“The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks. For those who count the Bible as sacred, interpretation is not a matter of whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose. We’re all selective. We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?”
― Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
― Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. —JAMES A. BALDWIN”
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
“When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving ethics, and the accountability is all but dead.”
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
“I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.”
― Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
― Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
“Here’s what I believe: 1. If you are offended or hurt when you hear Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters called bitch, whore, or the c-word, you should be equally offended and hurt when you hear those same words used to describe Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, or Theresa May. 2. If you felt belittled when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables” then you should have felt equally concerned when Eric Trump said “Democrats aren’t even human.” 3. When the president of the United States calls women dogs or talks about grabbing pussy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance flowing through our veins. When people call the president of the United States a pig, we should reject that language regardless of our politics and demand discourse that doesn’t make people subhuman. 4. When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, “Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rights?” 5. If you’re offended by a meme of Trump Photoshopped to look like Hitler, then you shouldn’t have Obama Photoshopped to look like the Joker on your Facebook feed. There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.”
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
― Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
Laura’s 2025 Year in Books
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