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Domenico di Pace Beccafumi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Advent is a time for looking back at what God has done, for reliving the experience of God’s people waiting for God’s salvation to come (as it did in the birth of Jesus). But Advent is also a time for looking ahead, for leaning into our own experience of waiting and longing for God’s salvation to come again in our own time. Strangely, we actually look back in order to see ahead. This is because the bright future that God has is store for us, and that we look forward to in hope, has actually broken in right in the middle of history, establishing itself before its time, in a barn one night in Bethlehem. This is the mystery of Christmas. It is established. God’s salvation has come. We are God’s beloved children now —free from sin and suffering, free for God and for others. In Christ, our world is reconciled to God and at peace. This means that (in spite of what others or even we ourselves might think) our sins and fa

Some time ago, I reviewed a superb anthology of writings by Willian Stringfellow, the Episcopal lawyer-activst and lay theologian, in the Anglican Theological Review (Summer 2015; unfortunately, it's not avaiable online). The book, edited by a close friend and mentee of Stringfellow's, offers a incomparable entree into the life and work of an enigmatic, yet original voice figure in theology and ethics who, it seems to me, is still not not widely enough read and understood (See William Stringfellow: Essential Writings , ed. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, New York, Orbis, 2014). The Last Judgment, by Micheangelo (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) Let's do something to help remedy that situation, shall we? A great place to begin is with Wylie-Kellerman's section of texts that explore Stringfellow's unconventional perspectives on Jesus. Today, apropos of the season of Advent, I want to look at a short passage excerped from a 1977 work of political theology (pp. 50-53

Another Advent season is now upon us. We in the United States are living in a time when overt bigotry is once again on the rise. We all seem to live, and move, and have our being in our respective titanium socio-cultural bubbles, separated as much by digital geography as physical. Our new President-elect has won his title by preying on the fears and anxieties of white Americans who feel their economic and cultural hegemony slipping away. A year ago today, we were a nation still very much in healing from our past sins. Now, a year later, our scabs have been torn off and salt has been thrown in the wounds. What comes next is anything but predictable (a concern, not only for us domestically, but for the world at large). Photo by Alex DeMarco, Chicago IL, 11/9/16 There is no question: we are a people who walk in darkness. And we live in a land of deep darkness.[1] My prayer this Advent is that, in the midst of it all, we would also see the Light. In Advent, we join in the longin