Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For me a timely and helpful book, as we near the end of a cruel and exhausting legislative session here in Nebraska.

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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42249869-healing-the-wounds-of-sexual-abuse" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Healing the Wounds of Sexual Abuse: Reading the Bible with Survivors" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1540837076l/42249869._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42249869-healing-the-wounds-of-sexual-abuse">Healing the Wounds of Sexual Abuse: Reading the Bible with Survivors</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/673279.Elaine_A_Heath">Elaine A. Heath</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5500505007">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is an excellent book that I highly recommend. Both pastorally helpful and also full of rich interpretations of biblical stories from the perspectives of survivors of sexual abuse. So a helpful book for the preacher as well.
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Good Christian Sex: Why Chastity Isn't the Only Option-And Other Things the Bible Says About Sex by Bromleigh McCleneghan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a good book. A helpful book. Even a fun book.

McCleneghan states that her goal is to "lay out some of the theological and ethical questions that arise in your average, everyday experience of adult sexuality, and to walk readers through those discussions in a clear and engaging way." I think she achieves her goal.

Her authorial voice is funny and relatable, as she uses her own stories and experiences to explore pleasure, intimacy, being single, dealing with exes, being married, etc.

I highly recommend this book and know that I'm going to use it in my pastoral care for years to come.

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LB574 would ban gender-affirming care.  The Nebraska Medical Association, physicians, social workers, mental health professionals, suicide prevention organizations, business and religious leaders joined with many trans youth and their parents to oppose this legislation.  Here is the testimony I delivered.  The second page I handed to the committee was the letter from the Nebraska Conference of the United Church of Christ opposing this bill and two others that would harm trans youth.

Testimony Opposing LB574

Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

Senior Minister, First Central Congregational United Church of Christ of Omaha

Just last week a mother in my congregation called me from the emergency room at Immanuel Hospital.  She was there with her trans daughter who had attempted to end her life.  The distraught mother kept talking about how awful society is to trans people.

I don’t know if the daughter was following the news and the debate over bills like this one.  I don’t know if the existence of this bill directly contributed to her suicide attempt.  But I do know that the climate of bigotry and discrimination to which a bill like this contributes was a factor.

So, I come to you today as a Christian pastor, who only last week cared for a family confronted by the need for gender-affirming care.  I’m asking you not to further burden good people of Christian faith with unnecessary obstacles and political controversy.  I’m asking you to uphold the dignity of the human person and to defend religious liberty and the freedom of conscience.

In my denomination, the United Church of Christ, descended from the Pilgrims and Puritans, we affirm that the beauty and blessedness of God's creation is present in all people.  We make a conscious and deliberate decision to celebrate the diversity of creation as uniquely embodied in people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+). We honor the sacredness of people's lives through extravagant welcome and unconditional affirmation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.   The mission statement of the Nebraska Conference of the United Church of Christ proclaims: “to live into God’s extravagant welcome and advocate for justice. So that all know love, safety, belonging, and dignity.” 

In what I distributed you also have a letter from the Nebraska Conference of the United Church of Christ stating our religious opposition to this bill and all the clergy, congregations, and lay people who have also added their names to the letter.

This bill violates our Christian faith.  It violates the sacredness of God’s creation.  It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This bill discriminates against my denomination and my congregation, threatening our religious liberty and freedoms of conscience. 

Please oppose LB574.

The first hearing I testified at yesterday was LB277.  Half of this bill is great--it protects indigenous folks in wearing their regalia.  The other half is a RFRA that we know now from thirty years experience with such bills will be used by the Religious Right to seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

Testimony Opposing LB277

Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

Senior Minister, First Central Congregational United Church of Christ of Omaha

On October 31, 1948, my predecessor as Senior Minister at the First Central Congregational Church of Omaha, the Rev. Dr. Harold Jaynes, preached about the core principles of Protestantism and that sermon included this statement, which stands as a warning to us in 2023:

"We [should not] be deceived by those who claim they are interested in religious liberty when they are only interested in liberty to impose their interpretations of religion upon others."

Essential to the American tradition is the idea of a public space in which everyone's views are allowed to interact. For this public space to exist, everyone must be granted equality and mutual respect. It does not mean that you have to agree with everyone else, quite the contrary. It means that in the public sphere you cannot try to impose your views on someone else. Instead, you must grant them the respect and the equality that is their fundamental human right. You must acknowledge their dignity, their conscience. Religious liberty rests on the ancient principle: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

 And this, my friends, is why I'm so deeply troubled by the recent misuse of the concept "religious freedom." Let me state emphatically, and so that I am not misunderstood—in the public sphere no one has a religious right to discriminate against another human being.

Discrimination, not treating another person with the respect that they are entitled to, refusing equal treatment—these things are direct contradictions of religious liberty. They are hostile to it.

It is brazen dishonesty to wrap your biases in the language of religious freedom. It risks substantial harm to the Republic. To the entire American democratic experiment. And even to the Christian gospel.

It is Orwellian to use a term to describe its exact opposite. This dishonesty must be resisted.

Religious liberty, as historically understood, as rooted in the biblical tradition, as enshrined in our Constitution, demands equality of all persons, demands mutual respect of all persons, demands that in the public sphere everyone be treated the same.

I urge you, therefore, to oppose LB277.

American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country by Jack Jenkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Religious Left is the beating heart of modern progressivism; although rarely acknowledged by members of either political party, it is one of the Left's most secret of weapons and has the potential to impact US politics for years to come."

A revealing discussion of the role of faith in progressive politics in this century, connecting the religious threads of Ferguson, Charlottesville, Standing Rock, and more.

And full of encouragement for those of us involved in this work.

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Then They Came for Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence by Lewis-Giggetts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Healing is always about liberation."

Lewis-Giggetts turns her own grief and pain from the death of a cousin to anti-Black violence into a reflection of what is needed if we as individuals and as a society are to heal from the trauma of racial violence.

I particularly liked the discussion in the final chapters of inherited trauma. She writes about how racial violence has damaged both Black and White people, and that we all have inherited the trauma of our ancestors. A deep uprooting is needed if we are to heal

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A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World by John Jeffries Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Modernity is rooted in the Apocalypse."

Martin, an historian, recounts the vital role that the apocalyptic imagination played in early modernity, which still affects us today. A fascinating book I'd recommend to folks interested in history, the history of ideas, and religious thought.

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I go on sabbatical beginning on June 1.  More in later post about this sabbatical, its development and delay over the past few years, and what the plans, themes, and goals are.

Knowing that the sabbatical was coming, back in March I ordered a bunch of books for it.  I also pulled out a few from my existing library I haven't yet read and plan to during this summer.

Yesterday afternoon, I wrapped up the religion book I was reading, N. T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, so rather than immerse myself in something else for the next couple of weeks, I decided to start on the sabbatical reading.

And first up I wanted to read Michael Ignatieff's On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times.  Ignatieff's book seemed a good place to start after two years of navigating the church through the pandemic.  And the last two years of my marriage ending and getting divorced.  Since this sabbatical is in many ways a chance to rest and recenter and heal from those experiences, consolation is a good place to begin.  

Somewhere I'd read a review of the book that interested me.  Plus I had read his last book, Ordinary Virtues, near the beginning of the pandemic  and had really liked it.  

So, seeking consolation to get a head start on this period of sabbath, I began reading and these sentences from the introduction resonated with me, and may help to set a theme for this season of life:

To be reconciled we must first make peace with our losses, defeats, and failures. To be consoled is to accept these losses, to accept what they have done to us and to believe, despite everything, that they need not haunt our future or blight our remaining possibilities.

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks by Benedicta Ward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Yes there were some helpful insights into the spiritual life, but overall the approach contained within the Desert Fathers is so different from my contemporary sensibilities that it was difficult to read this as anything more than an artefact or even what not to do.

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