YOKED

When the subject of religion pops up at the dinner table, or a cocktail party, or a first date, most people will hold their breathe in hopes that it will quietly pass or nervously fold the topic into their lap napkin. It is flagged as a source of political controversy, or worse yet, a volatile time bomb of people’s most emotional, subjective, and inflexible beliefs. And you just don’t tamper with belief if you want to keep things civil. As a student of ministry and theology, however, that is exactly where I am asked to begin. Temperamental religious perspectives are my occupational hazards. Religion is the burning building that I am bursting into as everyone else is running out. I am running into the flames for a living, because religion has been the source of my most luminous joy and singeing discomfort. Some of it has breathed wisdom and consolation into my life, while other statements of belief have left me injured from the fierce licks of patriarchal language,