Mary, Martha and Gender Equality
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer...
Mary, Christian Patriachy and the Existence of Poverty
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer...
Divorce Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the...
Servants of the Most Vulnerable
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the...
Jesus, a Greek Woman and a Magical Cure
Thank You! We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support...
Preferential Options and Patriarchy
Thank You! A sharp drop in giving is hurting nonprofits everywhere. Religious charities and small nonprofits are suffering the most from a historic dip in philanthropic giving presently in the U.S. We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all...
It’s Okay to Discover You Are Wrong
“She calls him out on the hurtfulness of his rhetoric. She also uses his language against him to show him how blinkered his understanding is. And Jesus models humility. She is right, and Jesus makes an about-face.”
Kingdom Parables for Social Change
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate. New Episode of JustTalking! Season...
Jesus, Jarius, and Respect for the Bodily Autonomy of Women
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate. This Week’s Episode of Just...
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online! Season 1, Episode 12: John 14.1-14. Lectionary A, Easter 5 Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about...
Resurrection and Listening to Those on the Margins
New Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online! Season 1, Episode 8: John 20.1-18. Lectionary A, Resurrection of the Lord Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking...
Sacrificing our Humanity to Change the World
These legends of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness can still inform the lives of Jesus followers working to shape our world in more just and compassionate ways. We’ll need to interpret them differently than the original audience did, but we can still interpret them in life-giving ways for our society.
Herb Montgomery | November 4, 2022 To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here. “In Jesus’ worldview, if marriage was going to perpetuate patriarchal dominance and dependence, then it would be better for both men and women for there to...
Faith Based Complicity in Social Harm
Herb Montgomery | October 21, 2022 To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here. “It’s not enough to have our faith community’s stamp of approval on our political engagement. We also have to look at the fruit of our political...
Jesus, Politics, and the Rights of Cis Women, Trans People and Nonbinary Folk
Herb Montgomery | July 15, 2022 To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here. “Luke’s Jesus does not rebuke Mary for taking up space that is often reserved only for men. He, instead, praises her.” Our reading this week is...
Herb Montgomery | June 3, 2022 To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here. “We don’t get to go from exclusively gendering God as male for two thousand years in Christianity to describing God as genderless. This conveniently bypasses the...
Herb Montgomery | May 20, 2022 To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here. “The facts are that the early Jesus community was comprised of those on the undersides and margins of their society who were in deep need of...
When Social Justice is Rejected and Spoken of as Evil
Herb Montgomery | February 11, 2022 (To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.) “But things never remain as they are. Change is the nature of reality. We can choose to bend the arc of the universe toward justice for...
The Feminist Liberation of Advent
End of Year Matching Donations! 2021 has been a year of big challenges. Doing ministry during an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought its share of change along with moments of heartwarming providence and blessings. As this year is coming to a close, I’m deeply...
Jesus, Patriarchy, and the Wellbeing of Women
Herb Montgomery | October 1, 2021 “I see this passage through a justice-for-women lens where Jesus is more concerned about the wellbeing of women who could be divorced and sent away from their homes with no economic protection within a patriarchal system that was...
Taking Up Our Crosses, Injustice, and Abuse
Herb Montgomery | September 10, 2021 [To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast click Episode 388:Taking Up Our Crosses, Injustice, and Abuse] “Oppressors throughout history have used the concept of ‘taking up one’s cross’ to prioritize themselves over survivors and to encourage...
Herb Montgomery | September 3, 2021 [To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast click Episode 387: Openness to Change] “In our present system, those whose difference causes them to be seen or treated as less-than should be heard. By being open to...
A Preferential Option for the Excluded
Herb Montgomery | June 25, 2021 “This is what liberation theologians refer to as a preferential option. The word preferential means a preference or partiality and implies favor or privilege. The word option does not mean that the preference is optional, but rather implies...
Herb Montgomery | June 18, 2021 “I need a Jesus that can challenge the great windstorm and the waves of deep homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in the Christian church that threatens to capsize the lives of LGBTQ young people — not just the...
Branches Grafted to a Poisonous Vine
"Although the passage we began with focuses on bearing fruit rather than being a dead or withered branch that bears nothing, we see that the kind of fruit one bears matters too. What does it mean for American Christians to live as Jesus did?"
The Good News of Forceful Nonviolent Resurrection
Herb Montgomery | April 2, 2021 “The good news was not that Jesus died, or even that he died for you. The good news rather was that this Jesus whom they killed, God has brought back to life! . . . These passages are...
Reinterpreting the Easter Story
Herb Montgomery | March 19, 2021 “The central image of Christ on the cross as the savior of the world communicates the harmful message that suffering is redemptive. So what do we do with the passage from John’s gospel?” This week’s reading is from...
Herb Montgomery | February 12, 2021 “I’m thankful for a woman who didn’t give up, but persisted in helping Jesus and his disciples see her need beyond their culturally conditioned prejudice. In that moment, she was teacher of the teacher. I’m also thankful for...
2020 has been a challenging year for many nonprofits. RHM is no exception. We need your support to impact lives and bring the faith-based, societal-justice focused resources and analysis RHM provides. Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed right now more than ever. If you...
2020 has been a challenging year for many nonprofits. RHM is no exception. We need your support to impact lives and bring the faith-based, societal-justice focused resources and analysis RHM provides. Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed right now more than ever. If you...
The Social Location of Your Christianity Matters
2020 has been a challenging year for many nonprofits. RHM is no exception. We need your support to impact lives and bring the faith-based, societal-justice focused resources and analysis RHM provides. Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed right now more than ever. If you...
Herb Montgomery | October 16, 2020 “Seeing the man set free from his internalized oppression, the society around him refuses to get free of the same ‘demons.’ . . . When people get free of collective violence toward a marginalized sector of our society,...
Three Paths Toward Change Rejected
Herb Montgomery | July 31, 2020 “And in each of these versions of the story, Jesus announces the arrival of God’s just future (‘the kingdom’) but rejects three methods for bringing justice to fruition. We’ll look at each of them.” The beginning of Mark’s...
The Refusal of the Older Brother
Herb Montgomery | February 7, 2019 “If you believe God loves someone, justice for them isn’t far behind. Love for those on the margins is the seed out of which the reality of God’s inclusive, just future sprouts.” “The older brother became angry and...
Biblical Inclusion Versus Biblical Exclusion
by Herb Montgomery | November 8, 2019 “What is our relation, as followers of Jesus, to the marginalized of our day? To what degree are we marginalized in our own lives? Are we standing in solidarity with others who are marginalized or are we...
Social Sins, Social Justice, and the Jesus Stories
Herb Montgomery | April 19, 2019 “Understood in this light, Jesus’ story offers rich fields for exploration and discovery as we learn to hear a gospel that calls us not to simply be ‘a good person,’ but also to stop shaping, maintaining, enforcing and...
by Herb Montgomery | January 18, 2019 “This is a much different take on women’s virginity than I was raised with. It would also allow a different interpretive lens through which to view Mary who raised a son who modeled, taught, and was crucified...
“Our experiences determine not only the questions we ask, but also the answers we get back. Plain readings are not plain but are read through the lens of our own paradigms and fears. And this is one reason why it is so vital, if...
by Herb Montgomery “Christians taking Jesus’ saying on divorce at face value have forced women to stay in untold situations of abuse. I want to argue this week that in the context of the 1st Century’s economic realities for women in Roman and Jewish...