Bob’s Articles

Journeying with Moses towards true solidarity: shifting social and narrative locations of the oppressed and their liberators in Exodus 2-3 Semeia article I. Introduction I often read the story of Moses’ awakening and call with incarcerated Latino immigrants who attend my weekly bilingual Spanish-English Bible studies in Skagit County Jail in Washington State . People [...]

Fort Benning, Georgia, November 2003 In late November 2003 I attended the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, where nearly 10,000 professional Bible scholars and theologians gathered to listen to papers on specialized topics at a luxurious convention center. While in Atlanta I contacted the founders of [...]

Abraham and Sarah, the founding couple of Judaism, Islam and Christianity need to be rediscovered and followed out of Babylon into a new way of thinking outside the impasses of USA, Israel/Palestine and Islamic nationalism. Today when “us-them” distinctions have never been more destructive, those who claim to follow Jesus must be clear about our [...]

I. The Reading Context I live with my wife and three children one hour north of Seattle, Washington, in the heart of the Skagit Valley– an agricultural region threatened by rapid growth of retail stores and light industry. For over fifty years immigrants from Mexico have been drawn to Skagit County by the abundance of [...]

from Just Preaching, Edited by André Resner Jr., Chalice Press, 2002 Many a pastor, priest and rabbi strive to preach and teach in ways that will inspire their parishioners to live lives marked by compassion and service to the poor and excluded. This prophetic task is highly complex, made especially difficult in mainstream circles by [...]

People who are truly on the margins do not expect to receive benefits legitimately. Accustomed to being rejected by the powerful, they learn to survive by hook or by crook. If Scripture is to be relevant to today’s “damned” it must be freed from dominant theological paradigm that assumes that blessing in this world is [...]

Violent men make the headlines daily, and many people consider them deserving of banishment or death. God has called me and many here at Tierra Nueva to seek for, find, bind up, love, pray for and in various ways minister to violent men and women­both inside and outside jail. God is calling the entire church [...]

For over 15 years now Gracie and I have ministered among Mexican migrant farm workers here at Tierra Nueva in Burlington, WA. We have seen many immigrants suffer terribly– and things are only getting worse. Immigration reform is critical at this time and must include far more than an opportunity for the millions of undocumented [...]