He had brought his robe, his Geneva gown, to church. He had brought it with him that Sunday because he wanted to give it to me. He knew that one day I would become a

January 26, 2022

twhoshaw

Kent Brintnall & Queer Narrative

* “Once upon a queer theory” is Brintnall’s contribution to the turbulent tradition of queer narration. In this essay, he highlights a pervasive fantasy underlying that tradition, the fantasy that queer narration is merely narration. Brintnall performs his argument both by 1) telling a story that centers the work of Teresa de Lauretis (she coined the term “queer theory” in the 1990s), and by 2) consistently and explicitly problematizing his narrative. In “Once upon a queer theory,” Brintnall, faithful to his subject, offers a queer narrative of queer theory.   In what follows, I summarize Brintnall’s queer narrative. I conclude