Affirming Theology

The Top 11/80 Books Grant Read in 2024

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1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

2. Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk

3. God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life by Catherine Mowry Lacugna

4. After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology by Hanna Reichel

5. The Development of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Yoruba (African) Indigenous Christian Movement by Caleb Oluremi Oladipo

6. On First Principles by Origen

7. The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology by Amos Yong

8. So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis by Sarah Augustine

9. Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

10. Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity by Joerg Rieger

11. The World We Used to Live In: Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men by Vine Deloria Jr.

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night scene milky way background

Merry Christmas! Tis
the season of love and hope –
mindful of the trials
and tribulations of now –
and those yet to come –
but joyful that we are not
alone – God with us!

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For Native American Heritage Month, the General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) asked me to write a study guide for Sarah Augustine’s powerful text, “The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery.” I’m very happy with the collaborative outcome and wanted to share it with folks in case the book study fits with what your church, faith community, or book club is looking for this month and beyond.

Here is the link to the resource: https://www.r2hub.org/library/the-land-is-not-empty-book-study

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Love-Rooted Faith and Hope: A Message for Resisting Despair

“And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

I hear much about faith and hope these days from Christians to celebrate Trump’s victory, or to silence those despairing the results. But what is meant by faith and hope in these messages? One message a proclamation of salvific victory in a deeply flawed human being, and one a bludgeon to silence those who disagree. For me, the answer is found in “the greatest of these:” Love. How must we center love to resist cheap hope and false faith? 

“We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies” (2 Corinthians 8-10).

As we explore what faith and hope rooted in love means, it is first important to note that God commands us away from despair. This is the current struggle of my own heart-faith work. However, it is clear to me that I can be perplexed and mournful, but not giving into despair.

Faith and hope are critical to resisting despair.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

After washing his disciples’ feet, a non-hierarchical and countercultural activity of humility and service, and also sharing a meal with his disciples, Jesus gives the commandment to love one another. This love is an action, a lifestyle, a way of being, that is observable and has a communal impact.

Washing feet as humble service; Eating together as fellowship and community building. These are the actions of love that Jesus is calling us into. And this active/communal love is the root of hope and faith.

Hope and face are not excuses to be passive and to ignore the suffering of humans and creation around us. Hope and faith that bare such fruits are cheap and fake. Hope and faith that bare fruits of harm and domination are evil and anti-Christ.

Love-rooted-Faith is the belief in God’s promise of peace and well-being for all creation.

Love-rooted-Hope is the state of being that washes over us from faith.

And Love, the very Being of God, is the source of divine strength that urges us into communal action based on faith and hope. Communal action that co-creates with God the promise of peace and well-being for all creation. God’s one day fully realized Kin-dom.

This day has not yet come. The dominating, violent, exclusionary, deceitful, and blasphemous promises of Trump will make the realization of that day harder.

But I refuse to despair. Love-rooted-Faith and Love-rooted-Hope, I must. For “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

I am not alone. We are not alone. God is with us. And we are called into action based on this love-rooted faith and hope to fight for the well-being of all people and creation.

May we make it so.

Amen.

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Grant’s 10 Favorite Books of 70 Read in 2023!

1. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo, with LeAnne Howe and Jennifer Elise Foerster

2. Poet, the Warrior, the Prophet, by Rubem Alves

3. Decolonial Christianities: Latinx and Latin American Perspectives, edited by Raimundo Barreto and Roberto Sirvent

4. Reading and Writing the Lakota Language, by Albert White Hat Sr.

5. Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization, by Elaine Enns and Ched Myers

6. Galatians: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, by Nancy Elizabeth Bedford

7. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

8. Complaint!, by Sara Ahmed

9. Faith and Freedom in Galatia and Senegal: The Apostle Paul, Colonists and Sending Gods, by Aliou Cissé Niang

10. Trading Futures: A Theological Critique of Financialized Capitalism, by Filipe Maia

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Psalm 42 Lectio Divina Response Poem

Pour out humility on the mighty

and convict them of the evil

in superiority and domination,

oh Lord.

My heart is disquieted within

the real-word examples of suffering

caused by pride and greed.

My mind is heavy with the knowledge

of dissension, based on arguments

over the worthiness and belovedness

of those on the margins.

My soul longs for unity

based on the constant striving

to tangibly center

the imago dei

within all Creation.

Unity does not mean assimilation

but just-filled redistribution

of the resources and experiences

necessary to thrive.

May we tirelessly pursue

the unity of all creation

that translates into the

tangible flourishing

and holistic well-being

of all people

and all created things.

Amen.

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Happy Fourth of July

Be grateful for what you have,

they say.

Okay.

I’m grateful for my marriage

with my husband.

But many folks across the country,

emboldened with power,

want to rip our marriage apart,

calling our love unconstitutional,

along with many other nasty

words, phrases, and threats.

Seeking the goal of allowing

states to make our union illegal,

or perhaps a full-fledged federal ban.

So I’ll be grateful for what I have,

as I’ve been told,

before it all gets legislated away.

Happy Fourth of July

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‘After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging’ by Willie James Jennings Book Review

www.goodreads.com/book/show/50376048

“The crowd is itself a destination and not a means to an end. The goal of cultivating those who can gather people centers theological education in its erotic power….Erotic power is, as Rita Nakashima Brock states, ‘the power of our primal interrelatedness’….Erotic power has been drawn in our time into the trajectories of colonial control rooted in whiteness and made malignant through racial segregation that has shaped and continuous to shape so many individuals and communities. Desire rooted in control is disordered desire that inevitably forms social prisons that drain life” (Willie James Jennings 149).

“The distorted erotic power that fuels that works must be freed from its captivity to whiteness and turned back toward its source in divine desire. We can start again. That ‘again’ being a gift from the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Theological education exists in the ‘again.’ This is education that has as its fundamental resource erotic power, and that power finds its home in the divine ecstasy in which God relentlessly gives Godself to us, joyfully opening the divine life as our habitation” (Willie James Jennings 151).

“To be invoked in theological education is to long for eternity and the end of death. It is to seek the blessed state where our words start to do new works by first joining the chorus of the words of those who live forever in the Lord and who sound the healing and redeeming voice of the living God. Then our words will heal. Then our words will build up. Then our words will help form life together. Then our words will give witness to a destiny only visible through love. Talking together then is a practice aimed at eternity, and it matters more than we often realize for bringing our hope into focus. This finally is the goal of this book and the task I want to leave you with — to bring hope into focus” (Willie James Jennings 157).

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Preparation Prayer

Lord,

prepare my ears to hear the suffering

shield my heart to not take on that pain

warm my soul toward genuine empathy

enliven my mind to interpret and translate

and sharpen my tongue to speak the wisdom

of Your Holy Spirit

Amen.

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My Top 16 Books of 2021

As an avid lover of reading, I have enjoyed finding time to read throughout the year of 2021. This year has been a particularly robust year of reading, completing my 65/65 book reading challenge AND reading more nonfiction than fiction books (this is a rarity for me)!

I intended to chose only 10 books for my top books of the year list, but I just couldn’t narrow it down past 16. As a result, you will find a comprehensive list of my top 16 favorite books of the year.

Some of these books made me laugh, while others made me cry. Some were highly informational, and some educated me toward righteous rage and justice-action. Many of these books fed my soul and spiritual practices. Others were highly creative in imagined worlds, while some envisioned something different in our own world. Some of these books are classics, and some are brand new. A few books are written by friends and colleagues while others are written by people I’ll never know. This list crosses the scope of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

I hope that this list inspires you to add a few books to your 2022 reading list AND encourages you to reach out and connect with me about them! Please know that I’m always happy to chat about any of the listed books. I’m passionate about each and every one of them!

Please enjoy my ‘Top 16 Books of 2021’ list: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2021/25536404

1. ‘Sister Outsider’ by Audre Lorde: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/730745
2. ‘The Interior Castle’ by Teresa of Ávila: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162512
3. ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ by Ursula K. Le Guin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13356675
4. ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents’ by Isabel Wilkerson: ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ by Ursula K. Le Guin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51152447
5. ‘The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery’ by Sarah Augustine: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55404509
6. ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11989
7. ‘Teaching to transgress’ by bell hooks: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27091
8. ‘The Naked Now: Learning to See As the Mystics See’ by Richard Rohr: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6522506
9. ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52892857
10. ‘The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America’ by Richard Rothstein: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32191706
11. ‘Advancing the Mission: The Order of Deacon in the United Methodist Church’ by Margaret Ann Crain: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58800816
12. ‘Gideon the Ninth’ by Tamsyn Muir: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538
13. ‘On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century’ by Timothy D. Snyder: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33917107
14. ‘Nature Poem’ by Tommy Pico: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32311036
15. ‘The Prophets’ by Robert Jones Jr.: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52576333
16. ‘Who Was Jesus and What Does It Mean to Follow Him?’ by Nancy Elizabeth Bedford: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54851903
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