"pushing theology to activism"
Early this morning, I shot up in bed. Even in my sleep, I couldn’t get the images of Baghdad, Beirut and Paris out of my head. How is a follower of Jesus to respond to these terrorists? I thought about it for hours. Then I realized something. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” & […]
We sit at a profound moment in history. Daily, we are privy to images of social upheaval broadcast into our consciousness from all over the world. We regularly see the consequences of our fictitious categories. We’ve created more monsters than we can count. We thought that skin tones said something innate about who or what […]
In the beginning was Love, Love was with God and Love was God. There is nothing greater than Love… for God is Love. For God so Loved the world that Love gave Love’s only begotten Love, that whosoever believes in Love will not perish but have everlasting Love. Love your enemies and pray for those […]
Ray Hood was a hero of mine. Late at night, he would gather us around and rip sideways on the harmonica. We danced as only children can. The older we got the more we loved his stories. None of us could believe that he was on a boat for months at a time. “Harry Truman […]
*A recreation of a public question and answer dialogue I had with Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk at her town hall last night. JH: Good evening, my name is Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood and I serve on the Board of Directors of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. We have talked about […]
A few weeks back, our family opened the doors of an old church and sat down. I was invited to share with the congregation about my work and told that my family was more than welcome. From the moment we walked in, the sneering glances and pursed lips informed us that this congregation was most […]
Going to church was never part of the plan. In fact, church was less something you went to and more something you were supposed to become. Why do we spend so much time and money keeping up institutions? Jesus simply said, “Follow me.” We are the church. We don’t need anything else. We just need […]
*My daughter Madeleine joined me on stage. Oh God, we thank you for 100 years of pursuing peace and justice in our world. This room is full of energy and ideals…but sometimes we can be a little slow. So…God we ask that you take the fire that is in all of our hearts tonight and […]
The inscription in my copy of Dr. Albert Mohler’s 2008 book Culture Shift reads, “May God greatly bless you. I am thankful God called you to Southern Seminary.” At the time, I was a fervent disciple of the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now, some might consider me to be an enemy. While […]
Claiming an identity or category doesn’t make you queer. Anyone can claim anything and be just as normative as anyone else. Oppression is always the chief marker of normativity. Queerness and oppression don’t go together. The real queer shuns oppression for the sake of transformation. Over the last few months, I have watched many fake […]
