Fleming Rutledge

Hoping that March 28 will be the biggest protest in US history. I hope to be present. Find your local No Kings event to make it clear that America rejects the regime’s brutality at home and abroad. app.sosha.ai/s/MFZyjXEU

I have been back on Twitter for some time now. I still pretend that the little blue bird is there! not X

This is a time when I miss the reach of Twitter. This is an appeal to take very seriously. And pulpits are mentioned. I could wish that I was still in the pulpit with a congregation that I know and love...the best setting for an act of courage like this. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...

I'm drifting away...I hate to disappoint anyone who has "liked" my posts and I appreciate each of you very much. I won't go back to what was Twitter but I miss the energy. I'll stay here but won't be active. My energy now is focused on the care of my husband. Jesus is Lord...nothing else matters.

King Charles III sent a message about the Pope's death. He spoke warmly about his meetings with Francis, then gave thanks for "this faithful servant of Jesus Christ." The Queen spoke of her faith in Jesus in her last Xmas messages, but I have never heard KC3 name him so clearly before. A good thing.

I got an email from a young theological student who was not happy to hear an Easter sermon about "the resurrections that happen in our lives." How rare it is to hear a sermon that declares with Tom Holland (see link below) "THEY SAW SOMETHING." And because they saw something they changed the world.

This is one of the best Easter sermons I have ever heard/read. I have heard Ben deHart preach often enough to be able to summon up his passion, energy, and seriousness...plus a rock solid biblical faith. open.substack.com/pub/bendehar...

Here is my Easter present to everyone. Here is an avowed nonbeliever (so he says...😉) and my new friend, testifying to the truth of the Resurrection more convincingly than any Easter sermon I've ever heard or ever preached. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry77...

Willie James Jennings' Good Friday sermons are now on YouTube. Look for them on the St Thomas 5th Ave website. I know a thing or two about preaching the Seven Last Words...this is at the highest level of theological drama. We listened to two of them tonight and the rest tomorrow. What a blessing.

I apologize for the impropriety of pointing to my own work on this day....but since there is so little Good Friday preaching going on now in the churches, my two (2) books of Good Friday sermons may be of help to some, God wiling.

Tomorrow, Good Friday, Willie James Jennings will be the Seven Words preacher at St Thomas 5th. I wouldn't miss it. It saddens me that the three hours of preaching that ruled when I was younger barely exists any more. I was honored to preach 35+ (lost count) Good Friday services. What happened?

There are wonderful opportunities online for Holy Week. I just listened to Andrew McGowan at St Thomas 5th tonight... saintthomaschurch.org/events/the-m...

There's a problem with the much-loved Holy Week hymn, "My song is love unknown." It's moving, but it's all about "my" vs. "they." Contrast that with the greater (IMO) hymn, "Ah, holy Jesus": Who was the guilty? 'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; I crucified thee. See them at Hymnary.org

Andrew McGowan is one of the most respected thinkers and leaders anywhere in the business of theological education. He is also a remarkably incisive commentator on the dire situation we are in. It's not preachable, but preachers today have got to get a grip on what this Australian is saying.

Dear friends, no one can fathom the depths we are suddenly in, just these last two months. The future of America the Beautiful is gravely endangered. As we enter Holy Week, may we be instant in worship, prayer, and Scripture--to strengthen us for a gospel witness as the Spirit moves we know not how

Its occurs to me that observance of Holy Week is a profound moment of truth for Christian faith. Deep rooting in the traditional liturgy, when it is not modified beyond recognition by trendy manipulation, is an antidote for the kind of "Christianity" that we see propping up the MAGA ideology.

This is beyond belief: Jim Wallis' book (among many others) banned at the Naval Academy. The "Christian" beliefs of JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and other cohorts are so twisted as to be unrecognizable. religionnews.com/2025/04/07/m...

Val Kilmer. Never mind Batman, Top Gun, etc. His Doc Holliday is the most mesmerizing. I'm not interested in most of Tombstone but I've viewed it 3 times to see Doc. He's my huckleberry. And I've used "It's not revenge he's after; it's a reckoning" to help interpret God's ultimate purpose vs. evil.

Watch for the name of Moumen al-Natour. According to the WashPost today he is emerging as the leader of a non-violent movement against Hamas. The short Wiki account gives the basics. I will be fervently praying for him. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moumen_...

Nobody preaches the way Andy Buchanan does. Don't even think about trying it. But any sermon of his will give you a shot of adrenaline. My husband and I listen to him a lot. Here's just one (website of Galilee Church, Virginia Beach) www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gB9...

"Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bull...." --Stanley Hauerwas (and Will Campbell chiming in) Thanks to Jason Micheli for this 😘

O Lord of the nations, your ways are hidden. Human history contains such suffering, so many evils. Yet great historians have acknowledged the extraordinary staying power of American democracy thus far. We look to you for leaders to emerge in our time of desperate need. In the Name of the one King.

David French is one of the best writers about our present crisis and the responsibility of the churches. Follow him here and on many other sites.

We Episcopalians lost so much when we gave this up. I grew up with it from early childhood, being in a Morning Prayer parish. It comforts me still, just as it was with the "offensive" phrases still in place.

I've been continuing my study of the American Revolution which I have been working on for several years now. It's very therapeutic. I have always thought that the "committees of correspondence" connecting patriots throughout the colonies might be a model for resistance in the church of today.

I was electrified by the splendid Fareed Zakaria, talking with brainy Ezra Klein on Ezra's podcast. It's long, but it's riveting and DEEP. If you don't have an hour and a half, start in the middle and listen to their testimony about Christianity. Find it on the usual podcast video sites...

I'm frustrated not to be in the pulpit these days, not that I think I am so special, but there have to be people out there who are gifted by the Spirit to be Elijah before Ahab. Elon Musk thinks he is the King of the Universe. Literally. Where is The Church? Let me know if I am missing something

I try not to be a "royalist"...which means ignoring my roots in Anglophilia...but this is impressive, I think. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

I believe in God the Father maker of heaven and earth... That is the bedrock. But I also derivatively believe in the gift of God that was the founding of the USA and I believe that "an angel was in the whirlwind" of our founding. Now we must resist its destruction. www.google.com/books/editio...

open.substack.com/pub/jasonmic...

If you are going to read a Bluesky site, let it be Pete Wehner's. He is one of the most valuable newsreaders/commentators with clear Christian commitments that we have. Maybe THE most valuable. He writes for The Atlantic among other reliable sources. @peter-wehner.bsky.social

Preaching and teaching the gospel should never be hortatory, but revelatory. A sermon should not end with "let us..." but with promise--a scriptural promise from the Father in Jesus Christ with the power of the Spirit. (and by the way, politicians should never say "I promise you...")

I found this in the FT today, quoting from art critic TJ Clark: Today's left-wing critique is "humorless, condescending, predictable." I'd almost forgotten what began to turn me away from the hortatory, bien-pensant rhetoric in my seminary and denomination in the 70s. To this day, it is prevalent.

This week's New Yorker cover. Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison. Title: "You're fired!"

The really good thing that Bush 43 did, most analysts agree, was the creation of PEPFAR, the USA program to combat HIV infection in Africa. It is widely credited for saving more than 26 million lives and preventing HIV in almost 5 million children. PEPFAR is now under attack from Trump.

My friend John Kasich (former governor of Ohio) has a new book, *Heaven Help Us* (Zondervan). I quite enjoyed his earlier one, *Every Other Monday,* about his men's Bible study group. He has a way of telling down-to-earth stories about Christian communities that makes an impression.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -Theodore Roosevelt

I disagree with Bret Stephens most of the time but here (see below), he is one of those speaking most clearly about the potentially catastrophic turn of our great United States toward a ruler of manifest evil. If the churches do not speak up, woe unto us.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/o...

What would Johnny Cash say? ...we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip... ...We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin Wouldn't nigh as many as there was a while ago We fired once more and they began to runnin' Down the Mississippi to THE GULF OF MEXICO

The much beloved scholar, teacher, and friend Richard Hays will be remembered at a service of witness to the Resurrection in the Duke Chapel at 3 PM on Feb 28. Look for the livestream link on Caring Bridge. No better companion, no more devoted servant of our Lord.

I'm posting a link to my conversation with Russell Moore last year because I hadn't known it was available until now (thank you, @rosevalley52@bsky.social) Please support Russell as he continues his courageous witness as a troubler of the "evangelical"status quo and editor of Christianity Today.

Reading the recently published Parchman Lectures @frutledge.bsky.social gave at Baylor. She gives a forceful rebuke of our age’s temptation: Christianity as merely an ethical system devoid of any supernatural power. The church has a gospel. And that gospel has real power. Anything less is futile.

Emily McGowan directed me to Psalm 10...a prayer of great strength for these harrowing times. It is framed by Ps 9 and 11, a clear illustration that the Ps are not randomly arranged. ...if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is righteous, he loves righteous deeds.

Today’s collect, for St. Agatha, hit hard.

A good article, particularly its references to Barth. I was 22 in Richmond when KB spoke at the Presbyterian seminary. I attended out of curiosity but could not understand a word. What I vividly remember was overhearing one Episcopal clergyman saying to another, "He has no theology of the church."

The great historian Timothy Snyder (I've read quite a bit of his work) is more unfettered on Bluesky than in his measured scholarship. He is calling for resistance. Vive la resistance...

<- God has no need to climb upwards, trying to be greater. Instead his greatness led him downwards. For the sake of love and communion he became lowly. ->