From The Desk of Holy Heresy

As a theologian and organizer who has studied history, I offer you these lessons not as distant academic theories, but as survival strategies for the spirit and the streets. You are facing a moment where the ground is shifting, where an authoritarian shadow looms, attempting to reshape reality into something rigid and exclusionary. ​We look to the saints of the past for wisdom, as they often have the wisdom to show us the way. They had to figure out how to be faithful, active, and relevant in a society undergoing radical, often polarizing transformation. They refused to disappear. They refused to be irrelevant. ​Here are four real lessons for us, here and now, on how to organize and keep the faith under a regime that demands our submission. ​1. Reclaim the "Theology of the Way" ​The first temptation under an authoritarian regime is to retreat. It is easy to lock the doors of our sanctuaries (or our homes), protect our own circles, and practice what theologians call a "th...

 I have spent much of my life practicing restraint. I have believed, deeply, in live and let live, in ecumenical humility, in interfaith cooperation that treats difference not as a threat but as a gift. I have broken bread across traditions, prayed alongside people whose theology I do not share, and traveled internationally with mission partners who understand that presence can be holy without being coercive. But there comes a point when silence stops being a virtue and becomes complicity. That line was crossed for me recently in conversations with mission workers connected to the Southern Baptist Convention. What I heard was not zeal tempered by love, nor conviction held with humility. What I heard was contempt dressed up as faith. “These people are Muslim.” “These people are heathens.” “They worship statues.” The language was not descriptive. It was dismissive. It was the language of disposal, as if whole cultures and centuries of spiritual meaning were refuse waiting to be clear...

 The text we have in Isaiah 10:1–4 bears its own urgency: “Woe to those who enact unjust statutes, who write oppression as law, to turn aside the needy from justice, and rob the poor of my people of their right… What will you do on the day of visitation, when the spoil has been divided and the lame taken as prey?” (NRSV‑inspired). Scholars highlight that Isaiah is condemning those in positions of authority, legislators, judges, who craft laws that institutionalize injustice, who write in statutes the privilege of the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable.  These few verses are brutally simple, and devastatingly relevant. They call to account: those who decree unrighteous decrees, those who turn aside the needy from justice, those who rob the poor of their rights. The cry is “Woe!” not because the system is broken only at the margins, but because the system is broken at its very heart: the making of laws and the writing of statutes that say loud and clear: the weak will be ...

Poverty in America isn’t an act of God or some twist of fate. It’s a set of decisions made in smoke-filled rooms, boardrooms, and courtrooms by people who think struggle builds character, as long as it’s not theirs. Every time this country stood at a crossroads where we could’ve built a nation that treats dignity as a right, conservative power slammed the door. They did it with a smile, a flag pin, and a sermon about self-reliance. Don’t be fooled. The war on the poor has never been hidden. It’s been policy. After World War II, America could’ve locked in prosperity for everyone who worked. Organized labor was strong, wages were rising, and a middle class was being born. Then came the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, sold as “balance” between workers and bosses but written to break labor’s knees. It outlawed solidarity strikes, let states pass “right-to-work” laws that really mean “right-to-work-for-less,” and tied unions in legal knots. Truman vetoed it; Congress overrode him. That was the first...

Matthew 22:21 (NRSV):  “Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’” Once upon a time, November 5th was just an odd British holiday. Guy Fawkes Day. The name alone conjures images of bonfires, fireworks, and masks more familiar from movies than history books. The holiday originated to mark the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, an attempt by Guy Fawkes and others to blow up the British Parliament in protest of anti-Catholic laws. It was a foiled rebellion, and the date was kept for years as a kind of state loyalty celebration: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November." Americans, by and large, didn’t remember. And if they did, it was only from a film or a mask worn by internet anarchists. But something changed. Ever since January 6, 2021, this old foreign holiday hits differently.  I confess, I dread November 5th now.  And not because of history, but because of its uncomfortable echoes: of mo...

Luke 4:16–21 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Amos 5:24 “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Let’s begin where Jesus begins, in his hometown, in his body, and in his story.  In Luke 4:16–21, Jesus stands up in the synagogue of Nazareth, the place where he grew up. It’s not Jerusalem, not Rome, not a seat of power. It’s a small, working-class village, a place people looked down on. Remember what Nathanael said when he first heard of Jesus?  "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" And that is where God chose to start the revolution of redemption.  Not in the ...