Tay Johnson

“The church is God saying: 'I'm throwing a banquet, and all these mismatched, messed-up people are invited. Here, have some wine.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

“Two thousand years later, John’s call remains a wilderness call, a cry from the margins. Because we religious types are really good at building walls and retreating to temples. We’re good at making mountains out of our ideologies, obstructions out of our theologies, and hills out of our screwed-up notions of who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy and who’s unworthy. We’re good at getting in the way. Perhaps we’re afraid that if we move, God might use people and methods we don’t approve of, that rules will be broken and theologies questioned. Perhaps we’re afraid that if we get out of the way, this grace thing might get out of hand. Well, guess what? It already has. Grace got out of hand the moment the God of the universe hung on a Roman cross and with outstretched hands looked out upon those who had hung him there and declared, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

“But there is a difference between curing and healing, and I believe the church is called to the slow and difficult work of healing. We are called to enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

“To begin with, it was important for women to keep up their “curb appeal,” to “look and smell delicious,” to be “feminine, soft, and touchable,” not “dumpy, stringy, or exhausted”—at least if they wanted husbands to come home to them. But that was just the beginning. To keep a husband’s interest, Morgan was a strong believer in the power of costumes in the bedroom (or kitchen, living room, or backyard hammock), so that when a husband opened the front door each night it was like “opening a surprise package.” One day a “smoldering sexpot,” another “an all-American fresh beauty,” a pixie, a pirate, “a cow-girl or a show girl.” (Contrary to popular belief, Morgan never recommended that women clothe themselves in nothing but Saran Wrap. She wasn’t sure where that rumor got its start, though she conceded it was “a great idea.”) 3”
― Kristin Kobes DuMez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation