I’ve avoided saying these words to myself for a long time, but it’s really the most accurate description: When I was 12, my family moved from California to the east coast to join a cult. I haven’t felt at home anywhere since. *** There were other factors, of course. Economy, family ideals for finding a…
[This is one of the promised posts about why I chose the name “Wine & Marble.” Communion has been a huge part of my spiritual life and binds me to Christianity in a way I can’t really understand or explain. I’ll tell my story and perhaps begin to work it out.] Sometimes I wish I…
This year, because of our tiny apartment space, we can’t have a Christmas tree. It’s not really a big deal, but we’re just babies at this marriage thing, and we don’t own Christmas decorations or a good Christmas music collection, and I haven’t even gotten around to buying cookie cutters for Christmas cookie exchanges. Last…
Sometimes I wonder how I sound to the rest of the evangelical world, to those who weren’t subjected to fringe patriarchal teachings from grace-forgetting complementarians, those who never fought the fear that comes with legalism from your pulpit, those who don’t have to shake the guilt hangover from their childhood churches or Christian communities. Those…
Worldview textbooks and classes bother me. They were good for addressing my middle school cravings for knowledge and understanding of the outside world and how other cultures and religions understood God or the numinous. But they left me hanging. I have always desired to know more. I was the restless twelve year old who complained…
I often struggle with jealousy. I go to a wedding where the couple is wholeheartedly celebrated by their parents on both sides, and I feel small and petty watching them from the sidelines as they make toasts and can’t say enough positive things about their children. I would hear friends talk about how restful their…
I’m terrible about reading my Bible regularly. Reading the ESV or NASB still gives me flashbacks to sermons from my spiritually abusive church, or to high-stress mornings with my family during our years at that church. But my relationship to Jesus hasn’t been stunted. It’s grown stronger, and I’ve stopped being afraid like I used…
This week’s collection is a little more light and brief than the last few have been. Enjoy! Joy Bennett writes on “all you need is Christ” and the inherent Gnosticism in that idea. I get so excited when other bloggers discover the significance of embodiment and the incarnation! One blogger writes on why complementarians as…
Coming out of a spiritually abusive situation is incredibly difficult. The first and biggest step is seeing the abuse for what it is and allowing yourself name it. Saying, “this isn’t normal; this shouldn’t be this way,” is the watershed moment which allows you to begin see what’s wrong and why. After my moment, I…