Provoketive

New article on Provoketive, for those who missed it:

When did we develop and idolatrous relationship with work?  Now, don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not talking about productivity over laziness.  What I mean is that we tend to place value on people based on how hard we believe they are working.  Besides simply being thinly veiled judgmentalism (and possibly several other -isms as well), we don’t even seem to agree on a proper definition for “hard work.” [more]

On Provoketive:

My husband, an educator and fierce advocate for students, recently suggested we apply No Child Left Behind principles to other professions.  We ended up jokingly deciding that perhaps pastors should measure their success not by number of congregants but by whether or not they had achieved zero percent sin rate among their membership.  Sadly, some Christians already seem to be taking this idea seriously. [continue reading]

My most recent article:

In today’s political climate, it can be tough to make sense of the cacophony of voices using “social justice” as their rallying cry.  Everyone with a stake in our nation’s well-being (which, in theory, ought to be one hundred percent of the population) views the concept through his or her own lens.  It can be difficult to make sense of what it means when we have a person on one side demanding an end to poverty and a person on the other side lobbying for marriage equality, while the people in front and in back of us clamor for us to care about education and healthcare reform.  So what exactly is social justice? [read more]